Skip to main content

Full text of "The Gentleman's magazine"

See other formats 


Google 


This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 
to make the world’s books discoverable online. 


It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired, Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that’s often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book’s long journey from the 
publisher to a library and finally to you. 


Usage guidelines 


Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 


We also ask that you: 


+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 


+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 


+ Maintain attribution The Google “watermark” you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 


+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. 


About Google Book Search 





Google’s mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world’s books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 
at[http: //books . google .com/| 



































a 
THE 


Gentleman's Magazine 


VotumME CCLV. 
N,S,3/ 


FULY tro DECEMBER 1883 


PRODESSE & DELECTARE E Piurisus Unum 





Edited by SYLVANUS URBAN, Gentleman 





Bondon 
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
1883 





(The right of translation is rerved) 








LONDON : PRISTRD BY 
SFOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STRERT SQUARE 
ASD PARLIAMENT STREET 


166413 





CONTENTS OF VOL. CCLV. 


hoe 
French, To-day. By Feeownick Wepwore. 2. 146 
ee of. 2 Putt. RowinsoN 2 2 6 e359 
ma. By ALrRED RIMMER. 239 

eas ‘the of the Great North-West. By « Fr GorDox 
CUMMING: Far «+ ay 
By Huverr Hau + 355 





The. 
poe sode They By W, Marriner Wintiams, E.R.) 
Field, The, ofthe Cloth of Gold, By ALEX, CHARLES EWALD, F,S.A. 48 
France in the Sixteenth Century. By F. BLaNciy: HawiLton , 588 
poe E Secey- By to se te = 
Great, Nomh-West, The Capital of the. “By C. F. Gokoon 




















Cun BA tok >, ae 
irernssead Chutch, “by joun ASHTON. » $65 
Gypsies, The, as Seen by Friendly Eyes By a H. Jan, ULD. I 37s 
Hedgeh By E. Kav Rowson, » a7 

By GRaNt ALLEN. | Ore Ore 
Inner Life, The, of Plants. By ANDREW W » 207 
ied Store hows about. 9. 0. - ee ee BD 
: Eig wey om Tt NE TF 
By Pati. Rowinson | 2 OP 39 
y E. Kay Roeatan Sa si 
ay Caroline Lamb; By G BARNETT SMITH. . 337 
Life, University; in the Early Part of the Seventeenth Century. ¥ 
. . % a7 
Loves, The, of a Royal Bird. By WHT. Wevrer . -% 
Luther in Politics. by KARBunn 2 ea 
Mili Is By JA. Farner | ee Pe OS Oe 
rai ireland . cy yr 4 
ty Sts ‘Life. By the Rave H.R. Mawes, MA: 
1. . 47 
sae - 1 
. . ay 
SL Ee + 33 
- . 4p 
+ 547 
New Abelard, The a Romance. Hy Rowe 
Chap. XVIII. A Solar Biol 5 1 
XIX. Eustasia Map! eleate f 9 


Thunderclap 
XXL. The Confession 
XXII. From the Post-Ba, 
XXHE Alma's Wanderin 
XXIV. Glimpses of the Unseen 
XXV. A Catastrophe. 
SAVE The Last Look: 
VIL The Siren. 3 
SAVIIL The Eternal City ip 3 
Notes of Two Wintry Cruises in the Eiglish Channel.” By'C. F. 











CoMMinc = 
SMS ee i he - 36 
| Mc. ; 2 ge 
a Canadian Lake. By ALFRED Rimer - «pu ae 
Tuner Life of. By ANDREW WILSON, F.RS.E. + 49 
‘The Loves ofa, “By W. BTW . |... mm 





iv Contents. 


en 
Maroneu Wrtniaas, BARA. 
Sethe ay Holes -Avenirine The ‘Demnestiation of Mon- 
ture of the Negro—Voleanic” and 
 Ritghol a New en Sure of Fou Vi n a 
tive-Irish Fisheries —The Origin of ~The 


bear Sere of iter Supe as a Disinfectant— 
re iladwoen Polite Paradoxe?—Flames—a Cruel Critic 





ee hand PhosphonusecThe Avtictal Light ofthe Fature 5 
\gdence onl, Polssiy The Diseawery of Coal fy Hagin ad 
Artificial i Pantene Dau Earth-waves—Homogeneous 


Wallies —My Own Theo ejofOerane Depeson Vi 
ing from Pressure—A Big River. 506 

Distnal oT —Limestone Civerns—Marvellous Vegetation 
in America—The Physiological Action of Tea—Motes in the 











Sunbeam—Sea Air in Town. 608 
Soul, The, and its Folk-Lore, By the’ Rey. TF. Tusticros 
Staple, The English” By Huub Haus? te Sh 

¢ English, UMERE omy sig os a 
Steve thes of eceuech. By D-Bnae Le a 
sppenihse about EE Met Gb - «+ 180 
‘By SYLvANUS URBAN = 
‘Me Matthew ‘Arnold on Mr, Irving—The Growth of a Represen- 
~ tative Reputation—Grievously Overladen—Railway Travelling 
o gant) ant on the eee ies of Jour- 
5m + tor 
Society and the Actor—The Dispersal of Private Libraries— 
Origa at Public Libraries—Gondolas on the Thames—H ainan 
rifices still Attempted . 205 
‘Hampstead Heath—Social Gravitation—Mouern Perseciitions of 
ae "ken Irving‘on Diderot. 309 


ron Th the Problem of the Value of 1 ife—_Oliver Madox 

e Taunton Bust of Fielding—Lord Byron and his 

Cnet Opening ofthe Vatican Archives-—An “Open Space" 
to be Maintain 

eal Degeneracy—English Connivance in the Slive 

ie Furst of Pelicity-A Johnson Centenary —A 






A Treema on Oxford —Piunch spon Rabelais—Topularication 
of Rabelais—An Institute for Youth—Poetic Sensibility and 
the Operative Classes 617 

ee eaey i oa in the Karly Part of the Seventeenth Cent: By 





2 327 
Wagner, ancien. By J. W. Sureee, il al OE 
Westward Ho! By By J Ciiartes ee) 





THE 


GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. 


Jury 1883. 


THE NEW ABELARD,. 


A ROMANCE, 





By Roverr Bucitanan, 
AUTHOR OF “THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD,” "GOD AND THE MAN,” KIC 


Cuarren XVIIL. 
4 SOLAR BIOLOGIST. 


‘What's this? Heyday t Magict Witeheraft | 
Passing common hedge and ditch-craft ! 
‘You whose seul no magic troubles, 
Crawling tow among the stubbles, 
‘Thing compact of clay, a body 
Meant to porinh,—think it odd, ch? 
Raise your eyes, poor clod, and try to 
‘See the tree-tops, and the sky too ! 
‘There's the sun with pulses splendid 
Whirling onward, star attended ! 
‘Child of light wm 1, the wizard, 
Fiery-form’d from brain to gizzard, 
While for you, my sun-craft spurning, 
‘Dust thou art, to dust retuming ! 
Toke anid Hysteria: a Meitey.' 
IKE most men famously or infamously familiar in the mouths 
of the public, the Rey, Ambrose Bradley was a good deal 
troubled with busybodies, who sometimes communicated with him 
through the medium of the penny post, and less frequently forced 
themselves upon his privacy in person, The majority demanded his 
autograph ; many sought his advice on matters of a private and 
‘spiritual nature ; a few requested his immediate attention to questions 
4 Nore,—A joke, and a very poor one, which an honoured and great master 
‘ust fengive, since the joker himself has labouret more than moat \ying wes. 


‘epread the faroe of the master and to do hima honour.—R, B. 
VOL CL¥, #0, 1831, B 


— 





! 


2 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


in the nature of conundrums on literature, art, sociology, and the 

musical glasses. He took a good deal of this pestering good~ 

humouredly, regarding it as the natural homage to public success, 
or notoriety ; but sometimes he loit his temper, when some more 

RIO tees eehs 

Napier ravken spite) real te eed 
terview with Mrs, Montmorency, he received a personal visit from 
one of the class to which we are alluding ; and as the visit in question, 
though trivial cnough in itself, was destined to lead to important 
consequences, we take leave to place it upon special record. He 

‘was seated alone in his study, darkly brooding overhis own dangerous 

position, and miserably reviewing the experiences of his past life, 
*s when the housemaid brought in a card, on which were inscribed, or 
rather printed, these words :— 

Professer Salem Mapieleafe, 
Siar Biologist. 

“What is this?” cried Bradley irritably, “I can see nobody.” 

As he spoke a voice outside the study door answered him, ina 
high-pitched American accent— 

“T beg your pardon. I shan't detain you two minutes, Iam 
Professor Mapleleafe, representing the Incorporated Society of 
Spiritual Brethren, New York.” 

Simultaneously there appeared in the doorway a little, spare man 
with a very large head, a gnome-like forehead, and large blue cycs 
«full of that troubled “ wistfulness” so often to be found in the faces 
‘of educated Americans. Before the clergyman could utter any 
farther remonstrance this person was in the room, holding out his 
hand, which was small and thin, like that of a woman, 

“My dear sir, permit me to shake you by the hand. Jn all 
America, and I may add in all England, there is no warmer admirer 
than myself of the noble campaign you are Icading against supersti- 
tion. have lines of introduction to you from our common friends 
and fellow-workers,—aiid——" 

And he mentioned the names of two of the leading transcen- 
esl asoeea ey ts ecoeni philosopher, the other 

meditative poet, whom Bradley had frequently corresponded, 
‘; ‘There was really no other way out of the dilenuaa short of actual 


pages 


rudeness and incivility, than to take the letters, which the little 


over. The point was brief and 
Sachi temic, wonky 


“Sec Mapleleas. He talks nonsense, but he i of ideas. 
Tlike him. ‘His sister, y a OT > 


” : 

















| The New Abelard. 3 


‘The other was less abrypt and unusual, though neatly as briet 
: ¢ your notice Professor Mapleleafe, who is 
ae t ‘ith his charming sister. You miay have heard 
‘conacction with the recent developments in American 
ism. ‘The Professor is a man of singular experience, and 
is an accredited clairvoyante. Stich civility as you 
fthem will be fully appreciated in our circle here.” 


‘glanced up, and took a further survey of the stranger. 
‘he perceived that the Professor's gnome-like head 
[wistful eyes were associated with a somewhat mean and ignoble 
type of e3, an insignificant turn-up nose, and a receding chin ; 
that his hair, where it had not thinned away, was pale straw-coloured, 
and that his eyebrows and eyelashes were almost white. 
His small, shrunken figure was clad in shabby black. 
‘To complete the oddity of his appearance, he carried an cyc- 
fe ne md from his neck by a plece of black elastle ; and as 
eyed hhim from head to foot, he fixed the glass into ‘his right 
oye, imparting to his curious physiognomy an appearance of 
jaunty audacity not at all in keeping with his general appearance, 
“You come ata rather awkward time,” said Bradley. “ I seldom or 
never receive visits on Sunday evening, and to-night especially ——" 
‘He paused and coughed uneasily, looking very ill at case, 
‘understand, I quite understand,” returned the Professor, 
him in real or assumed admiration. * You devote your 
‘evening to retirement and to meditation, Well, sir, I'm 
to disturb you ; but sister and I heard you preach this 
ast ay at once tell you that for a good square sermon 
i fit for the Senate, we never heard anyone to match you, 
re heard afew. After hearing you orate, I couldn't rest 
re | my lines of introduction, and that’s a fact. Sister 
‘come to you, but « friendly spirit from the planet Mars 
‘as she was fixing herself, and she Aad to stay.” 
surprise at the speaker, beginning to fancy that 
with & lunatic; but the Professors manner was 






sir, We have just come from Paris, where we 
well cntertained by the American circle. You are 
e, that my sister has transcendental gifts?” 
oyante? So —— says in his letter. L may 
4 Bz 


4 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


tell you at once that T am a total disbeliever in such matters. T 
believe spiritualism, even clairvoyance, to be mere imposture.” — 

“ Indeed, sir,” said the Professor, without the slightest sign of 
astonishment or irritation. ‘You don’t believe in solar biology?" 

“T don’t even know what that means,” answered Bradley with a 
smile. 

“May | explain, sir? Solar biology is the science which demon~ 
strates our connection with radiant existences of the central 
luminary of this universe ; our dependence and interdependence as 
spiritual beings on the ebb and flow of consciousness from that 
shining centre; our life hitherto, now, and hereafter, as solar 
elements. We are sunbeams, sir, materialised ; thought is psychic 
sunlight. On the basis of that great principle is established the 
reality of our correspondence with spiritual substances, alien to us, 
existing in the other solar worlds." 

Bradley shrugged his shoulders. His mood of mind at that 
moment was the very reverse of conciliatory towards any form of 
transcendentalism, and this seemed arrant nonsense. 

“Tet me tell you frankly,” he said, “that in all such matters as 
these I am a pure materiali: 

“Exactly,” cried the Professor, “So are we, sir.” 

“ Materialists?" 

“Why, certainly, Spiritualism 4 materialism; in other words, 
everything is spirit-matter. All bodies, as the great Swedenborg 
demonstrated long ago, are spirit ; thought is spirit—that is to say, 
sir, sunlight, ‘The same great principle of which I have spoken is 
the destruction of all religion save the religion of solar science, It 
demonstrates theism, which has been the will-o'-the-wisp of the 
world, abolishes Christianity, which has been its bane, The God of 
the universe is solar Force, which is universal and pantheistic,” 

“ Pray sit down,” said Bradley, now for the first time becoming 
interested. “ If I understand you, there is no personal God?” 

“Of course not,” returned the little man, sidling into a chair 
and dropping his eyeglass. “A personal God is, as the scientists 
call it, merely an anthropomorphic Boom. As the great cosmic 
Bard of solar biology expresses it in his sublime epic = 





‘The radiant fax and reflux, the serene 

Atomic ebb and flow of the force divine, 

‘This, this along, is God, the Demiurgus 5 

By this alone we are, and still shall be. * 
© joy! the Phantom of the Uncondition’d 





The New Abelard. 5 


Fades into nothingness before the breath 

‘Of that eternal ever-effinent Lilo 

‘Whote contre is tho shining solar Heaat 

‘Of countless throbbing pulyes, cach a worl ! 

‘The quotation was delivered with extraordinary rapidity, and in 
the offhand matter-of-fact manner characteristic of the speaker. 
‘Then, after pausing a moment, and fixing his glass again, the Pro- 
fessor demanded eagerly = 

What do you think of that, sir?” 

“J think,” answered Bradley, laughing contemptuously, “ that it 
is very poor science, and still poorer poetry.” 

“You think so, really?” cried the Professor, not in the lenst 
disconcerted. “I think I could} convince you by a few ordinary 
manifestations, that it's at any rate common sense.” 

Tt was now quite clear to Bradley that the man was a charlatan, 
and he was in no mood to listen to spiritualistic jargon. What both 
amused and puzzled him was that two such men as his American 
correspondents should have granted the Professor to decent society 
by letters of introduction. He reflected, however, that from time 
immemorial men of genius, cager for glimpses of a better life and a 
serener state of things, had been led “by the nose,” like Faust, by 
charlatans. Now, Bradley, though an amiable man, had a very 
ominous frown when he was displeased ; and just now his brow came 
down, and his eyes looked out of positive caverns, as he said : 

“T have already told you what J think of spiritualism and 
Spiritualism manifestations. £ believe my opinion is that of all 
educated men,” 

“Spiritualism, a5 commonly understood, is one thing, sir,” 
returned the Professor quietly ; spiritualistic materialism, or solar 
‘science, is another. Our creed, sir, like your own, is the destruction 
‘of supernaturalism. If you will permit me once more to quote our 
sublime Bard, he sings a5 follows :— 

All things abide in Nature y Form and Soul, 
‘Matter and Thought, Function, Desire, and Dream, 
Evolve within her ever-heaving breast 5 

‘Within hes, we subsist ; beyond and o'er her 

Ts naught but Chaos and primceval Night. 

‘The Shadow of that Night for centuries 

Projected Man's phantasmic Deity, 

Formless, fantastic, hideous, and unreal 5 

Gol is existence, and as parts of God 

‘Men ebti and flow, for evermore divine, 

“ Tfyou abolish supernaturalism,” asked the clergyman imyaneody, 
what do you mean by manifestations ?" 








6 The Gentleman's Magazine. 





,” retuned the little man glibly, “the interchange of 
connsosinications between beings of this sphere and beings otherwise 
contitioned. ‘This world is one of many, all of which have a two- 
- in the sphere of matter, and in the sphere of ideas. 
Death, which vulgar materialists consider the end of consciousness, 
is merely one of the many phenomena of change ; and spiritualistic 
realities being indestructible —” 
rose impatiently. 

“Samm afraid,” he exclaimed, “that I cannot discuss the matter 
any longer. Cur opinions on the subject are hopelessly antagonistic, 
and to sjeak frankly, I have an invincible repugnance to the subject 















rd, I am sorry to say, by many of your English men of 


jared, Fam glad to say, by most thinking men.” 

“Well, well, sir, I won’t detain you at present,” returned the 
Profescor, not in the least ruffled. “Perhaps you will permit me to 
call upon you at a more suitable time, and to introduce my 
sistere” 

“ Healy, 1 -" began Bradley with some embarrassment. 

" Enstasia Mapleleaf is a most remarkable woman, sir. She isa 
mnedium of the first degree ; she possesses the power of prophecy, of 
Clritveyanee, and. of thoughtereading. ‘The book of the Soul is 
tpn to her, and you would wonder at her remarkable divina- 
fons.” 

““L must still plead my entire scepticism,” said Bradley coldly. 

“fF yuess Kustasia Mapleleafe would convert you. She was one 
of your Congregation to-day, and between ourselves is greatly con- 
cerned on your account” 

“ Concerned on my account!” echoed the clergyman. 

“Yes, sir. She believes you to be under the sway of malign 
influences, possibly lunar or stellar, She perceived a dark spectrum 
on the radiant orb of your mind, troubling the solar effluence which 
all cerebral matter emits, and which is more particularly emitted by 
the phosphorescent cells of the human brain.” 

Siradley would by this time have considered that he was talking 
to araving madman, had not the Professor been self-contained and 
matter-of-fact. Aw it was, he could hardly conceive him to be quite 
sanc, At any other time, perhaps, he might have listened with 
patience and cvcn amusement ‘to the fluent little American ; but 
that day, as the rcader is aware, his spirit was far too pre-occupied. 

His face darkened unpleasantly as the Professor touched on his 




















The New Abelard. 7 


state of mind during the sermon, and he glanced almost angrily 
towards the door. 

“May Dring my sister?" persisted the Professor. “Or stay—~ 
with your leave, sir, I'll write our address upon that rant and 
perhaps you will favour her with a-call." 

As he spoke, he took up his own card from the table, and wrote 
upon it with a pencil. 

“That's it, sir—care of Mrs. Piozei Daker, 17 Monmouth 
Crescent, Bayswater.” 

So saying, he held out his hand, which Bradley took mechanically, 
and then, with a polite bow, passed from the room and out of the 

St 

Bradley resumed his seat, and the meditations which his 
pettinacious visitor had interrupted ; but the interruption, irritating 
as itwas, had done him good. Absurd as the Professor's talk had 
been, it was suggestive of that kind of speculation which has 
invariably a fascination for imaginative men, and from time to time, 
amidst his gloomy musings over his own condition, amidst his 
despair, his dread, and his self-reproach, the clergyman found himself 
reminded of the odd propositions of the so-called biologist. 

After all, there was something in the little man's creed, absurd 
as it was, which brought a thinker face to face with the great 
phenomena of life and being. How wretched and ignoble seemed 
his position, in face of the eternal Problem, which even spiritualism 
was an attempt to solve! He was afraid now to look in the mirror 
of Nature, lest he should behold only his own lineament, distorted 
by miscruble fears He felt, for the time being, infamous. A 
degrading falschood, like an iron ring, held him chained and 
bound, 

Even the strange charlatan had discovered the secret of his misery. 
He would soon be a laughing-stock to all the world ; he, who had 
aspired to be the world’s teacher and prophet, who would have flown 
Tike an eagle into the very central radiance of the sunlight of Truth. 

He rose impatiently, and paced up and down the room. As he 
did so, his cye fell upon something white, lying at the feet of the 
chair where his visitor had been sitting. 

He stooped and picked it up. He found it to be a large 
‘enyelope, open, and containing two photographs, Hardly knowing 
what he did, he took out the pictures, and examined them. 

Whe first rather puzzled him, though he soon realized its 
character, It represented the little Professor, seated in an sam 
reading a book open upon his knee; behind bir was} 


Pi 


= 


= 1 


8 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


shadowy something in white floating drapery, which, on close scrutiny, 
disclosed the outline of a human face and form, white and vague 
like the filmy likeness seen in a smouldering fire. Beneath this 
picture was written in a small clear hand,—* Professor Mapleleafe 
and Azaleus, a Spirit of the Third Magnitude, from the Evening 
Star.” 


Tt was simply a curious specimen of what is known as “Spirite 
Photography.” ‘The clergyman returned it to its envelope with a 
stile of contempt. 

The second photograph was different; it was the likeness of a 
woman, clad in white muslin, and reclining ypon a sofa, 

‘The figure was petive, almost fairy-like in its fragility ; the hair, 
which fell in masses over the naked shoulders, very’ fair; the face, 
elfin-like, but exceedingly pretty ; the eyes, which looked right out 
from the picture into those of the spectator, were wonderfully large, 
lustrous, and wild. So luminous and searching were these eyes, so 
rapt and eager the pale face, that Bradley was startled, as if he were 
looking into the countenance of a living person, 

Beneath this picture were written the words—* Eustasia 
Mapleleafe.” 

‘The clergyman looked at this picture again and again, with a 
curious fascination. As he did so, holding it close to the lamplight, 
‘a peculiar thrill ran through his frame, and his hand tingled as if it 
touched the warm hand of some living being At last, with an 
effort, he returned it also to the envelope, which he threw carelessly 
upon his desk. 

Tt was quite clear that the Professor had dropt the pictures, and 
Bradley determined to send them by that night’s post. So he sat down, 
and addressed the envelope according to the address on the card ; 
but before sealing it up, he took out the photographs and inspected 
them again. 

A new surprise awaited him. 

The photograph of the Professor and his ghostly familiar 
remained as it had been ; but the photograph of the woman, or girl, 
was mysteriously changed—that is to say, it had become so faint and 
vague as to be almost unrecognisable, The dress and figure were 
dim as a wreath of vapour, the face was blank and featureless, the 
eyes were faded and indistinct. 

‘The entire effect was that of some ghostly presence, fading slowly 
away before the vision. 

Bradley was amazed, in spite of himself, and his whole frame 
shook with agitation, 


L b 








The New Abelard. 9 


He held the sun-picture again to the lamplight, inspecting it 
osely, and every instant it seemed to grow fainter and fainter, till 
nothing remained on the paper but a formless outline, like the spirit 
Presence permanent on the other photograph. 

By instinct a superstitious or rather a neryous man, Bradley now 
felt as if he were under the influence of some extraordinary spell. 
Already unstrung by the events of the day, he trembled from head 
to foot. At last, with an effort, he conquered his agitation, sealed 
Up the photographs, and rang for the servant to put the letter in the 


post. 

Although he suspected some trick, he was greatly troubled and 
perplexed ; nor would his trouble and perplexity have been much 
lessened, if at all, had he been acquainted with the truth—that the 
little Professor had left the photographs in the room not by accident, 
but intentionally, and for a purpose which will be better understood 
at a later period of the present story. 


Cwaprer XIX. 
KUSTASIA MAPLELKARE. 


O eyes of pale forget-me-not blue, 
Wash'd more pale by a dreamy dew ! 
© red red Tips, O dainty tresses, 
O heart the breath of the world distresses £ 
 Tiltle lady, do they divine 
What they have fathomed thee and thine? 
Fools ! let them fathom fire, and beat 
Light In a mortar; ay, and heat 
Soul ina crocitile ! Let them try 
To conquer the light, and the wind, and the sky ! 
Darkly the seeret faces luck, 
‘We kenow them least where most they work s 
And here they meet to mix in thee, 
For a strange and mystic entity, 
Making of thy pale goul, in truth, 
Alife half trickery nd half truth t 
Batiais of St. Abe, 


Mowmourn Crescent, Bayswater, is one of those forlorn yet 
thickly populated streets which tic under the immediate dominion of 
the great Whiteley, of Westbourne Grove. The houses are adapted 
to limited means and large families ; and in front of them is an arid 
piece of railed-in ground, where crude vegetable substances crawl up 
in thelikeness of trees and grass. The crescent js chichy Whaliedoy 


we The Gentleman's Magasine. 


ting houme and boarding-house keepers, City clerks, and widows 
{tus asl ettine for persons * to share the comforts of a cheerful home,” 
with [ite dinners and carpet balls in the evening. It is shabby- 
geiiissl, iinpecunious, and generally depressing. 

‘lu one of the dingiest houses in this dingy crescent, Professor 
Mujleleufe, after his interview with our hero, cheerfully made his 
Way 

Ile tuvk the ’bus which runs along Marylebone Road to the 
Muyal Quk, and thence made his way on foot to the house door. In 
suswer to his knock the door was opened by a tall red-haired matron 
weit it kitchen apron over her black stuff dress’ Her complexion 
was oundy and very pale, her eyes were bold and almost fierce, her 
while manner was selfassertive and almost aggressive; but she 
wieeted the Professor with a familiar smile, as with a iriendly nod 
hie jatssed her by, hastening upstairs to the first floor. 

If upened a door and entered a large room furnished in faded 
‘rimson velvet, with a dining-room sideboard at one end, cheap 
lithographs on the walls, and mantelpiece ornamented with huge 
slills and figures in common china. 

‘The room was quite dark, save from the light of a small paraffin 
Jamp with pink shade ; and on a sofa near the window the figure of a 
young woman was reclining, drest in white muslin, and with one arm, 
naked almost to the shoulder, dabbling in a small glass water-tank, 
placed upon alow seat, and contai several small water-lilies in full 
Dloom. 

Anyone who had seen the photograph which the Professor had 
Jc) Lchind him in the clergyman’s house, would have recognised the 
sawinal at w ylance, There was the same fvtite almost child-like 
hvu, the same Jooxe flowing golden hair, the same elin-like but 
justly bre, the: same large, wild, lustrous eyes. But the face of the 
hnual way older, sharper, and more care-worn than might have 
Jeon wuecoed from the picture. Tt was the face of a woman of about 
four un five and twenty, and though the lips were red and full- 
te beued, und the eyes full of life and lightness, the complexion had 
Hee dolce of chrenie, ill-health, 

His hud whieh bung in the water, playing with the lily-leaves, 

+ flan ard Gausparent, but the arm was white as snow and beau- 
Vibhy peeaabed 

[J eteet would have been perfectly poetic and ethereal, but it 
wt poled by ene eatent by the remains of a meal which stood on 
ths julie oluas ly teay eavered with a soiled cloth, some greasy 



































The New Abcard. ca 
earthenware plates, the remains of a mutton chop, potatoes and 
bread. 


As the Professor entered, his sister looked up amiably and greeted 
him by name. 

™ You are late, Salem,” she said with an unmistakeable American 
necent. “TI was wondering what kept you.” 

“7M tell. you,” returned the Professor, “I've been having a 
talk with Mr. Ambrose Bradley, at his own house. I gave him our 
Hines of introduction. 1'm real sorry to find that he’s as ignorant as 
a redskin of the great science of solar biology, and the way he 
received me was not reassuring—-indeed, he almost showed me the 
oor.” 

“You're used to that, Salem,” said Eustasia with a curious smile, 

“Guess Tam,” returned the Professor dryly ; “ only I did calcu- 
Inte on something different from a man of Bradley's acquirements, I 
did indeed. However, he's just one of those men who believe in 
nothing by halves or quarters, and if we can once win him over toan 
approval of our fundamental propositions, he'll be the most valuable 
‘of all recruits to new causes—a hot convert.” 

‘The woman sighed—a sigh so long, so weary, that it seemed to 
come from the very depths of her being, and her expression grew 
more and more sad and eanwyé, as she drew her slender fingers 
softly through the waters of the tank. 

* Ain't you well to-night, Eustasia?” inquired the Professor, 
looking at her with some concern, 

“As well as usual,” was the reply. ‘Suppose European air 
don't suit me; I've never been quite myself since T came across to 
this country.” 

Her voice was soft and musical enough, and just then, when a 
Peculiar wistful light filled the faces of both, it was quite possible to 
believe them to be brother and sister, But in all other outward 
respects, they were utterly unlike. 

Tell me more about this young clergyman,” she continued after 
apause. “Tam interested in him. The moment I saw him I said 
to myself he is the very image of—of —" 

She paused without finishing the sentence, and looked meaningly 
at her brother, 

“Of Ulysses B. Stedman, you mean ?” cried the Professor, holding 
up his forefinger. “Eustasia, take care! You promised me never 
to think ofhim any more, and 1 expect you'to keep your word.” 

“ But don't you see the resemblance?" 


(ee 











a) 





The New Abelard. 13 


had subsided. He had not long to wait. Either the emotion was 
shallow it itself, or Eustasia had extraordinary power of self-control. 
Her face became comparatively untroubled, though it retained its 
peculiar pallor ; and reaching out hee hand, she again touched the 
water and the lilies swimming therein. 

“Salem !" she said presently. 

“Yes, Eustasia.” 

“Tell me more about this Mr, Bradley, Is he married?" 

“ Certainly not.” 

Engaged to be married >” 

“J belicve so. They say he is to marry Miss Craik, the heiress, 
whom we saw in church to-day.” 

Eustasia put no more questions ; but curiously enough, began 
crooning to herself, in a low voice, some wild air. Her eyes flashed 
and her face became illuminated ; andas she sang, she drew her limp 
hand to and fro in the water, among the flowers, keeping time to the 
measure. All her sorrow seemed to leave her, giving place to a 
dreamy pleasure, There was something feline and almost forbidding 
in her manner. She looked like 2 pythoness intoning oracles :— 


Dark eyer aswim with sybilline desire, 
And vagrant locks of amber | 


Her yoice was clear though subdued, resembling, to some extent, 
the purring of a cat. 

“What are you singing, Eustasia?” 

‘Tn lilac time when blue birds sing,’ Salem.” 

What a queer girl you are!” cried the Professor, not without a 
certain wondering admiration, “I declare I sometimes feel afraid 
of you. Anyone could sce with half an eye that we were brother 
and sister, only on one side of the family, Your mother was a 
Temarkable woman, like yourself, Father used to say sometimes 
he'd married a ghost-seer; and it might have been, fer she hailed 
from the Highlands of Scotland. At any rate, you inherit her 
ft.” 

Evstasia ceased her singing, and laughed again—this time with a 
low, self-satisfied gladness. 

“Ty's all I do inherit, brother Salem," she said ; adding, in a low 
voice, as if to herself, “* But it’s something, after alll.” 

“Something !" exied the Professor. ‘It’s a Divine privilege, 
that’s what it is! ‘To think that when you'like you can close your 
eyes, see the mystical coming and going of cosmic forces, and, as 
the sublime Bard expresses it, 


| 


14 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


Penetrate where no human foot hath trod 

Into the ever-quickening glories of God, 

See star with star, conjoin’d as soul with soul, 
‘Swim onward to the dim mysterious goal, 

Hear rapturous breathings of the Force which flows 
From founts wherein the eternal godhead glows ! 


I envy you, Eustasia ; I do, indeed.” 

Fustasia laughed again, less pleasantly. 

“Guess you don’t believe all that. Sometimes I think myself 
that it’s all nervous delusion.” 

“ Nervous force, you mean. Well, and what is nervous force but 
solar being? What you sce and hear is as real as—as real as— 
spiritual photography. Talking of that, I gave Mr. Bradley one of 
your pictures, taken under test conditions.” 

“ You gave it him?” 

“ Dropt it in his room, where he’s certain to find it” 

“Why did you do that?” demanded the girl, almost sharply. 

“Why? Because, as I told you, I want to win him over. Such 
aman as he is will be invaluable to us, here in England. He has 
the gift of tongues, to begin with ; and then he knows any number 
of influential and wealthy people. What we want now, Eustasia, is 
money.” 

“ We always have wanted it, as long as I can rememb 

“T don’t mean what you mean,” cried the Professor indignantly. 
ean moncy to push the great cause, to propagate the new 
jon, to open up more and more the arcanum of mystic biology. 
We want money, and we want converts. If we can win Bradley 
over to our side, it won’t be a bad beginning,” 

“Who is to win him over? 1?” 

“Why, of course. You must see him, and when you do, I think 
it is as good as done. Only mind this, Eustasia! Keep your head 
cool, and don’t go spooning. You're too susceptible, you are ! ‘If 
T hadn't been by to look after you, you'd have thrown yourself away 
a dozen times.” 

Eustasia smiled and shook her head. Then, with a weary sigh, 
she arose. 

“Till go to bed now, Salem.” 

“Do—and get your beauty-sleep. You'll want all your 
strength to-morrow. We have a séance at seven, at the house of 
Mrs. Upton. Tyndall is invited, and I calculate you'll want to have 
all your wits about you.” 

“ Good night !” 











“] 








The New Abelard. 15 


“Good night,” said the Professor, kissing her on the forehead ; 
then, with a quiet change from his glib, matter-of-fact manner to one 
of real tenderness, he added, looking wistfully into her eyes, * Keep 
up your spirits, Eustasia! We shan’t stay here Jong, and then we'll 
go back to America and take a Jong spell of rest.” 

Eustasia sighed again, and then glided from the room. She was 
so light and fragile that her feet seemed to make no sound, and in 
her white floating drapery she seemed almost like a ghost. 

Left alone, the Professor sat down to the table, drew out a 
pencil and number of letters, and began making notes in a large 
pocket-book. 

Presently he paused thoughtfully, and looked at the door by 
which Bustasia had retreated, 

“Poor gil!" he muttered. “Her soul's too big for her body, 
and that's a fact. 1m afraid she'll decline like her mother, and die 

young.” 


Cuarrern XX. 
THE THUNDERCLAR, 


‘The Mighty and the Merciful ate one ; 
‘The morning dew that scarcely bends the flowers, 
Exhal'd to heaven, becomes the thunderbolt 
‘That strikes the tree at noon. 
Faster Leariot: « Deana. 
‘Tike are moments in a man’s life when all the forces of life and 
socicty seem to conspire for his destruction ; when, look which way 
he will, he sees no loophole for escape ; when every step he takes 
forward seems a step downward towards some pitiless Inferno, and 
when 10 take even one step backward is impossible, because the 
precipice down which he has been thrust seems steep as a wall. Yet 
there is still hope for such a man, if his own conscience is not in 
revolt against him j for that conscience, like a very angel, may uplift 
him by the hair and hold bim miraculously from despair and death. 
Woe to him, however, if he has no such living help! Beyond that, 
there is surely no succour for him, beyond the infinite mercy, the 
‘ervel kindness, of his avenging God. 
‘The moment of which we speak had come to Ambrose Bradley. 
‘Even fn the very heyday of his pride, when he thought himself 
strong enough to walk alone, without faith, almost without vital belief, 
hissins had found him out, and he saw the Inferno waiting ak his fee. 


a Hy 


16 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


He knew that there was no escape. He saw the powers of evil 
armyed on every side against him. And cruellest of all the enemies 
leagued for his destruction was the conscience which might have 
been his sweetest and surest friend. 

Te was too late now for regrets, it was too late now to reshapo 
his course. Had he only exhibited a man's courage, and, instead of 
snatching an ignoble happiness, confided the whole truth to the 
‘woman he loved, she might have pitied and forgiven him; but he 
had accepted her Jove under a lie, and to confide the truth to her 
now would simply be to make a confession of his moral baseness. 
He dared not, could not, tell her; yet he knew that detection was 
inevitable. Madly, despairingly, he wrestled with his agony, and 
soon lay prostrate before it, a strong man self-stripped of his spiritual 
and moral strength. 

Not that he was tamely acquiescent; not that he accepted his 
fate a3 just. 

On the contrary, his whole spirit rose in revolt and indignation, 
‘He had tried to serve God—so at least he assured himself; he had 
tried to become a living lesson and example to a hard and unbeliev- 
ing world ; he had tried to upbuild again a temple where men might 
worship in all honesty and freedom ; and what was the result? For 
a slight fault, a venial blunder, of his own youth, he was betrayed to 
2 punishment which threatened to be everlasting. 

His intellect rebelled at the idea. 

With failing strength he tried to balance himself on the satanic 
foothold of revolt. His doubts thickened around hina like a cloud. 
If there was a just God, if there was a God at all, why had he made 
such a world? 

Tn simple truth, the man’s fatal position was entirely the conse- 
quence of his once lack of moral courage. 

He had missed the supreme moment, he had lacked the supreme 
sanction, which would have saved him, even had his danger been 
twenty-fold more desperate than it had been. Instead of standing 
erect in his own strength, and defying the Evil One, who threatened 
to hurl him down and destroy him, he had taken the Evil One’s 
hand and accepted its support. Yes, the devil had helped him, but 
at what a cost! 

“Get thee behind me, Satan!” he should have said. It was the 
sheerest folly to say it now. 

He cowered in terror at the thought of Alma’s holy indignation, 
‘He dreaded mot her anger, which he could haye borne, but her dis- 
enchantment, which he could not bear, 


b 








The New Abelard. 7 


Her trast in him had been so absolute, her sclf-surrender so 
supreme; but its motive had been his goodness, her faith in his 
tunsullied trath She had been his handmaid, as she had called 
herself, and had trusted herself to him, body and soul, So com- 
plete had been his inteMectual authority over her, that even had 
be told her his secret and thereupon assured her that he was morally 
a free man, though legally fettered, she would have accepted his 
genial pleading and still have given him her love. He was quite 
sare of that. But he had chosen a course of mere deception, he had 
refused to make her his confidant, and she had married him in all 
faith and fervour, belicving there was no comer in all his heart where 
he had anything to conceal. 

‘Te wat just possible that she might still forgive him ; it was simply 
impossible that she could ever revere and respect him, as she hitherto 
tad done. 

Does he who reads these lines quite realise what it is to fall from 
the pure estate of a loving woman's worship? Has he ever been so 
throned in a loving heart as to understand how kingly is the con- 
dition—how terrible the fall from that sweet power? So honoured 
and enthroned, he is still a king, though he is a beggar of all men's 
charity, though he has not a roof to cover his head; so dethroned 
and fallen, be is still a begytr, though all the world proclaims him 
king. 


Mephistopheles Minor, in the shape of gay George Craik, junior, 
scarcely slept on his discovery, or rather on his suspicions. He was 
now perfectly convinced that there was some mysterious connection 
Letween the clergyman and Mrs Montmorency ; and as the actress 
refused for the time being to lend herself to any sort of open perse- 
ution, he determined to act on his own responsibility, So he again 
canyatted Miss Lestrange and the other light ladies of his acquaint- 
ance, and received from ther further corroboration of the statement 
that Mrs. Montmorency had been previously married; he had no. 
doubt whatever that Ambrose Bradley was the man who had once 
stood to her in the relation of a husband. 

‘Armed with this information, he sought out his futher on the 
Monday moming, found him at his club, told him of all he knew, 
and asked his advice. 

“My only wish, you know,” he explained, “is to save Alma from 
that man, who is evidently a scoundrel. $0 I thought I would come 
to youatoncc. ‘The question is, what is to be done?" 





L aoe 


aaa the baronet, honestly shocked. 


| 


— = 


18 The Gentleman's Magazine. 
“Do you actually mean to tell me that you suspect an improper 
ip between Alma and this infernal infidel?” 


“1 shouldo’t like to go as far as that; but they were seen 
travelling together, like man and wife, in France." 

“Good heavens! It is incredible.” 

“I should like to shoot the fellow,” cried George furiously. 
“ And I would, too, if this was a duelling country. Shooting’s too 
good for him, He ought to be hung !” 

‘The upshot of the conversation was that father and son deter- 
mined to visit Alma at once together, and to make one last 
to bring her to reason. At a little after midday they were at her 
door. The baronct stalked in past the scrvant, with an expression 
of the loftiest moral indignation, 

“Tell Miss Craik that I wish to see her at once,” he said. 

‘It was some minutes before Alma appeared. When she did so, 
attired in a pink moming faigneir of the most becoming fashion, 
her face was bright as sunshine ; but it became clouded directly she 
‘met her uncle’s eyes. She saw at a glance that he had come on an 
unpleasant errand, 

George Craik sulked in a corner, waiting for his father to conduct 
‘the attack, 

“What has brought you over so early, uncle?” she demanded. 
“T hope George has not been talking nonsense to you about me, 
Hieshas been’ eke befoen on the sere ercand, and Thai in ehoe aie 
the door.” 

“George has your interest at heart,” returned he Daronet, 
fuming ; “and if you doubt his disinterestedness, perhaps you will 
do me the justice to believe that J am your true friend, as well as 
your relation, Now my brother is gone, I am your nearest pro- 
tector, It is enough to make your father rise in his grave to hear 
what I hare heard.” 

"What have you heard?” cried Alma, turning pale with indigna- 
tion. “Don't go too far, uncle, or I shall quarrel with you as well 
as George ; and I should be sorry for that.” 

"Will you give me an explanation of your conduct—yes or no? 
—or do you refuse my right to question you? Remember, Alma, 
the honour of our family—your father’s honour—is in question.” 

“How absurd you are!" cried Alma, with a forced laugh. “But, 
there, Iwill try to keep my temper. What is it that you want to know?” 

And she sat down quietly, with folded hands, as if waiting to be 


terrogated, 
Is it the fact, as I am informed, that you and Mr. Bradley were 


— y AER wee SS 








20 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


WESTWARD HO? 


ATE in the afternoon of a wintry December day, in the year 
1603, the black barge, with the royal crown picked out in 
red upon its bows, which was specially employed to carry such 
criminals as were condemned to imprisonment in the Tower, was 
seen dropping down with the tide, lazily assisted by the oars of its 
crew, towards London Bridge. In the stern of the boat sat a man, 
guarded on either side by armed warders in their red tunics slashed 
with black and low-crowned hats, who gazed vacantly upon the 
shipping which even at that time caused the Thames to be one of the 
most crowded and busy of European rivers. He was dressed in a 
purple velvet cloak lined with black satin, which effectually con- 
cealed his close-sleeved vest and trunk hose, but beneath its folds 
were visible the brown stockings and the ribboned shoes. ‘The face, 
partly shaded by the broad grey hat surrounded bya thick handsome 
feather, was bronzed and bearded, the eyebrows were arched, and 
the features clean cut—evidently a man well favoured by nature, yet 
also one to whom suffering and adventure were not unknown. He 
spoke to his guards but seldom ; yet when he opened his lips his 
words were listened to with a deference which plainly showed that 
the speaker was no ordinary captive caught within the meshes of the 
Jaw, and who had been called upon to pay the penalty of his mis- 
deeds. Indeed, the prisoner was no other than the great Sir Walter 
Ralcigh, adventurer, soldier, dandy, writer, philosopher, and courtier, 
who had been tried at Winchester, found guilty of treason, and 
sentenced todurance vile in the Tower. After a five days’ journey 
‘across country, he had been met at Kingston Bridge by the ominous 
barge, and was being conveyed in close custody to I'mitor's Gate and 
the damp rat-infested cells of our then state prison. 

A few words in explanation of this situation, Sprung from a 
good old Devonshire stock, which could trace its line in unbroken 
succession from the days of King John, Walter Raleigh—his home 
at Hayes, hard by dull and stifling Budleigh Salterton, is still pointed 
‘out to the tourist—at an early age showed how restless and full of 

rise was his untamed disposition, Scarcely had his name 


—_ 





Westward Ho! a1 


‘been entered in the college books of Oriel than he suddenly threw 
off the toga of the undergraduate, and quitting Oxford crossed the 
Channel to win his spurs as asoldicr in the civil wars of France. 
A staunch Protestant and holding the Papist as an intriguing knave, 
he enrolled himself under the banner of the Huguenots, and was 
present at the battle of Jamac when the Prince of Condé was slain, 
and alo took part in the retreat at Moncontour, After five years’ 
service in upholding the cause of the “ White Scarf" Raleigh carried 
his sword over to Ireland, and there, amid the wilds of Munster, 
waged a bitter guerilla war against the foreign legion of Spaniards 
and Italians who, under Lord Desmond and his men, had risen in 
‘open revolt against English authority. Reckless, fierce, nay even 
cruel, young Raleigh soon made himsclf a name which caused the 
“foreign devils," as they told stories of his prowess round their 
camp fires, to grow pale with terror, He passed swift punishment 
upon any Inish rebel he caught skulking behind rocks or hedges to 
shoot down from safe ambuscade “the English churls.” As com- 
mander of the little expeditions gent to reduce refractory squireens 
to obedience, he showed scant mercy, and the charred timbers of 
court and castle, with the upturned faces of the dead strewn around, 
plainly showed that this “worthy of Devon” had done his work 
thoroughly and would brook no resistance. It was Raleigh who, in 
the massacre of the foreign legion at Smerwick in Kerry, took the 
‘tmost prominent part, who counsclied no quarter and who knew no 
“rest til his lust for blood had been assuaged by the putting to the 
sword every Spaniard and Tralian in the garrison. Upon the 
suppression of the insurrection, Raleigh was appointed onc of the 
first governors of Munster, and for some five years exercised his 
Jurisdiction as soldier-judge throughout the disaffected parts of the 
_mestern coast of Ireland, 

‘Handsome, well-borm, with the reputation most loved by youth, 
‘that of a daring and success{ul soldier, it was not long before Walter 
Raleigh took high rank among the curled darlings upon whom the 
amorous and exacting Queen Bess was pleased to smile. Whether 
he bridged over the muddy pool with his velvet cloak so that the 
nity shoes of his sovercign should pass over it unsoiled, or whether 

scratched. upon the pane of one of the parlour windows, 

” | I climb but that I fear to fall,” we know not ; they 
anecdotes of history, which documentary evidence fails to 
but certain it is thar Raleigh, before the Armada rounded 





'sorgeous of doublets, vests, and {ringed \wunlk hose, 





4 






oo 


2 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


‘was to be seen dancing with all the grace of a Hatton at balls and 
‘Aaques, or bearing a conspicuous part in the jousts and tournaments 
whieh so often made up the anmusements of the Elicabethan epoch. 
Ne followed in the train of his royal mistress when she went her 
lal he read sonnets to her; he amused her with his 

tite talk and with his chemical experiments ; and when he found 
IMs conversation bored the susceptible damsel, he flattered her to the 
top of her bent and speedily roused her waning interest, It was in 
the days when courtiers were rewarded direct from the Crown, and 
Kaleigh had not long been hanging about the galleries of Whitehall 
and Greenwich before he became the recipient of many favours. He 
was allowed (o put in the ample pockets of his knickerbockers certain 
Hundsome dues on the export of woollen broadcloths and on the sile 
of wins, the “farm of wines" as it was called ; he held the lucrative 
office of Lord Warden of the Stannaries ; then he had a run of luck 
and became guecessively Lieutenant of Comwall, Vice-Admiral of 


Devon and Cornwall, and Captain of the Queen's Guard. Confiscated _ 


‘eMlates were granted to him, and he soon deycloped from a needy 
Devanwlire lad into & powerful courtier and wealthy landowner. 

And now, when at the height of his favour and prosperity, per- 
‘mission was given him to embark upon an adventure which had long 
exolted his tmiagination, When a boy at Hayes he had often held 
econyermation with English sailors, who had frequently crossed the 
Atlantic, ane whose yarns were of the capture of Spanish galleons, of 
the wealth hidden in the bowels of South American mines, of the 
wild sport to be had in those tropical forests teeming with big game ; 
of, in short, the unsunned treasures of an Ei Dorado which bad only 
to be visited to be conquered, and only to be conquered to make its 
poteior rich beyond the fondest dreams of avarice. A charter at 
his earnest request was granted to him by his royal mistress to 
explore the “heathen and barbarous lands" across the Avanti. 

lied by his colonising fleet, he took possession of that vast 

(met of country which, after the name of his beloved “ Virgin Queen,” 
he ealled Virginia, and did all in his power to found there an English 
colony, But the fates were then against him ; Spain objected to the 
settlement; the colonists were indolent, and the Indians were aggres- 
sive, No sooner had the exported English been left by their late 
commander alone in the new colony to build and dig, than they 
either ran away to more populated districts, or fell an ensy prey to 
the aborigines on the war path for the white man's scalp and the 
white man’s rum. Raleigh was, however, not to be deterred from 
his object by any mortification, and he despatched at different times 





Westward Ho! 23 


across the Atlantic, in the hope that ultimately 
(enbateiepentlals into a prosperous 


h settlement. ‘The Armada interfered for the moment with his 
“olonis iseerd am and Raleigh was among the foremost in 
teaching the Spanish Dons how insane and futile had been their 
ery instep to invade England. His vessel was almost 
the first to pour its broadsides into the clumsy, heavily-laden gale 
eons, and the last to leave them, as in sheer terror they esjayed to 
find their way home to sunny Spain—for they had had enough of the 
‘Channel—round by the stormy coasts of Scotland and Ireland, 

_ From Mars to-Venus is an casy transition, At the court of 
there waited upon her exacting Majesty one Elizabeth 
aeenen the daughter of Nicholas Throgmorton, who had done 
“service to his country as a soldier against the prowess of 
France, and who subsequently had conducted certain knotty points 
in diplomacy to a successfill issue as English Ambassador at Paris. 
‘The maid of honour was a tall fair woman, with features somewhat 
masculine, and a figure which, in spite of her “ dark-coloured 
hanging sleeve robe tufted on the arms, and under it a close-bodied 
gown of white satin flowered with black with close sleeves down to 
hher wrisi,” was inclined (o a breadth and fulness more associated 
‘With a majestic bearing than with grace. Raleigh soon became 
enslaved with the dark grey eyes of Bessle Throgmorton, by 
her fic attention to his Orhello-like tales of arms and 
esi and by the sound good sense which appears to have been 
conspicuous of her gifts. He proposed and was accepted, 
: Tovers were secretly united; indeed, so secretly that, 
to some, intrigue had preceted marriage, As soon as her 
who permitted no man upon whom she smiled to think of 
‘woman, heard of this union she was as infuriated against 
h as she had been against her favourite Essex for linking 
with Frances Walsingham, ‘lhe husband was shut up in 
cells of the Tower looking on to the river, whilst the wife 
from Court, and forced, during the storm of the royal 
9 find 2 home among her relatives After several 
had been spent in durance vile, the greed of the 
d the doors of Raleigh's dungeon, and he was set 

tored to favour, in order to lead an expedition 

§ object the pillaging of several richly laden Spanish 

$ successful in his piracy, and the impoverished 
beth was once more in funds, thanks w the 
board the Madre de Dios and the other cayrored. 

























a4 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


vatacke ‘These robberies were instrumental in restoring Raleigh 
(uv hee totmer position at Court, for the surest way to appeal to the 
wil time of the great Queen was either through her vanity or 
(hioiyh het purse. During the closing years of the reign of 
Wealoth the influence exercised by Raleigh was at its height. At 
Inui, hie voice was seldom mised in vain at the Council table, 
whilat abial he had despatched expeditions—some of which he 
(tial commanded—to explore Guiana in quest of that “El Dorado” 
whith both Spaniants and Englishmen asserted was to be found 
tw that cauntty and in that country only. The search was not, 
Iwwever, coawned with success ; still, boats had been rowed up the 
(ica, men had heen landed, in spite of Spanish opposition, upon 
{a Wan Coveted banks, a three days’ march had been effected through 
the Hava donag with tropical cultivation, the rocks had been blasted 
wil quate hat heen brought on board the ships forming part of 
(he vajuutttion then anchored off Trinidad. On examination by the 
damier in London, it was found that these specimens of Guiana 
Hh We torctged with gold, ‘To his dying day Raleigh maintained 
What thse avi] at Guiana was saturated with mineral wealth, and that 
thay fe the spot where his men had searched was a mine, which, 
Avcrstity te ldiue report, only required working to yield gold 
We slisuatilde, Gt this mine the mind of Raleigh, in the days of his 
HoAQMEV AVA, Wate Cull 

“Vint tinptiaonment was again to fetter his actions and embitter 
hin Ite. Upon the death of Elizabeth a new king mounted the 
Miva Whit dette to agcugnise Joseph, We do not know what 
Were the titlicnees at work in the breast of the British Solomon, but 
Feat tt ia tht James the Kirst soon showed that he cordially dis- 
Ube pir Walter Raleigh, Whether with the spleen of the pedant 
hu: was jealous of the great coloniser’s fame ; whether he was pre- 
juiced against him by Sir Robert Cecil, the Secretary of State, or 
whether he nimply hated the knight because he had been one of the 
favoured by Elizabeth, or whatever was the cause, there can be no 
doubt but that James was from the very outset of his reign ill-disposed 
towaids Raleigh, and was on the watch to effect his ruin. An 
opportunity soon offered itself Shortly after the accession of the 
New monarch a conspiracy within a conspiracy was discovered to 
overthrow the Government. The first plot, called the “ Main,” had 
for its object to place Arabella Stuart, the cousin of the King, upon 
the throne with the aid of the Spanish Government. ‘The other plot, 
called the “Bye” or the “Surprise,” was a design to surprise and 
imprison the King and remodel the Government. Of the “ Main,” 































Westward Ho! 25 


Lord Cobham was the leader ; of the “ Surprise,” Broke, the brother 
of Lord Cobham, was the moying spirit. The conspiracy was dis- 
covered by Cecil, and the organisers of the plot with their followers were 
captured and thrown into prison. Upon the testimony of Cobham, who 
was ready to swear anything in order to save his miserable life, and 
who saw from the leading questions put to him that the Court 
wanted to get the adventurer in its clutches, Raleigh was said to be 
connected with the treason, and he also was cast into the Tower. 
‘The trial took place at Winchester, November 17, 1603, 50 as to 
‘escape from the plague which was then raging in London. Raleigh 
was accused of attempting to advance Arabella Stuart to the throne, 
of agrecing with Lord Cobham to treat with Count Aremberg, 
the Ambassador of Austria in England, so as to obtain 600,000 
crowns to further the intended treason, and of seeking the aid of 
Spanish troops, He pleaded not guilty. He denied that he had 
any dealings with Spain, he was innocent of any attempt to advance 
Avabella Stuart, he had nothing to do with Cobham's practice with 
Aremberg, he had been accused upon the evidence of Cobham, and 
such evidence, he declared, was wholly false, His denial was however 
valueless The Attorney-General branded him as “the most vile and 
execrable traitor that ever lived” ; a5 “an odious fellow,” whose name 
was “hateful to all the realm of England for thy pride,” and “a vile 
viper"—epithets which show how very free was the licence of the bar 
in those days. It was sworn on the testimony of Cobham that 
Raleigh had written a book in which he had spoken disparagingly of 
the King’s title to the throne, that he had said it would * never be well 
in England till the King and his cubs were taken away," and that he 
had entered into pecuniary transactions with Aremberg to subvert 
the Government, aided by Spain. This evidence was deemed 
sufficient, and Ralcigh—in spite of his appeal to God and the King 
that the unsupported accusation of Cobham was not sufficient to 
condemn him—was declared by the jury guilty. Sentence of death, 
in the barbarous form which then accompanied the punishment of 
high treason, was passed upon him, and the prisoner was taken back 
to Winchester gaol. Such was the end of a trial which has been 
summed up in one brief sentence : “The justice of England has 
fever been so injured and degraded as by the condemnation of Sir 
Walter Raleigh." It was proved that Cobham and Raleigh were at 
the accession of James in friendly intercourse with each other, but 
there is no evidence that Raleigh was in any way cognisant of the 
“designs ofthe leader of the " Main,” or was in any way conmested. 
with the conspiracy. Indeed, Cobham, expecting, soon to Yace Ws 


a a! 


26 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


head upon the block, was pricked by the stings of conscience, and 
fully acquitted his former friend. “Seeing myself so near my 
ond,” writes Cobham to Raleigh, “for the discharge of my 
own conscience, and freeing myself from your blood, which else 
will cry vengeance against me, I protest upon my salvation that 
1 never practised with Spain by your procurement ; God so com- 
fort me in this my affliction, as you are a true subject for anything 
that 1 know. 1 will say as Daniel, Purus sum a sanguine hujus. 
Hu God have mercy upon my soul as I know no treason by you.” 

"Ihin letter the partial judge at the trial refused to consider, 
decmlng it, an the Attorney-General remarked, “a letter politickly and 
cunningly urged from the Lord Cobham.” As for the charge that 
Kaleigh wax implicated in any attempt to place Arabella Stuart on 
the throne, not the slightest evidence was brought forward to support 
the accusation ; it was a mere assertion made by the law advisers of 
the Crown, and upheld by not a single witness. Still the accusations 
served thelr purpoxe, Raleigh was pronounced to have been in the 
coutdence af Cobham, and because he had not given information to 
the Guverninent of the plot, he was therefore guilty of what is called 
inisprislon of treaaon, After sentence was passed upon him, Raleigh 
wae eararted back to Winchester gaol, and there bade to prepare 
himwelf ta meet hia Maker. ‘lhe day of his execution was fixed for 
Veevimber the agth, During the interval he busied himself in 
swltling hia affaira, in imploring the royal mercy, “not because I fear 
(loath, but far the sake of my poor wife and child,” and in writing to 
Ihiv Nessie, who, half mad with grief, was making every effort in 
Landon to beg off the precious life of her husband. The piteous 
entreation of Lady Raleigh had, however, been urged without effect. 
Nelther the King nor the Council gave her hope : “ the law,” they 
ald, “ munt take its course.” The condemned man, in his cell at 
Winchester, was told to expect the worst. He then writes to “his 
own Hex”: “You shall receive, dear wife, my last words in these 
my last lines,* My love I send you, that you may keep it when I 
am dead; and my counsel, that you may remember it when I am 
no more, I would not with my last will present you with sorrows, 
dear Bess, Jet them go to the grave with me and be buried in the 
dust, And secing it is not the will of God that ever I shall see you 
in this life, bear my destruction gently, and with a heart like yourself.” 
Then, having ushered in this preface to his last words, he proceeds 
to business. ‘To his son he has bequeathed his lands, and to her 

State Trials, James 1., 1603. 
* State Papers, Domestic. Dec. 9, 1603. 














Westward Ho! 29 
and that so much of its space has been taken up in dealing with 


the lore of the Talmud and of other Rabbinical tomes to illustrate the 
history of the Jews. One would have liked to have read Raleigh on 
the Norman Conquest, the Wars of the Roses, the Reformation, 
and the Reign of Elizabeth. 

Shortly after the appearance of the carlier volumes of this work, 
‘2 warrant was sent down (Jan. go, 1616) from Whitehall to Sir 
George Moore, the Licutenant of the Tower, ordering the prisoner he 
had so long guarded to be released.’ The key which had opened 
the doors of the Bloody Tower had been turned by the hand of 
avarice. The King detested Raleigh as much as ever, but, like Eliza. 
beth, he was keen after filling his exhausted treasury, and he had 
been told that he had but to liberate the victim of his tyranny and 
its receipts would be magnificently swelled by wealth dug from the 
bowels of the earth across the Atlantic. Tn the seclusion of his con. 
finement, in spite of his experiments and his literary labours, the 
thought which was ever uppermost with Raleigh was the precious 
gold, which he felt convinced lay buried in countless ounces within 
the quarts of that mine in Guiana which he had formerly failed to 
discover, His mind, from constantly dwelling upon the idea, became 
fired at the prospect his vivid imagination had conjured up; he saw 
his boats sailing up the Orinoco, his men guided by friendly Indians 
groping through the pathless forest, the jealovs Spaniards who 
opposed their progress sabred down by the cutlasses of the English 
gailors, then, before them the El Dorado with its inexhaustible 
treasures which only required strength and labour to be borne up to 
thesurface. That such a mine was actuully in existence, and was no 
dream of a diseased fancy, he was assured ; and now that he heard 
of the pecuniary embarrassment of the Court he eagerly pushed his 
project forward. Queen Ana of Denmark had always been friendly 
disposed towards Raleigh, as she had derived great benefit from some 
elixir he had prepared for her. Her influence was exercised in his 
favour, and the King besought to allow the prisoner to command 
another expedition to Orinoco, ‘The favourite Villicrs, who now, 
since the fall of Carr, Earl of Somerset, was all in all to James, had 
been bribed to further the enterprise, and his advocacy was a host in 
itself Other members of the Council had also been tempted by 
golden promises to uphold the scheme, and to give their vote in sup- 
‘port of the exploration. ‘This consensus of influence carried the day, 


Os that he cost of Keeping Raleigh and two servants ia the Tower came 
" Gand £5 2 week. See Mills of Lieut. of the Tower, 1603 Sen 
















‘ = 












as by conversation 
people to the 


m power for the appointing of 
v nent of the 
ne gerd of the voyage, and in case uf rebellion or 
inst gto <i apparent necessity to use martial 
ty heen used to be inserted in patents of like 
The commission is written upon parch- 
mem and signed by Eaners Bacon, ‘The document is creased and 

A. arnt no doubt was worn about the person of Raleigh 
during the months when he commanded the expedition, for many 
pats of it any discounted ay if stained by perspiration." 

V State Prawn Smeates Castle Ashby, July 28, 1616, 








discovery and advent 








Westward Ho! 3 


In the second week of the June of 1617 Raleigh set sail from 
Plymouth with his little fleet of eleven vessels, which had been fitted 
out at the expense of the State, for South America. His son Walter 
‘was in command of the ship ‘ Destiny,” which had been especially 
built for the purpose, and was the Admiral’s flagship. The most 
‘prominent of the other captains was Lawrence Keymish, who had 
‘been up the Orinoco before, but who had failed to find the mine. 
Several gentlemen accompanied the expedition, and the total 
strength of the fleet, inclusive of sailors, labourers, and soldiers, 
numbered some five hundred men. The orders issued by the 
Admiral for the maintenance of discipline lie before me,! Divine 
service was to be read every morning before dinner, and every evening 
before supper, “with the singing of a psalm at the setting of the 
watch.” All blasphemy was to be punished if continucd in after 
Femonstmance ; ‘those of the meaner sort to be ducked at the yard- 
‘arm, and the better sort to be fined out of their adventure.” 
Obedience was to be strictly observed, and the landsmen were to be 
tanght nautical matters, soas to be able to assist the crew when necd- 
ful. All acts of piracy were to be strictly forbidden. No man was 
tostrike another under pain of death, “No man was to playat cards 
or dice, cither for his apparcl or arms, upon pain of being disarmed 
and made a swabber of the ship.” “ Whosoever shall show himself 
a coward upon any landing or otherwise, he shall be disarmed and 
made a labourer or carricr of victual for the rest”. Upon landing 
in the Indies the men were to be careful not to eat unknown fruit, 
‘or new fish until it had been salted ; also they were not to sleep on 
the ground for fear of snakes and the damp, or to swim in the rivers 
for fear of alligators. Nothing was to be taken from any Indian by 
force. Any act of rape was to be punished with death. ‘Then fol- 
lowed upon these instructions a series of orders regulating the course 
the fleet was to take, the storage of powder, the exposure of lights, 
the firing off of ordnance, and the cleanliness which was to be 
observed. Especial care was to be taken with regard to any engage- 
ments that might ensue. “No man,” laid down Raleigh, «shall 
beard his enemy's ship without order, because the loss of a ship to 
us ig of more importance than the loss of ten ships to the enemy; 
it being too great a dishonour to Jose the Icast of our flee.” 

Towards the clase of the year, after being buffeted! about by 


1 State Dewstic, May 3, 1617. "Orders to be observed by the com- 
fleet and land companies under the charge and conduct of Sir 


32 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


contrary winds and encountering severe storms, the fleet anchored at 
the mouth of the Orinoco, The boats were lowered, and the sick 
men landed. The “ barges and shallops,” which had been brought 
over from England in pieces, were put together and launched. 
After this, assisted by the Indians, the ships were washed down, 
and water and provisions taken on board. Raleigh was so poorly 
that he had to be carried about to superintend operations.“ Myself,” 
he writes, “ having been in the hands of death without hope some 
six weeks, and not yet able otherwise to move than as I was carried 
ina chair.” No time was lost in going in quest of the object for 
which the perilous voyage across the Atlantic had been taken. 
Orders were issued by Raleigh to Captain Keymish to sail up the 
Orinoco with five small ships, land his men, and make an investiga- 
tion of the spot where the mine was said to be. Young Raleigh was 
to accompany the expedition as second in command. As the fates 
would have it, the exploration ended in complete disaster. Before 
Keymish had made much way up the Orinoco his passage was 
opposed by the Spaniards ; an engagement ensued, which ended in 
the repulse of the cnemy, and the little fleet sailed on. After a 
voyage of three weeks they approached a settlement which had been 
lately formed by the Spaniards, called St. Thomas. Here they were 
fired upon, and the fire was returned with some effect. As this spot 
was the most convenient for the penetration inland towards the mine, 
Keymish proceeded to disembark his men two miles east of the 
settlement. By nightfall the soldiers, several of the labourers, and 
many of the gentlemen adventurers had landed. The Spaniards had, 
however, no intention of allowing the hated English to take root in 
the new country; the further progress of the expedition was chal- 
Jenged, Spaniards and Englishmen fought hand to hand ; young 
Raleigh, whilst gallantly leading his men, was shot through the 
heart, and Keymish, seeing that the advance to the mine was so 
arded by the Spanish settlers, thought it more prudent 
bark any more of his men, but to beat a retreat and sail 
track to the Admiral. ‘This resolve he carried out, but not before the 
4Governor of St. ‘Thomas had met with the fate of young Raleigh, and 
ifye new settlement had been considerably wrecked. 
Xv sooner had Keymish reported the result of his expedition to 
Hy{wigh than he was met by a storm of reproaches. It was his duty, 
divfye Admiral, to have proceeded towards the mine, and not to 
Vayda deterred by Spanish opposition, however aggressive. It 
wis Unfaes, Lomestic, Raleigh to Sit Ralph Winwood, Secretary of State, 


Nylae 


jealously gué 
not to disem! 





Westward Ho! 33. 


was rank cowardice, What reception would they mect with on their 
retum to England after the promises that had been held out? His 
‘own pardon, cried Raleigh, depended upon the success of this expe- 
dition, and now he was not only a ruined but a condemned man, 
He had lost his son ; he had lost his fortune ; there only remained 
for him now to lose his life and all, he said bitterly, on account of 
‘the hesitation of his commander. He had never, he wailed, known 
what disgrace was until now. Keymish turned on bis heel and sul- 
lenly said, as he went below, that he could explain satisfactorily 
‘all that had taken place, The next moment a pistol-shot was heard. 
“ Twas no sooner,” writes Raleigh,' “ come from him into my cabin 
than T heard a pistol go off over my head, and sending up to know 
who shot it, word was brought that Keymish had shot it out of his 
cabin window to cleanse it. His boy going into the cabin, found 
‘him lying on his bed with much blood by him, and looking on his 
face saw he was dead. The pistol being but little, the bullet did but 
‘crack his rib, but on turning him over found a long knife in his body 
all but the handle,” 

With the death of Keymish, his own sickness, the loss of many 
of his men, and the mortification which had been engendered 
throughout the fleet by the failure of the expedition, Raleigh saw 
tin staring him in the face. He had not the funds, nor had his 
‘mutinous and dispirited men the will, to make another attempt upon 
the mine ; besides, he had relicd upon Keymish, who knew the 
‘country and who was to have been in charge of all mining operations, 
and he, alas ! in a fit of sensitiveness had perished by his own hand. 
Tn Spite of his orders to act on the defensive and not on the aggres~ 
sive, his men had beaten down the twig huts of St. Thomas, bad shot 
the governor, and had looted the settlement of what valuables it 

He knew that if Spain remonstrated—and she would 
temonstrate, for Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador in London, was 
the bitterest foc of Raleigh—it would go hard with him ; if Madrid 
demanded a sacrifice, he, deserted and unpardoned, would be the 
victim. Whichever way he turned, the outlook wasdepressing. He 
thad disappointed those who had yentured their money in the 
‘acheme ; he had not ascertained the whereabouts of the mine, and 
fils pardon wns dependent upon the discovery ; he had lost his first- 
born, and knew not how to face his Bessic ; and he, or rather his 
‘men, had acted so as to create a rupture between the Courts of 
‘England and Spain. “What shall become of me now,” he writes 

4 State Papers, Demsitic, Raleigh to Sir Ralph Winwoos, Secretary of State, 








"South America, upon 
whose teeming soil be had built sach splendid castles in the air, as 
the good ship “Destiny” bent before the breeze homeward bound. 
Ho arrived at Plymouth June 21, 2618. Scare Waneleae 
onchor than Sir Lewis Srakeley, the VieesAdmiral of 


prisoner, Hi cotnmissioned, be said, to bring the. adveoturer 
er, He was 
10 London. On the arrival of Sir Walter in the mctropolis he was 
allowed to find shelter in his own house, and was mot despatched a 
to the Tower, Here, for a few weeks, be was tenderly 
nursed by his beloved Bessie; but finding that Spain was busy at 
work to do him ill, and that James was ready to adopt any course 
which would appease the wrath of the Most Catholic King, Raleigh 
resolved to hurry across the Channel and seek a refuge in France 

He had well-nigh carried his plan into execution when it was 
discovered by Sir Lewis Stakeley—according to Sir Lewis, Raleigh 
had offered him ten thousand pounds to effect his escape—who 
promptly informed the Court, and once more Raleigh found himself 
in his too familiar quarters in the Bloody Tower, 

‘A close prisoner, and conscious of the machinations his enemies 
were employing to ruin him with the Court and to put the worst 
construction upon his late expedition, which had already caused the 
relations between Whitehall and Madrid to be somewhat (strained, 
Raleigh took the earliest opportunity his confinement offered to lay 
‘Defore the King a statement of his past conduct. He drew up what 
‘he called his “ Apology,” in which he states that he had not invaded. 
‘Spanish territory 5 that the English had settled in Guiana before the 
Spaniards ; that the destruction of St. Thomas was against his 
cin de ha re Gravcaaeeairipatet i nec 
hostilities “Because I know not," he writes,' “whether I shall tive 
to come before the lords, I have, for His Majesty's satisfaction, set 
down as much as I ean say either for mine own defence or against 

Deewratic, Raleigh to Sir Ralph Winwood, Secretary of State, 

















Westward Ho! 35 


myself, as things are now construed. It is true that though 1 
acquainted His Majesty with my intent to land in Guiana, yet I 
never made it known to His Majesty that the Spaniards had any 
footing there, neither had I any authority by my patent to remove 
the Spaniards thence, and therefore His Majesty had no interest in 
the attempt of St. Thomas by any foreknowledge thereof to His 
Majesty, But knowing His Majesty's title 10 the country to be best 
and most Christian, because the nominal lords did most willingly 
acknowledge Queen Elizabeth to be their sovercign, who by me 
to defend them from the Spanish cruelty, I made no doubt 

that T might enter the land by force, seeing the Spaniards had no 
other title but force (the Pope's donation excepted). Considering 
also that they gota possession there divers years since my possession 
taken for the Crown of England. [This was in 1596, when Keymish 
sccupied what afterwards became the settlement of St. Thowas.} 
Now, were this possession of theirs a sufficient bar to His Majesty's 
eee ‘Kings of Spain may as well call themselves Dukes of 
Brittany becanse they held Brucks and fortified there ; and Kings 
of Ireland because they possessed Lemeryck and fortified here, and 


0 in many places. 

“Phat His Majesty was well resolved of his right there 1 make 
no doubt, because the English under Mr. Harcourt had Ieave to 
plant and inhabitthere. ‘That Orinoco itself had had, long ere 
this, 500 English in it I assure myself, had not my employment at 
Cadiz [where sigh wrecked the Spanish fleet) next year after my 
retum from Guiana, and after that the joumey to the Islands [his 
‘yoyage to Virginia and the West Indies) hindered me for two ycars. 

, ‘Tyrone’s rebellion made Her Majesty unwilling that 
‘any great number of ships or men should be taken out of England 
till the rebellion were ended, And Jastly, Her Majesty's death, and 
my long imprisonment giving time to the Spaniards to set up a town 
‘of sticks covered with leaves of trees upon the bank of Orinoco 
which they call St ‘Thomas ; but they have never reconciled nor 
of the casiques or nominal lords of the country, 
still against them in arms, as by the Governor's 
‘of Spain it may appear. 
n Guiana there'can be any breach, I think it 
¢, for to break peace where there is no peace 

Spaniards give us no peace there it doth 
of Spain's letters to his Governors that they 
| those Indians and Spaniards that trade with 

we Yea, these very Spaniards which were 

p2 















36 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


* encountered at St. Thomas’ did of late years murder thirty-six of Mr. 
Hialle’s men of London and many of mine, our men landing without 
weapons upon the Spaniards’ faith to trade with them. Mr. Thome, 
also in Tower Street, London (besides many other English), were in 
like sort murdered in Orinoco the year before my delivery out of the 
Tower. Now, if this kind of trade be peaceable, then there isa 
peaceable trade between us and the Spaniards ; but if this be cruel 
war and hatred and no peace, then there is no peace broken by our 
attempt. 

“ Again, how doth this stand true that the King of Spain should 
call us friends when he did hope to cut us in pieces, and thereof 
failing to call us peace-breakers ; for to be a friend and a peace- 
breaker in one and the same action is impossible. But the King of 
Spain's letters to the governors of Guiana, dated at Madrid the roth 
of March before we left the Thames, called us Exglices amicos. If 
it had pleased the King of Spain to have written to His Majesty in 
fifteen month's time (for we were so long time preparing), and have 
made His Majesty know that our landing in Guiana would draw after 
ita breach of peace, I presume to think His Majesty would have 
stayed our enterprise. This he might have done with less charges 
than to levy geo soldiers and transport ten pieces of ordnance 
from Puerborico, For the main point of landing near St. Thomas, 
it is true that we were of opinion that we must first have driven the 
Stvnianis out of their town before we could pass the thick wood 
upon the mountains of the mine ; which I confess I first resolved 
upon, but better bethinking myself I referred the taking of the town 
to the goodness of the mine which they found to be so rich, as I 
might persuade the leaving of a garrison there to drive the Spaniards 
thence. Rut to have it burnt was never my intent, neither could 
they ever give me any reason why they did it ; for upon their retum 
L examined the sengeant-major and Keymish why they followed not 
muy last directions for the trial of the mine before the taking of the 
town? ‘They answered me, although they durst hardly go to the 








y said they followed those latter directions and did land 
between the town and the mine ; that the Spaniards, without any 
manner of parley, set upon them unawares, charged them, called 
them ferees Engiices, and by skirmishing with them drew them on the 
very entrance of the town before they knew where they were. So as 
if any peace had been in those parts, the Spaniards first brake the 
peace and made the first slaughter ; for as the English could not but 
Jand to seek the mine, being come hither to that end, so being first 





Westward Ho! 37 


reviled and charged by the Spaniards they could do no less than 
repel force by force. 
“ Lastly, it is a matter of no small consequence to acknowledge 
we have offended the King of Spain by landing in Guiana. Yor, 
first, it weakens His Majesty's title to the country or quits it. 
Secondly, there is no king who hath ever given the least way to any 
other king or state in the traffic of the lives and goods of his subjects, 
(to wit) as im our case, that it shall be lawful for the Spaniards to 
murder us either by force or treason, and unlawful for us to defend 
ourselves and pay them with their own coin, for this proves supe- 
fiority and inferiority, which no absolute monarch ever yielded to or 
ever will. Thirdly, it showeth the English bear great respect to the 
and are more doubtfinl of their forces than the French or 
the Datch are, who daily invade all parts of the Indies without being 
questioned at their return. Yea, at my last being in Plymouth, a 
French gentleman called Flory went thence with 4 sail and 300 
with commission to land, to burn, and sack all places in 
the Indies that he could master, and yet hath the French King 
married a daughter of the King of Spain. 
“This is all I can say, other than that I have spent my poor 
‘estate, lost my son and my health, and endured as many sorts of 
taiseries as ever man did, in hope to do His Majesty service, and 
have mot, to my understanding, committed any hostile act, other 
than the entrance upona territory belonging to the crown of England, 
where the English were first set upon and stayed by the usurping 
Spaniard. 1 invaded no other parts of the Indies pretended by the 
Spaniards ; I returned into England with a manifest peril of my life, 
with a purpose not to hold myself by any other art than His 
‘Majesty's grace, from which no man nor any peril could dissuade 
‘me. To that grace and goodness 1 refer myself, which, if it shall 
find T have not yet suffered enovgh, it may (if it please God) add 
‘More affliction to the remainder of a wretched life.” 
‘This “ Apology” was laid before James, but failed to convince 
‘the sovereign that his subject had not been guilty of gross miscon- 
duet in wrecking the settlement of St. ‘Thomas. Raleigh conse- 
as ‘@ supplement to his “ Apology,” and forwarded ic to 
‘the King. He saw no reason, he re-asserted,! why Spain should 
course he had adopted. If it were lawful for Spaniards 
oe binding them back to back and then cut. 
o and yet it was not lawful for his own men to rep. 
all he could say was, “Oh, miserable English 


Site Papers, Domeits, Oct, 1618. 


























a 
38 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


“If T spent my poor estate,” he continued, “lost my son, suffered 
by sickness and otherwise a world of miseries; if I have resisted, 
with the manifest hazard of my life, the robberies and spoils which 
my company would have made ; if, when Twas poor, I might have 
made myself rich; if when Thad | gotten my liberty, which all menaed 
nature itself do so much prize, I voluntarily lost it; if when I wes 
sure of my life, I rendered it again ; if I might eleewhere have soid. 
my ship and goods and put five or six thowsind pounds in my 
pocket, and yet have brought her into Fngland; I beseech your 
Majesty to believe that all this [ have done because it should not 
be said to your Majesty that your Majesty had given liberty and 
trust to a man whose end was but the recovery of his liberty, and 
who had betrayed your Majesty's trust. My company told me that 
if I returned to England I should be undone; but I believed in 
your Majesty's goodness more than in all their arguments Sure 1 
am that I am the first that, being free and able to enrich myself, 
have embraced poverty and peril ; and as sure I am that my example 
shall make me the last. But your Majesty's wisdom and goodness I 
have made my judge; who have ever been and shall ‘ever. be:your 
Majesty's most humble vassal.” 

‘These appeals were, however, not listened to by James. ~s 

After a confinement of some six weeks Raleigh was again brought 
‘out into the light to face the ordeal of a second trial. A victim was 
required to appease the anger of Spain for the destruction of St. 
‘Thomas, and Raleigh was to be offered up as the sacrifice. ‘The 
sentence passed upon him at Winchester fifteen years ago was still 
entered in the judgment book ; it had been suspended, butit had 
never been cancelled. ‘The Court now resolved to proceed against 
its prisoner upon his old condemnation. Raleigh, shaken with ague 
and bowed with sickness, was ordered to stand at the bar of the 
King’s Bench in Westminster Hall, and was asked by the Lord Chieé 
Justice what reason he could adduce why the judgment passed upon 
him at Winchester should not now be executed?“ AILT can say is 
this, my Lord,” answered Raleigh, “that the judgment which T 
‘received to dic so long since, I hope it cannot now be'strained to 
take away my life; for that since it was His Majesty's pleasure to 
grant me a commission to proceed in ay beyond. the seas, 
wherein I had power as Marshal on the life and death of othersys0, 
under favour, I presume I am discharged of that judgment”) —* 

“ Not so, Sir Walter Raleigh,” replied the Judge; “ your com- 
mission does not in any way help you. By that you are not pare 
doned. In cases of treason, the law demands that you must be 


—_ ad 





+ Westward Ho! 30 


Ee ae eerie and not implicitly, There 
was no word tending to pardon in all your commission.” 

“If your opinion be so, my Lord,” answered Raleigh, “I am 
satisfied, and £0 put myself on the mercy of the King, who 1 know 
is gracious. And, under favour, I must say I hope he will be pleased 
‘to take commiseration upon me concerning that judgment, which is 
so long past and by which I had so hard measure.” 


‘The sentence delivered at Winchester, with the exception of 
certain barbarous details, which were rescinded, was then confirmed, 
and Raleigh was taken back to the Tower. The date of his execu- 
tion was fixed for Thursday, October 29, 1618. He was in feeble 
health, and suffered much, though he had nothing to complain of as 
to the conduct of those who kept watch over hi “ An honest 

an, Mr. Edward Wilson, is my keeper,” he writes to his wife, 
“and takes much pain withme, I am sick and weak; my swollen 
side Keeps me in perpetual pain and unrest. God comfort uv." 
And Bessic, in lodgings hard by Tower Green, but not now per- 
mitted to see her husband, thus replies + I am sorry to hear, 
amongst many discomforts, that your health is so ill; ‘tis merely 
Tee toed {] sorrow and grief that with wind hath "gathered i in 
yourside. I hope your health and comforts will mend, and mend 
us for God, 1 am glad to hear you have the company and cormfort 
‘of so good a keeper, I was something dismayed at the first that you 
‘had no servant of your own left you, but I hear this knight’s servants 
[those of the Lieutenant of the Tower) are very necessary, God 
tequite his courtesies, and God in mercy look on us—Yours, 
E Ranricn.” 

Every effort was made by the friends of the prisoner to have the 
‘read sentence exchanged for exile or imprisonment. ‘Ihe Queen, 
with whom Raleigh had always been a favourite, wrote to the 
favourite Villiers, her “kind Dogge,” as she styled him, to use his 
influence with the King so that “the life of Walter Raleigh may not 
‘De called in question.” Lady Raleigh was incessant in her piteous 
entreaties to King and Couns to have her husband spared from a 
Beestaes death. Several of the gentlemen who had 

rious expeditions peti- 
ise its prerogative of mercy. 
priests, yas visit to England, urged 
from fear that the death of Raleigh would have a 
the English people, and tend all the more to 
then existed in this country against Sgain. 
* Tei, 




















4 






40 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


‘These appeals the prisoner himself warmly supported by frequent 
invocations of the Royal clemency. a 


**Oh had Trath power, the guiltlews could nae 

Malice win glory, or revenge triumph, 

‘Bot truth alone cannot encounter all, 

“Mercy is fled to God which mercy maile ¢ 
Compasion dead ¢ faith turned to policy. 
Friends know not those who sit in sorrow's shade. 

*« For what we sometimes were, we are no more 5 
Fortune hath changed our shape and an deny, 

the very form we had before, 

* All love and all desert of former times, 

‘Malice hath cover'd from my Sovereign's eyes, 
And largely laid abroad supposed crimes, 

Dut kings eall not to mind what vassals were ; 
Bout know them now as cavy hath described them. 
So can Took on no side from despair. 

Eald walls, to yon T epeak ; but you are senseless. 
Celestial powers you hear but have determined, 
And shall determine to my greatest happiness. 


‘Then unte whom shall T unfold my wrongs, 
Cast dawn my tears, or hold up folded hands? 
‘Ta Her to whom remorse cloth most belong 5 


To Heer who is the first, and may alone 
‘Be justly eall'd the Empross of the Britons, 
Who should have mercy if'a Queen have none? 

Saye those that would have died for your defence, 
Save him whose thoughts no renson ever tainted. 
For lo! destruction is not recompense. 

“ICT have sold my duty, sold my faith, 
‘To strangers—which was only due to one} 
Nothing 1 should esteem so dear as death. 

“But if both God and time shall make you know 
‘That I, your humblest vassal, am opprest, 
‘Then cast your eyes on undeserved woe, 

“That I and mine may never mourn the mize 
OF Her we had, but praise our living Queen, 
‘Who brings us equal if not greater bilss.”” 


But all these appeals to the Crown were in vain, James 
curtly replicd that the prisoner deserved his sentence, and the 


' These Tines are among the Harleian MS. Ket homes essai 
from the careful and accurate biography of Raleigh by Me. Edward Edwants, 





Westward Ho! 4r 


law must be falfilled. The night before the execution, Raleigh was 
removed from the Tower to the Gate House of Westminster Hall, 
which had long been employed as the prison of the Liberty of 
Westminster, so as to be near the scaffold which had been erected 
in Old Palace Yard. Here he wrote his last letter to the King—a 
letter which James called “a roaring, tedious letter." “The life 
which I had, most mighty Prince," penned the condemned man," 
“the law hath taken from me, and I am now but the same carth aod 
dust out of which I was made. If my offence had any proportion 
with your Majesty's mercy, J might despair, or if my deserving had 
any quantity with your Majesty's unmeasurable goodness, I might 
have hope ; but it is you that must judge, and not 1, Home, blood, 
gentility, or estate, I have none; no, not so much as a being ; no, 
not so much asa vitam flante. Lave only a penitent soul in a 
body of iron which moveth towards the loadstone of death, and 
cannot be withheld from touching it except your Majesty's mercy 
tum the point towards me that expelleth. . . . If now I write what 
seems not well favoured, most merciful prince, youchsafe to ascribe 
it to the counsel of a dead heart and to a mind that sorrow hath 
confounded. But the more my misery is, the more is your Majesty's 
mercy, if you please to behold it; and the less I can deserve, the 
tore liberal your Majesty's gift shall be; herein you shall only 
imitate God by giving free life ; and by giving it to such a one from 
whom there can be no retribution, but only a desire to pay a lent 
life with the same great love which the same great goodness shall 
bestow on it. ‘This being the first Ictter that ever your Majesty 
received from a dead man, 1 humbly submit myself to the will of 
God, my supreme Lord, and shall willingly and patiently suffer what- 
socyer it shall please your Majesty to inflict me withal,” 

"This letter fared no better than its predecessors, and the end was 
now at hand. 

Early in the morning of that terrible Thursday the condemned 
‘man. was awoke out of a refreshing slumber, and bade dress himself 
and prepare for the worst. He received the communion from the 
hands of Dr, Tounson, the Dean of Westminster, who had of late 
had much religious conversation with him, and spent the hours 
between five and eight o'clock in fervent prayer. 

He then handed to his spiritual adviser the following lines he 
‘had composed ? :— 
ers Domestic, Oct, 1618. 

Domestic, Oct. 29, 1618. “Made by Sir Waltér Raleigh the 
his death and delivered to the Dean of Weatininater a Wie vetoes, 





4 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


“ Even such is Time which takes ln trust ——ep> 
Our youth, our hopes, and allweBave, 


And pays oe both with age and dast y a 
‘Who in the dark and silent grave, > 

‘When we have wandered all eu way, ae 

‘Shuts up the story of our days ; = 

And from which earth, and grave, and dest, ~ 
‘The Lord shall raise me up, L trait.” ~ il 


‘The eve of the day fixed for his execution Raleigh had taken : 
final farewell of his wife, and the interview between the two 
lasted until the abbey had tolled the hour of twelve. All business 
matters had been settled, and there was therefore nothing on the 
mind of the condemned man to interfere with his hopes and thoughts 
as to the unseen world into which he was about to enter ‘The 
King asa last favour had granted the wife, speedily to be made a 
widow, permission to bury the body of her husband after the heads« 
man had done his fell work, “ It is well, dear Bessie,” said Raleigh, 
pressing her in the agony of a last embrace, “ that thou may’st dispose 
of that dead which thou had’st not always the dispasing of when 
alive." So those two parted, never more to meet on this side the 
“Eternal Silence.” “God hold me in my wits!” sighed the poor 
dame as she entered her coach, stationed under the very shadow 
of the scaffold, upon which in a few brief hours the blood of her 
husband was to be shed. 

As cight o'clock struck, Raleigh held himself in readiness to quit 
the Gate House. A cup of excellent sack was now brought him, 
which he drank ata quaff. He was asked how he liked it, “As 
the fellow,” he replied, “who, drinking of St. Giles’ bowl on his way 
to Tyburn, said it was good drink if man might tarry by it.” After 
this refreshment, a procession was made to the scaffold, at the head 
of which walked the Dean of Westminster. On the way to the Old 
Palace Yard, Raleigh met Sir Hugh Brereton, an old friend, whom 
he had especially requested to be present at the execution, “Sir 
Hough, to make sure work, got a letter from Secretary Lake to the 
sheriff to sce him placed conveniently, and meeting them [the pro- 
cession) as they came near to the scaffold, delivered his letter, But 
the sheriff by mishap had teft his spectacles at home, and put the 
letter in bis pocket ; in the mean time, Sir Hugh being thrust aside 
by the crowd, Sir Walter bade him farewell, saying, ‘1 know not what 
shift you will make, but I am sure to have a pla 

It was a bitterly cold October moring, rendered all the more 
sharp by a cutting cast wind, and as Raleigh ascended the scaffold 
‘and prepared to address the vast mob that thronged the Palace ¥ 


—re 











Westward Hot 43 


that he could scarcely support himself. The sheriff, observing this 
dchility, offered to help his ill-fated charge down from the scaffold 
and take him toa fire, 50 that being warmed he might be the better 
able to deliver his dying speech: “No, good Mr. Sheriff," suid 
Raleigh, “let us despateh, for within this quarter of an hour mine 
ague will come upon me, and iff be not dead before then mine 
enemies will say that I quake for fear.” Then, holding on by the 
Tail Of the scaffold, he faced the crowd and thus began: “I thank 
‘God heartily thar He hath brought me into the light to die, and thar 
He hath not suffered me to die in the dark prison of the Tower, 
where T have suffered a great deal of misery and crue] sickness; and 
T thank God that my fever hath not taken me at the time, as I prayed 
to God it might not." After this preface, he proceeded to deal with 
‘the charges brought against him. He denied that he ever entered 
into any plot with France, though he admitted, to save his life, he 
had attempted to escape into France. He denied that he had ever 
‘Deen counselled by Lord Carew and other lords to fly the country, 
or that he had ever offered Sir Lewis Stukeley moncy to assist him 
in escaping. “But indeed,” he acknowledged, “1 showed him a 
letter that if he would go with me there should be order taken for 
his debts when he was gone ; neither had I £10,000 to give him, 
for if Thad had 30 much, I could have made my peace better with 
it other ways than in giving it to Stukeley.” He declared that his 
only object in starting for Guiana was to discover the mine which 
really existed there. He denied that he ever intended to desert 
‘his men when at Trinidad, ac had been alleged, or that he had 
been forced to return home by his men against his will, Nor was 
it true that he had casried with bim to sea numerous pieces, and 
that the only object of his voyage was to get moncy into his hands ; 
he had taken out but little money, and such as he had taken out he 
had brought back. “These be the material points,” he concluded, 
"T thought good to speak of, and I am now at this instant to 
render up an account to God; and I protest, as I shall appear 
before Him, this that I have spoken is true, and [ hope I shall be 
‘believed! 





eid the State Supers, Dometic, October 19, 1618, is the following paper, 
written ’s hand and signed by him, referring to these charges which 
‘he dented upon the seatfold ;— 
jogoinst Sir Walter Raleigh clearc by him at his death,” 
never receive advice from my Lord Carew (o mehe my escape, veither 
it (fo) Stukley, 
fame my Ton Hay and my Lord Canes vo Sksldhey (i cider 
tan 35 my honourable frienils among otlier Vacs wsy Yamane 


aa ra 





T et 
“4 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


wund asked to see the axe. He took it up, passed his hand along 
the edge, and then laid it down with the remark that it-was a fair 
sharp medicine to cure him of all his discases. After having 
removed his cloak and doublet, he knelt down and placed his head. 
upon the block. Tt was now objected to by some that the face of 
the condemned man was turned to the west instead of to the east. 
“Does it matter," said Raleigh, raising his head from its terrible 
pillow, “what way a man’s head stands so long as his heart lies 
fight?" Then he replaced his neck on the hollow of the block, 
“He had given order to the executioner that after some short 
meditation, upon stretching out his hands be was to be despatched. 
After once or twice putting forth his hands, the fellow out of 
timorousness (or what other cause) forbearing, he was fain to bid him 
strike ; and so at two blows he took off his head, though he stirred 
nota whit after the first. The people were much affected at the 
‘sight, insomuch that one was heard say that we had not such another 
head to cut off... He died very religiously and every way like 
a Christian, insomuch that the Dean of Westminster (they say) 
commends him exceedingly and says he wos as ready and as able 
to give as to take instruction.”! 

~ Edid never show unto Stukley any letier wherein there was named 10,000: 
pounds, nor any one pound, only I told him that 1 hoped to procure the payment 
‘of his debts in his absence, 

““T never hat commision from the French King. T never saw the French 
King’s hand and seal in my life. T never had any plot or practice with the French 
direetly or indirectly ; nor with any other king, prinoe, or estate unknown 10 
the Ki 

“TSMy tru alent wastage oa mincot godin Guiana; it was not feigned, but 
{ts true that such amine there Is within three miles of Si. Thomas. 

“1 never had it in my thonght to go from Trinidad and leave ty company 10 
come alter to the savage island, ax hath by Fearne (Sir John Fearne, who had 
been engaged with certain French merchants in trade te the Indies) been falsely: 

ied, 
Pry at ant eucy wth tne eon pleccs ex wemimber T had wht: as ee 
T brought back neatly the kame sum, 

“1 never spaketo the French Maxwetng [ex spest ot Esenlnay aa 
‘wonlsor dishonourable words of the Kings nor if ¥ had pot loved and honoured the 
King sty and trusted In his goodness somewhat too much, I had not suffered 


I rite Voges os a ‘and a4 Tam now to appear before His 
Uihunal seat where T renounce all mercies and salvation if this be not the truth. 
“Atiny death, 
“Ww, 


| Por the accoant of the execution of Sir Walter Raleigh sce Stare Papers, 
aA BOE Te cette fo Wr Dale eee 


” 





Westward Hot 45 


Shortly before his execution Raleigh drew up two epigrams, 
which are to be found among the national archives, and which, like 
other matters contained in this article, have never before reached the 
Tight of print.' This is the first + 

“Who best did calculate the life of man 
Found thee scare and ten years made up his span. 
‘If more then to survive, be, to be dead, 

Life lost not Raweley when he lost his head.” 


‘The second is as follows :— 


+ Hope flattered thee though laws did life convince 
Vet thou might'st dic in favour of thy Prince, 
‘fis mercy and thy liberty at last 
Did weal belief and make opinion fast ; 
In tenth when Time had pulled thee out of gaol, 
And new hopes had set again new sail, 
‘As many of this world as held free will 
‘Thought thou wer't safe and had'st escaped thy ill; 
But now we see that (how wer't bailed by fate 
To live oF die, as thou could’st serve our state, 
And then wer't lost, when it wes undersicod 
Thou might'st do harm, but could’st not do more good.” 











So passed to his rest one whose exact position in historical bio- 
graphy it is somewhat difficult to determine. Sir Walter Raleigh was 
aman so bitterly detested by his enemies, and whose memory was 
cherished with such bitter animosity for some five decades after his 
head had fallen on the scaffold in Old Palace Vard, that it is not easy 
to thresh out the truth from the chaff of hate and prejudice under 
which his name and actions lic buried, ‘That he was proud, passionate, 
and domineering we have evidence enough to conclude, What he 
attempted he was keenly in earnest to achieve, nor was he over- 
scrupulous in the means he cmployed to gain his ends, Ambition 
‘and avarice were, it was alleged, the dominant factors in his character. 
When in chasing Spanish galleons, or fitting out expeditions for 
the purposes of exploration across the Atlantic, or when taking his 
seat at the Council-table, or bearing up his ship to close with the 
foe, he was sullen under control, impatient of contradiction and ever 

jing to take the fead. Let him command and all obey, then 
such power suited and pleased him; under other conditions it was 
ard to act in harmony with him. His was essentially an acrid and 
‘despotic nature. Among the eminent men of his day he scarcely 
had a true friend, and it is painful to read in the letters of his con- 


© State Papers, Domestic, Oct. 31, 1618, * Ancpiyramol Sin Water awd, 
Deheailed at 74 years of his age.” 





= | 


46 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


temyaaries how frequent were the disparaging remarks his petulant 
and grasping disposition called forth. Yet, in spite of the faults and 
vives of his character, the name of Raleigh is one which the history 
of this island will never attempt to erase from its list of celebrities. 
‘Tle man was, in every sense of the word, a true patriot ; confident 
in the prowess of his country, and keenly sensitive as to her honour. 
11 was the staunchness of his English instincts that made him wax so 
wtoth when he saw a miserable creature, like our first James, truckle 
tu foreign Powers and drag the flag of England through the mire of 
Jnnse arsvility, He held that his country was second to none ; that 
ly Iwi own afrength and fertility of resource she could meet unaided 
muy tow {hit croused her path ; and he scorned with all the fire of 
Ia Wanpet the pusillanimity inspired by the Court which made Eng- 
I4int tommbdss at the frown of Spain, and fear where France and 
Hodbunt never feared, Had his wish been fulfilled he would have 
colonisation had held out hopes of prosperous 
eed erent, I will have declined to admit claims based on no 
edd jvet neinna 5 and he would have given full rein to his spirit of 
alvin aid have made the England of James as enterprising, 
mf va tit ete from foreign control, as had been the England 
Hb ila Wiest tuiatieas, brave and imperious Queen Bess. 
ALEX. CHARLES EWALD. 





bepdeaedd whitey 





47 


MY MUSICAL LIFE, 


I. 


S my ideas group themselves most naturally about my favourite 
imstrument—the yiolin—I may as well resume the thread of 
my narrative in connection with my earliest violin recollections. 

I became possessed, at the age of six years, of a smail red 
eighteenpenny fiddle and stick, with that flimsy bow and those 
thready strings, which are made apparently only to snap, even as the 
fiddle is made only to smash. I thus carly became familiar with 
the idol of my youth, But familiarity did not breed contempt. 
I proceeded to elicit from the red cighteenpenny all it had to give ; 
and when I had done with it, my nurse removed the belly, and 
found it made an admirable dust-pan or wooden shovel for cinders, 
and, finally, excellent firewood. Many went that way, without my 
passion for toy fiddles suffering the least decline ; nay, it rather grew 
by that it (and the fire) fed on. It may not be euperfiuous to add 
that I had by this time found means to make the flimsiest strings 
yield up sounds which I need not here characterise, and to such 
purpose that it became a question of some interest how long 
such sounds could be endured by the human ear. I do not mean 
my own. All violinists, including infants on elghteenpennies, or 
combs, admit that to their own car the sounds produced are nothing 
but delightful ; it & only those who do not make them who com- 
plain, As it seemed unlikely that my studies on the violin would 
stop, it became expedient that they should be directed. A full-sized 
violin was procured me. I have every reason to believe it was one 
of the worst fiddies I ever saw. 

T had played many times with much applause, holding a full- 
sized violin between my knees. I was about eight years old when 
the services of the local organist—a Mr. Ingram, of Norwood—were 
called in. ‘His skill on the violin was not great, but it was coough 
for me; t00.much,, in fact, for he insisted on my holding the violin 
up to my chin, The fact is, he could not play it in any other 
position himself, so how could he teach me? Of course the instru- 
“ment was a great clea) too large ; but 1 strained and stretched. sant 





——— _| 


| 
48 The Gentleman's Magasine. 


T got it up, for as it would mot grow down to he beriet ee 
to it, And here I glance at the crucial question, Oyght 

children to begin upon small-sized violins? All makers arene 
naturally, for they supply the new violins of all sizes. ‘Bar T emphe- 
tically say “No." The roan the eld gett aaa 
right violin intervals the better; the small violins merely present 
him with a series of wrong distances, which he has 

untearn, It is bad enough if in after years he learns the violoncello” 
or tenor, Few violinists survive that ordeal, and most people who 
take to the tenor or ‘cello after playing the violin keep to it. Either 
they have not been successful on the violin, or they hope to become 
‘80 on its larger though less brilliant relation ; but they have a per 
fectly true instinct that it is difficult to excel on both, because of the 
intervals. Yet, in the face of this, you pat a series of violins of 
different sizes into the pupil's hand, on the ground that, as his hand 
enlarges with years, the enlarged key-board will suit his fingers better s 
but that is not the way the brain works—#he drain farrms intervals, 
It does not bother itself about the size of the fingers that have got to 
stretch them. A child of even seven or cight can stretch all the 
ordinary intervals on a full-sized violin finger-board. He may not 
be able to hold the violin to his chin; but he can learn his scales 
and pick out tunes, sitting on a stool and holding his instrument like 
avioloncetlo. Before the age of cight I found no difficulty in doing 
this. But the greater the difficulty the better the practice. The 
tendons cannot be too much stretched short of spraining and 
breaking. Mere aching is to be made no account of; the muscles 
can hardly be too much worked. A child will soon gain surprising 
agility, even on a large finger-board, 

Avoid the hateful figured slip of paper that used to be pasted on 
violin finger-boards in my youth, with round dots for the fingers. I 
remember tearing mine off in a fit of uncontrollable irritation. I 
found it very difficult, with the use of my eyes, to put my fingers on 
the dots, and even then the note was not always in tune, for of course 
the dot might be covered in a dozen ways by the finger tips, and a 
hair's breadth one way or the other would vary the note. But the 
principle is vicious. A violin player's eyes have no more business 
with his fingers than a billiard player's eyes have with his cue, He 
looks at the ball, and the musician, if he looks at anything, should 
look at the notes, or at his audience, or he can shut his eyes if he 
likes. Ie is his ears, not his eyes, have to do with his fingers, 

Twas about cight years old. My musical studies were systematic, 
4f not well directed. Every morning for two hours 1 practised scales 

- 














My Musical Life. 49 


and various tunes at « double desk, my father on one side and I on 
the other, We played the most deplorable arrangements, and we 
made the most detestable noise. Weplayed Beethoven's overture to 
“ Prometheus," arranged for two fiddles, Calleott's German melodies 
with pianoforte accompaniment, and without the violoncello part, and 
trios—also without the third instrument, I had somehow 
ceased to take Jessons now. My father’s knowledge of violin playing 
was exactly on a level with my own ; his skill, he modestly owned, 
was cven less, but had it not been for him I never should have 
played at all. Our method was simple. Wee sat for two hours after 
breakfast and scraped. In the evening, with the addition of the 
piano, we scraped again—anything we could get hold of—and we 
Tid get hold of odd things: Locke's music to “ Macbeth," old 
the “ Battle of Prague,” “ God save the Emperor,” and 
the * Huntsman’s Chorus.” I confess 1 hated the practising, it was 
drudgery—and put it in what way you will, the early stage of 
violin playing is drudgery—but it must be gone through with, And 
then I had my hours of relaxation. I used to walk up and down 
the lawn in our garden playing tunes in my own fashion. I got very 
‘much at home on the key-board, and that is the grand thing after all, 
No one ever gets at home there who has not begun young—not so 
young 2s T began, but at least under the age of twelve, I was soon 
considered an infant phenomenon on the violin, and trotted out at 
parties, and I thus early got over all shyness at playing in public. 
About this time I received a decided impulse from hearing a 
Tittle girl, aged six, play on the violin exquisitely, and, as it seemed 
to me, prodigiously, There were three sisters, named ‘Turner; the 
eldest was only fifteen : two played the harp, and the youngest, a 
pretty child of six, played the violin. She had one of those miniature 
instruments—I believe a real Cremona~which can still be picked 
‘upatold violin shops. I remember the enthusiasm she created in some 
‘variations on airs feom “ Sonnambula,” an opera in which Jenny Lind 
was making furor at the time in London. The poor little violinist 
was recalled again and again. It was past eleven, and as she came 
on in her little pink dress just down to her knees~-holding her tiny 
fiddle—T recollect her raising it to her chin to begin again, but her 
Tittle head lay so wearily on one side, and she looked so tired, that 
her acute father came forward, perceiving that the child was quite 
‘worn out, drew her away, and in a few words asked the people to let 
‘her off, adding that she ought to have been in bed an hour ago, 1 
tried those variations, J could not play them, but her 
8 me 2 new start, The finest lesson a young 
ia g 








a 








We 


shear ge: 
We seemed. as 


hand of 








Jieve no public quanets 
rare feature in some 








‘ sown wrote: Lae dteness to say that to 
rduction was not in accordance with their rale, but that 
mnstinces he # be glad to conform to my father’s 
my father’s sacred office—that of a clergyman— 
ways tuaptird hime with the greatest respect. Accordingly I went. 
eernrer est performances I heard in my boy- 
ysl ot, in some respects, have they ever been excelled in 











su a 
What quutet iste that was! Sainton, Hill, Piatti, and 
tauntun full of fire, brilliancy, and delicacy. Cowper 
jit unae tune, sand a depth and passion which sometimes gave him 
1h. advantye over his Driliiant French rival ; but at the end of each 
+, left Lalancing the merits of the two violinists, 
1 times, to the Englishman’s fervour and abandon, but 
h ly the Ficnehin’s finish and execution, In Spohr’s 
ty cart had a opportunity for the display of his peculiar 
tle; cach gave his own reading to the 
tain, and this friendly artistic rivalry was to me 











voy 























vate dies 





ftp contin 








Vit wees ple ndid tet, full, round, and smooth in tone ; and 
Voc pai Mets, it is needless here to speak, 
Wao bonis were never full an these occasions 5 the Monday 








Fond wet yet culty 





tas 





el the publ ¢ up to chamber 
File chion dl soit Tn that held Professor Ella, with his 









woe Vow feet dotherte Lilvaned) alone, But every one at 
fae The players all seemed to feel the 
aud yemal Every one played heartily, and 

Vee beat that caild be get. 
ty seduced wwe buat pouitientay stat appeared as a soloist. 


seedbeycebaie toain st part Angel: ail apparently with no physique 








My Musical Life, 5 


to command attention on a grand pianoforte in a large room. She 
came in alight bloc muslin dress ; sat down hurriedly, and tossed her 
ourls back, looking straight up at the ceiling, whilst her fingers ran 
quickly in a slight prelude over the keys; then she plunged into a 
polonaise—or something of the kind ; it might have been one of 
poor Chopin's ; it probably was, for he was about that time the rage, 
and quite in the last stage, dying of consumption in London and 
Scotch drawing-rooms, catching fresh colds every night, faultlessly 
attired in the miserable dress clothes and exposed shirt-front of the 
period. Attention liad not then been called to his music, but about 
that time it mas beginning to be very fashionable inLo ndon, which 
in such matters tardily followed Paris, where Chopin had long 
been adored: now it is London that leads the musical taste—after 
Germany. Ihave since been told that Malle. Clauss—afterwards 
Seavardy Clauss—was cold and mechanical, 1 only heard her that 
once, and that was at Willis’s Rooms in, I believe, 1849. We did not 
think her cold then. From the moment she sat down until she 
sprang up with that same little flustered, uneasy manner which 1 
noticed on her entrance, our eyes were riveted upon her, and we 
followed every bar-and inflexion of the rapid execution. She seemed 
to play her piece through—as I have sometimes heard Rubinstein 
without taking breath, and we were forced to hold ours: as the 
artists sometimes say of a picture, “ It is painted with one brush,” so 
Maile. Clauss never relaxed her mood or her grip; she held her 
and her audience absolutely fast until she had done with 
both; then she seemed to push both away like one eager to 















‘On a certain afternoon there was neither solo pianist nor violinist 
down on the programme, buta player on the comfre-brsso was to occupy 
the vacant place. I remember my disappointment. Who is that 

tall, sallow-looking creature, with black moustache and straight hair, 
Oe eet yet withal a comely hand, who comes lugging a 
great double-bass with him? Some one might have lifted it up for 
ae 5 but no, he carries it himself and hoists it lovingly on to the plat. 
form. He scems familiar with its ways, and will allow no one to help 
him, Why, there are Sainton, Hill, Piatti, and Cowper, all coming on 
without their fiddies. “They seem vastly interested in this ungzialy 
‘man and the big bass. He has no music. People 
standing up to get a better sight of him, although he is 
‘fn all conscience. I had better stand up too; they are 
of me, I shall see nothing !—su I stood on a 
curiosity over, we all sat down, and expecting 
x2 





a 


52 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


little but a series of grunts, were astonished at the outset at the 
ethereal notes lightly touched on the three thick strings, Aarmonics of 
course, just for tuning. But all seemed exquisitely in tune with the 
piano. 

This man was Bottesini, then the latest novelty. How he 
bewildered us by playing all sorts of melodies in flute-like harmonics, 
as though he had a hundred nightingales caged in his double-bass ! 
Where he got his harmonic sequences from ; how he hit the exact 
place with his long, sensitive, ivory-looking fingers ; how he swarmed 
up and down the key-board, holding it round the neck at times with 
the grip of a giant, then, after eliciting a grumble of musical 
thunder, darting up to the top and down again, with an expression 
on his face that never seemed to alter, and his face always calmly 
and rather grimly surveying the audience ; how his bow moved with 
the rapidity of lightning, and his fingers seemed, like Miss Kilman- 
segg’s leg, to be a judicious compound of clockwork and steam : all 
this, and more, is now a matter of musical history, but it was new then. 
J heard him play the “Carnival de Venice.” I have heard him 
play it and some three or four other solos since at intervals of years. 
His stock seemed to me limited ; but when you can make your 
fortune with half a dozen, or even a couple of solos, why play more? 
‘Then Bottesini was fond of conducting and of composing. He got 
a good appointment in Egypt, and I suppose got tired of going 
ground playing the same solos. I never wearied of his consummate 

ce and finish, his fatal precision, his heavenly tone, his fine taste. 
See sometimes yearned for a touch of human imperfection, but he 
was like 9 dead shot: he never missed what he aimed at, and he 
‘ever aitned at less than perfection, 

‘Another afternoon there came on a boy with a shock head of 
nt hair, who was received with a storm of applause. He was 
ahour sixteen, and held a violin. His name was Joachim. He laid 
is head upon his Cremona, lifted his bow arm, and plunged into such 
4 marvellous performance of Bach's Chaconne as was certainly never 
Peder Hand in London, ‘The boy seemed to fall into a dream in 
petening (0 his own complicated mechanism. He shook out the 

with the utmost case and fluencys It all seemed no trouble to 
Yaa and lett him quite free to contemplate the masterpiece which 
Meee busy i interpreting, Mendelssohn, after hearing him play 
fame masterpiece on one occasion, caught him in his arms and 

A him before the audience, 
yivent few concerts, and those usually of a poor sort, but I was 
ic, and each performance made an indelible. im- 


Een) for mai 


My Musical Life. 53 


pression upon my mind. I remember the very rooms—the “Horns” at 
Kennington, the dining-room at the Beulah Spa, Upper Norwood, 
aschoolroom at Brixton, our own schoolroom at Lower Norwood— 
where Mr. Hullah—looking (in 1846) very much as he docs now 
(1883)—used occasionally to appear to superintend the classes on his 
then novel system. He usually, however, sent Mr, May, a very nice- 
looking young man, whom have since met in London, and who is 
now “the same age as other people." 

‘We used to trudge, my father, my sister, and self, through the 
snow to these classes. It was not an unmixed delight, like so many 
other things in this world that are so good for us, 

I wore socks and shoes, and my logs were bare to my kaces. I 
invariably forgot my gloves, and my hands and legs were always blue 
with cold. 


Mr, Hullah himself was looked up to witha certain awe. He 
‘Was a very great and celebrated man, but his affability in speaking to 
my father was surprising. I can remember his genial, kindly face ; 
and his manner with children was quite gentle and friendly, con- 
sidering who he was, But withal he was very business-like and 
Systematic—and no nonsense. 

About this time I heard Miss Dolby, then in her prime. How 
ashe did sing “Bonny Dundee," accompanying hersclf! What a 
voice ! what a foxhowie! Always the true artist, the estimable 
woman, the eamest worker. She had deserved her popularity, and 
retained her hold over the public longer than most singers. For 
how many years was she without a rival in oratorio! It would not be 
tight to say that she “ created" “0 rest in the Lord,” but it is true 
to say that for years the song was identified with her rendering of it, 
and that no subsequent singer has forsaken that rendering with any 
succesz Some have over-hurried it, and some have over-declaimed. 
it. Thave heard itactually preached at the people—an inexpressibly 
offensive method; but Miss Dolby hit the happy mean, with the 
‘truest perception of the right functions of oratorio art, She seemed 
personally filled with finely chastened but deep emotion, and she 
gave herself up to the expression of it ix the presence of others, but 
not af them, She knew she was being overheard, and she expected 
sympathy ; but she was not engaged in a propaganda, and did not 
aim at forcing conviction. 

‘When Miss Dolby married M. Sainton, the world of art rejoiced 
‘over the union of two persons who had already passed a considerable 
portion of their busy lives in the service of the English people, and 


‘with that simple-minded devotion to the highest interests of the 
a 5 



















‘en's band at the Surrey Zoological 
was going on at night, with explo- 





te real to me—they were blown to pieces every 
evening—and the fort, with the sentinels pacing up and down on the 
ramparts, as large as fe. The band played in a covered alcove not 
tar thom the water's ‘The effect on a summer’s evening was 
dlohghttul,Jullien’s enormous white waistccat and heavy gilt chair 
male a good centre, I can see his lange. puffy, pale face and black 
moustache tow, as he tolled back exhausted in his gorgeous fauteuil ; 
thon sprang upy & patted the solo comet on the shoulder 
wath © Phatiquer | pened to overhear him. “ Pratiquer, il 
taut tonroms pe Rottesini also played there in the still 
anuimict evenings, with m2 , accompanied by Jullien’s band. 
Dave ant nights of mv childhood, what music! what fireworks ! 

At tis tine Font Ernst were both in London, and Liszt 
Dbothone passe hte meteor. I never heard any of them 
vw Rhett puny HL ne Lind-Goldschmidt sing the 
F Ravens ata eoneytt erwards, ard it was my privilege to 
Do Pinst betowe be nor shall I ever hear 
gan Ue jesty’s Opera House, when 

suey sgental to dream through a performance of the 
per of the violin controlled the 
wand at times, and no one 
nasal trom the uf to the down 
which had such power to 
















































Hosmer, the magtense band 
Coll ttl our the sound w 
Tyay oan thse het cantatite 








ute atic gays 

LD heant haw liter ae Rigten. He played out of tune, and I 
Aves tall atat he Was se shaken in nerve, that playing a Beethoven 
dweatteh An putty, dad Conny ze of the first violin of no 
Walitticulty, whiet L bave often scrambled through with impunity, 


¢ and declared himself unequal 












Awe Ula oth 

Aiveat, deep-souled weitl magician of the Cremona! I can see 
Why pale, gaunt Eve even now S those dark, haggard-looking eyes, 
With the strange veiled tines, semi-mesmerie, the wasted hands, so 
vaptenatve ind sensitive, the thin, lank hair and emaciated form, yet 
wWithal nothing demoniae about thee like Paganini, from whom thou 
Want absolutely distinct, No copy thou, thyself all thyself—tender, 
sympathetic, gentle as a child, suffering, always suffering ; full of an 









My Musical Life, 55 


‘excessive sensibility ; full of charm ; irresistible and fascinating beyond 
words ! Thy Cremona should have been buried with thee. It has fallen 
into other hands. I see it every season in the concert-room: Madame 
Norman-Neéruda plays it. I know she is an admirable artist. I do 
not hear thy Cremona ; its voice has gone out with thee, its soul has 
passed with thine. 

Tn the night I hear it under the stars, when the moon is low, and 
I see the dark ridges of the clover hills, and rabbits and hares, black 
against the paler sky, pausing to feed or crouching to listen to the 
voices of the night. 

Alone in the autumn woods, when through the shivering trecs I 
‘gee the angry yellow streaks of the sunset, and the dead leaves fall 
across a sky that threatens storm. 

‘By the sea, when the cold mists rise, and hollow murmurs, like 
the low wail of lost spirits, rush along the beach, 

‘Tn some still valley in the South, in midsummer, the slate-coloured 
‘moth on the rock flashes suddenly into crimson and takes wing ; the 
bright-cyed lizard darts timorously, and the singing of the grasshopper 
Mever ceases in the long grass; the air is heavyand slumberous with 
insect life and the breath of flowers, I can sce the blue sky—intense 
‘blue, mirrored in the lake—and w bird floats mirrored in the blue, and 
‘ever the shining water comes the sound, breaking the singing silences 
Of nature: such things are in our dreams | 

Tt is thus only I can hear again the spirit voice of thy Cremona, 
dead master, but not at St. James's Hall ; no longer in the crowded 
haunts of men as once, its body only is there; its soul was the very 
‘soul of the master who has passed to where the chiming is “after the 
chiming of the eternal spheres." 

A heard other great players : Sivori, delicate, refined, with a 
perfect command of his instrument—a pupil of Paganini’s, playing all 
Paganini’s pieces, and probably no more like Paganini than a Roman 
tandle is like a meteor; Chatterton on the harp, a thankless instru- 
‘ment, without varicty and never in tunc, whose depths arc quickly 
sounded—an arpeggio, 2 few Aarmonics, a few full glorious chords, an 
ethereal whispering, and dw capo! Piatti on the violoncello—a 

 yioloncello—so pure and free from catgut and 
fosin came the sound ; and pianists innumerable in later days. But 
‘if, looking back and up to the present hour, Tam asked to name 
off-hand the greatest players—the very greatest I have heard— 
‘I say‘at once Ernst, Liszt, Rubinstcin, 
ellie ML, %. HAWEIS, 
a (7% be continued.) 


~ «i 





Two Wintry Critises in the English Channel, 57 


without a misgiving, other than that latent obedience to the proverbs 
“Roose (é«. Praise) a fair day at evening,” and “Never halloo till 
you are out of the wood,” which to an old traveller becomes second | 
nature. But the newer hands were mapping out their hours and 
deciding by what trains to travel, as surely as though we were already 
in Liverpool, 

Towards midnight a denise mist came on, and though the captain, 
first and third officers, and quarter-master were all on the bridge 
keeping watch, they could not see half the length of the ship, 
‘Through the dense fog came 2 faint unsteady halo, suggestive of a 
Tight, sometimes just visible, then vanishing as the mist drifted past 
in denser volume. Unfortunately they concluded it must be the 
lighthouse on the Stacks, and steered accordingly. Alas! it was the 
Skerries, which we should have passed on the other side, As it was, 
‘we ran right on to a shelving rock at the foot of steep cliffs on the 


We had all night been going so slow as to be scarcely conscious 
of movement, and as the land loomed above us, the order was given 
“Full speed astern,” so we were actually backing at the rate of 
fifteen knots an hour when, at 2.30 a.m, we struck. Consequently 
the shock was no greater than that sensation of running ashore 
which becomes so familiar to those who often pass through the Suce 
‘Canal, and the crash of our keel rending asunder on the cruel rocks, 
produced no louder sound than that of the anchor going down. 
A moment later we heard the order for “‘all hands” on deck, which 
left no room for doubt as to what had happened. I ventured 
to take time to dress and lock my boxes, then hurried up on deck, 
Gragging with me a great bundle of treasured portfolios containing 
precious memorials of many far lands, from which I was reselved 
not to part. 

Passing from the quiet of the partially-lighted saloon to the ex- 
ceeding darkness on deck, all seemed confusion. Through the dense 
tmist we could scarcely discern the great dark crags, which our bow 
was almost touching. The vessel lay over on the starboard side at 
sachan angle as to make it impossible to launch the boats on the port 
‘side, which, however, mattered less, as two of them had been rendered 
useless on the night of the 9th. Unfortunately, of the three that were 
available, only one proved seaworthy when brought to trial. Even 
in Towering and manning these, the lack of previous drill was pain- 
fally evident. The men, though most willing, did not appear to 
know their stations, and half an hour elapsed ere the first boat was. 


‘This, according to regulation, was assigned Lo Yue \aties wm. 
a _| 


applty Gor eyeall hn daisy peed SOE Sf 1 
may be cases, even on board ship, when the law ¢ anque 
tioning obedience may admit of some modil 
vinced that taking to the boats meant taking in so 2 
must destroy the portfolios of water-colour drawings, from which I 
could not part, T ventured to ask the captain to let me stick by the 
ship, to which he kindly assented. So 1 watched the other five 
ladies and three ehildren lowered by a rope ladder, with a rope 
round their waist, and then the boat was despatched to find its way 
to Holyhead under guidance of the ilotsroar wala eae a 
Qucenstown. 

Meanwhile the firemen had rushed up, like rats apni 
‘the sinking ship, and the captain with difficulty prevented their jump 
ing into, and so swamping, the first boat’ He, however, gave them 
{he second, in order to get rid of them; and the third, which proved 
Jo be the only sound boat of the lot, was told off just to land all the 
iiale passengers at the nearest possible point, and then to Tetum to 
stand by the wreck. All this time we were burning blue lights end 
\eluerels, and fired our only gun twelve times (twelve charges of 
jowdor was all we had on board). These guns were, as I have 
flready rwmarked, distinctly heard in Holyhead, which was. only 
dintant five miles, across a dead-calm bay, and the only result was a 
Wiscumion between the authorities whether to do something or 
nothing, Which ended in a decision to do nothing. 

Mad there been any sea on, the vessel would inevitably have 
Heelod over and broken up, in which case our chances would have 
‘wen poor indeed, 90 rugged was the rocky coast on which we lay, 
As it was, there was great danger that this might happen, and, as we 
Wworv left without a boat, the captain appealed for a volunteer to swim 
whore with a rope, For some time no one would come forward, 








Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 59 


and his kindly firmness with the men was tested to the uttermost 
Jong before night. 

Danger from another cause threatened us. The firemen in their 
hurry to escape had taken no steps to shut off steam or lower the 
Gres, so there was imminent danger of an explosion, and the officer 
fn charge was nearly suffocated in the attempt to do this work 
unaided. After a while he managed to get help, and so this danger 
was averted. Meanwhile the stewards were working admirably, and 
were now engaged in saving the Company's plateand linen. Finding 
‘myself left alone, I occupied my leisure by going round all the cabins, 
and packing the lugeage of my fellow-passengers, much to their sub- 
Sequent satisfaction and surprise, This dane, I resumed watch on 
deek ; the mist had cleared away, and in the carly dawn we could 
see the town of Holyhead, and all the steamers in harbour, as plainly 
‘28 its inhabitants must have seen us ; while on our right uprose the 
lighthouse on the Skerries, Several times we saw small steamers 
which seemed to be coming towards us, but, like the Pharisee of 
old, they passed by on the other side. I had just been reading an 
admirable article in Soritne’s Magazine for January 1880 on the 
lifeboat service in America, and the contrast between the vigilance 
‘therein described and the culpable neglect of which we were victims 
om this Welsh coast was too forcible to be pleasant. 

‘Help was, however, at hand from an unexpected quarter. A 
small steamer (the Sea Avg, Captain Bibby) had left Liverpool at 
midnight, bound for Holyhead, and on entering the bay observed 
lights in an unwonted position, so came out of its course to investigate, 
and at 7 a.m. Iay alongside of us We hailed the good little ship as 
heaven-sent. Mails and baggage were immediately transferred to 
her, nor were we slow to follow, and were soon joined by all the 
male passengers, who just then appeared on the crags above us. 

‘They had rowed a considerable distance along the shore in the 
dark before they succeeded in finding a spot where they could 
Jand, and even then they had to wade through deep water. With 
some difficulty they scrambled up the cliffs, and found cottages and 
achurch, They knocked at the cottage doors and asked leave to 
come in and got dried, but the Saxon tongue fell unintelligibly on 

) Cymric ears, and Cymric hearts had apparently no sympathy for 

mariners, for the sole response was that one man pro- 

ced a large club and made warlike demonstrations in case any one 
venture to cross his threshold. 

: if this story came to you from the South Pacific Isles, 
Satan quite natural, but T beg to assure you it is not 


— = | 





60 


reyes nie uae Some of those poor wet fellows were, 
like myself, returning home after years of absence in lands called 
uncivilised, but we all agreed that we should have had to go far 
" feet tn match our experiencia tea 


ACS Aa tin Os moaiaee was AS start, but of course she 
could not abandon the captain and officers of a vessel liable at any 
moment to heel over and go to pieces, and it was 11 ast. before a 
‘small steamer of the Trinity House approached. Lloyd's agent and 
a pilot had already arrived in small sailing-boats, not with much view 
to rendering assistance, E should say, and they returned with ug in 
the See Avng to Holyhead, where the ladies had arrived about elate 
o'clock. 

On leaving the ship at 3 a.m., their boat was found to be leaking 
‘s0 seriously that, meeting the second boat with the firemen, 
all transferred to it, during which process they lost such little baggage 
as they had taken with them. There were now twenty-seven persons 
in the boat, and of the oarsmen, only three were seamen. Tt was 
‘soon evident that the second boat leaked worse than the first. Four 
men were told off exclusively to bale her out with buckets, but with: 
all their exertions the water was up to the thwarts, and it seemed as 
if she must inevitably founder. The distance to Holyhead was only 
five miles, and the water dead calm, but it took five hours to cross 
the bay, and when they did arrive, soaked and cramped (one lady 
having to be carried ashore fainting), they were kept waiting a couple 
of hours, before the hotel could produce any breakfast, and they were 
too much stupefied to think of going to bed and having their clothes 
dried. Where so little care was shown for ladies and children, there 
was even less for the men, and so it was no wonder that the crew 
partock freely of the only solace casily obtained, and were soon 
exeeedingly drunk, and indulged in a serics of free fights for the rest 
ofthe day. 

Tt was late in the afternoon ere, having returned to the Montana 
with telegraphic instructions from the head office, and said a mourn- 
fal farewell to our kind captain, we looked our last at the poor ship 
which had carried us so gallantly across the Atlantic. Then the 
good little Sex Aimy started for Liverpool, where we arrived safely ere 


4 Strange to say, the Afovtyme it gain sfleat. Thanks to the Se 
of dead calms for many days, she never moved from her original 
et Oe Bee SS a re oe ae eae 
‘afer removing all her cargo, 10 float her once more. She is the largest vessel 
that hat ever been thus saved, 














Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 61 


deeply impressed by the utter apathy and indifference of 
the inhabitants of Holylead, to whom, appaiently, the wreck of 
large steamers within sight of their windows must be so common a 
sight as to have lost ¢ven the interest of novelty,! 

Among the passengers who endured those five hours of imminent 
danger and misery in the little boat were a family, consisting of 
father, mother, and three children, who, just a month previously, had 
sailed from New York for Hull, in the S.S. Aindvo, of the Wilson 
Tine. When in mid-ocean she encountered a terrific storm, which 
‘swept her decks, carrying away ten boats, her funnel, and her atecring 
gear. Three officers were drowned, and the captain was carried over- 
board, but brought back by the reflux. Her live cargo, consisting of 
upwards of two hundred head of cattle, became wild with terror, and 
added so much to the confusion that they had to be thrown overboard. 
For a week the vessel lay helpless on the great waters, with all hands 
atthe pumps, yet unable to keep pace with the leakage. Day by 
day she was slowly but surely sinking, and all on board stood face 
to face with death, with no food save a little dry biscuit, On 
February 22 she was sighted by the SS, Alexandrie,? which rescucd 
her crew and passengers, in all fifty-three persons, and carried them 
back to New York, when the passengers were at once transferred 
to the Montana, which was on the eve of sailing. 

Bya singular coincidence, I had started from England seven years 
Previously in the Aindoo, then a magnificently-fitted new vessel, 
on her trial trip, so that the “Montana” was actually carrying the first 
and fast passengers of that illfated ship! Perhaps some notes of 
that 8 trial trip may not, be wholly without interest at the 


A ae of the Afiedov appeared in the /Mustrated London 
News of November 23, 1872, on which day she sailed for Calcutta. 
She was a vessel of upwards of 3,200 tons, very long and very 
narrow; her length from stem to stern being about 380 fect, a 
width only 37. sade built expressly for the Suez Canal ; 
her singular proportio: 

‘The peculiarity other internal arrangements also claimed notice. 
Allaccommodation for first-class passengers was placed in the middle 
of the vessel (1 should rather use the nautical term, mdshifs), thereby 

* The sister ship to the Afentena ran ashore just beyond the Skerries a few 

‘montis previously. And hers, 100, Is the scene of the awful wreck of the Ayyal 


a diseande bad « day or two previously rescued the crew of another 


ood leider her captain whose keen end sympathetic gyae Gen 
of the Livdeo, 


Pa 





eft not to be lightly weighed in a vessel 
r direct to the topics. From these hints you 
Jer that the ship was designed with the intention that she 
\e first class in every respect ; a credit to her builders, the 
wf Ner captain, and to her passengers a home as comfortable 
quilt be found on the face of the occan, But alas! for the too 
‘wellqniven truth of how 
‘The best laid plans o! mice and men 
Gang aft a-gley. 


week from the day on which the new ship sailed so hopefully 
(inayesend to begin her sea life, a poor struggling vessel, hoisting 
4 of distress, contrived with the utmost difficulty to enter the 

‘it Plymouth, there to unship her passengers and cargo, and 
seek for horelf an asylum wherein she might repair her damages ; 
yi seh damage only as was fairly due to wind and storm, but such 
sy etalied from contract work hastily slurred over with a view to 
at Jook well on the surface, by men who little heeded or cared. 








sieatly others might eventually have to pay for their recklessness, 
iy the hour of need, the iron bars that looked so strong should 
all honeycombed with airsholes, and when the fatal leak 
teveal the omission of necessary bolts and rivets, to say 
of sundry lesser dangers and inconveniences, due to the 


work of tired or careless hands working overtime—working, 
latterly night and day, in order, if possible, to have the 


jer, and though the crew and the stewards worked like 
attempting to get the cargo shipped and stores unpacked, 
three days was found necessary; even then all was dirty 


Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 63 


and ‘nready when, on the afternoon of Saturday, 23rd, a large 
umber of passengers embarked at Gravesend. A second detach- 
‘ment awaited us at Plymouth, where we were due two days later. 

‘Ready or unready, we sailed on Sunday morning; our ship's 
company so newly gathered together that officers, Sailors, and 
stewards were, all alike, total strangers one to another, every one 
asking his neighbour's name. The passengers, of course, started 
with the mutual angularity peculiar to true Britons—angles, however, 
which storm and tempest very quickly wore off, rounding and 
smoothing us, like pebbles on a wave-worn beach. 

‘The first step towards amalgamation was the institution of church 
services, whereat our five parsons (forgetting all minor differences of 
denomination) agreed to officiate by turns ; hearty services in which 
the majority were ready to join. Here we first detected what good 
material for a fiature choir lay ready for whatever master-hand could 
undertake the guidance of a very large proportion of excellent voices, 
Such an one was detected before evening—a true musical genius, 

. who had not forgotten his carly training as a Magdalen chorister, 
and who now drew round him whatever <lements of music we 
possessed, 2 new Broadwood (albeit but a cottage piano) being an 
additional attraction. 


‘The calm of our Sunday evening, and the success of its music, 
‘was in a great measure due to the fact that we were lying at anchor 
in the Downs, for, as we neared Dover, it was found that part of our 
new engines had heated, and it was necessary to allow the iron time 
to cool, This, you perceive, was the first check we met with. 

We sailed again at daybreak, but the weather was rapidly setting 
in for mischief, A stropg south-westerly gale blew dead against us, 
and though the good ship bore up gallantly, and amazed us all by 
her steadiness while battered on all sides by the chopping seas, she 
nevertheless shivered and strained so severely that every weak point 
‘was betrayed by trickling streams, which found their way through 
erevices innumerable, and deluged every slecping-berth, so that 
one occupant after another was fairly washed out, and the saloon was 
crowded with wet women and wet babies, to say nothing of still 
wetter men and such wet clothes as we attempted to dry (the ship, 
by the way, ovned no drying-room, so the saloon stove had all along 

to serve as such). 


‘increased, and on Tuesday afternoon our pilot and 
need to try and run into the harbour of refuge at Part- 
et, proved impossible, the darkness and the mist 
could make sure of it, so there was nothing for it 






cas S 


ANNA — an 


‘but once more to stand out to sea, and b 

mad wind and raging waves, while sharp cut 

a ede te 
through urkt 








point of vantage to the waves, 
part of the ship, and along the 
cabins in perfect waterfalis. me 
vainly trying to swab up the water 2s fast as it poured | 
passages were blocked up with piles of wet rr aa 
mattresses, 

‘The passengers were all very quiet. Some lay still in wet berths, 
others shifted about from corner to corner, vainly hoping to find 
some dry spot where the water would not follow them. Now and 
then a desperate roll produced such a clatter of coal-scuttle, crockery, 
and other goods that had escaped from durance vile, followed by 
such a rush of water, that some cheery souls contrived to see only 
the ludicrous side of the scene, and mised a ringing laugh, which, 
though jarring at the moment, doubtless tended to keep up the 
spirits of many. 

When morning broke, we once more neared the shore, and this 
time succeeded in making Portland Harbour—a haven of refuge, 
calm and peaceful, shut in from the stormy ocean by a natural bar 
of shingle on one side, and on the other by a mighty breakwater, 
built of hewn stone, the work of the convicts on Portland Island; 
a good piece of work truly, and one for which we thanked the an- 
willing workers from our hearts, wondering the while if indeed 
they mere unwilling, or whether even convicts, working out their 
‘mect punishment, could fail to feel some pride in contributing their 
mite of labour to a work so stupendous and so valuable to their 
country. 

We anchored near the rocky and picturesque island; then, having 
chartered a large boat to carry our wet mattresses and blankets to be 
properly dried at Weymonth, we accompanied them thither, greatly 
to the edification of all spectators, who, well accustomed to ship- 
wrecks, anxiously watched the approach of our boat with its curious 
cargo, not knowing what fresh tale of horror we might have to tell, 
Bie SSSR Le Sw th 0 ry en #0) ea Tens 
thoroughly devoid of all sensational interest, 


= 


Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 65 


Not so theirs. One subject was in every mouth—the awful gale, 
and the wrecks which were reported from every corner of the 
Channel. Within two days two vessels had been wrecked at this 
very place, and a third had come ashore, forsaken of her crew, who, 
‘however, 2s we afterwards learnt, had been rescued by another ship, 
‘The first wreck was that of a schooner which was driven ashore 
‘on the Chesil Bank, the sea running so furiously that no rescue could 
be attempted, and the crowd assembled on the beach watched the 
poor fellows on board perish, ane by ane, within a few yards of 
them, without a hope of being able to save them. 

‘The second wreck seemed yet more terrible, because on so large a 
scale. The Reyal Adelatie, a splendid clipper of 2,000 tons burthen 
{an emigrant ship, bound for Sydney), had been driven ashore on the 
West Bay, just between Weymouth and Portland—on that natural 
bar of shingle which I have already mentioned as forming one side 
of the barbour—a wall of safety to those within, but a terror to the 
poor souls outside in the open sea. In the present instance the 
‘vessel was driven in broadside on the beach, and hurled by the waves 
to within twenty feet of the crowds who had been watching her for 
hours, and who would fain have helped her had such help been 
possible, Now the breakers had it all their own way, and played 
‘with her as a car with a mouse—sometimes receding, so as to leave 
her almost dry, then dashing right over her with such violence as 
‘to threaten to wash off every soul of that agonised multitude which 
crowded her decks. Torches and tar-barrels blazed upon the beach, 
and brilliant blue tights threw their strange ghastly glare upon thar 
terrible scene, revealing cach figure in clear relief, with the back- 
ground of mad curling waves, and the white spray dashing far above 
the masts. 

‘Strong willing arms were there, ready and able to help ; but their 
good purpose was in a great measure frustrated by the stupidity of 
the bewildered wretches on board. When a successful rocket was 
fired (a fiery messenger of hope, bearing the thin cord to which 
were attached the strong hawser and cradle that should have brought 
all safely ashore) its use was not understood, and a long interval of 

s time was wasted ere any one was brought to land. But for 

this no Tives need have been sacrificed at all. As it was, the number 

ose who perished was variously calculated at from ten to 

en, 3 ‘women and children, who, by all laws of the sca, 
wht de 







‘been the first to come ashore. 
¢, however, could be rescued, the vessel broke asunder 
thunder, which resounded loud above the roaring of 


NO 1831 F 

















66 The Gentleman's 


the waves—a terrible sound, which for days. 
re-ccho in the ears of all who heard it. 






stores ; and every wave that dashed upon: the 
fragment, as if in defiance, till the whole ras 
goods of every sort and kind—as if some merchant's * 
piled in wildest confusion, Among the salvage was & 
the shore alive, and was at once appropriated 
however, was detected, and marched off to the pc 
pig on his shoulders. A race-horse which was on | 
fared less happily—battered and bruised by one shock after an 
it was washed ashore dead, As the vessel finally sank, one old 
woman was left standing on her alone, She had been too terrified 
to take her place in the cradle, so had to be lefi to her fate. ae 
passenger who was carrying a large sum of gold perished in 
attempt to save it, Another lost a sum of four hundred 7 
the precious savings of a lifetime—but he himself escaped. 
And now that nothing more could be done to save the 
terrible scene commenced, a thousandfold more horrible than the 
terrors of the previous hours. ‘The ship carried large quantities of 
spirits as part of her cargo, the very strongest form of old ‘hollands 
and whisky, from forty to fifty above proof. Soon the sh 
trewn in every direction with spirit-casks and cases. Men. 
working for hours in the bitter cold and wet of that it 
winter night, were not slow to yield to the teuptation thus thrown in 
their way, Casks were broached—in some cases the tops knocked 
off—and men and boys drank the fiery spirit as though it had been 
adraught of water, and when they had drunk till they no longer 
could discern one barrel from another, many of them tamed to the 
casks of paraffin, and drank from them ; then, utterly helpless, they 
lay down, wherever they chanced to Bes and soon the whole shore 
was strewn with scores of corpse-like wretches, who lay out all 
in the bitter cold, some so near the waves that the spray 
over them and they narrowly escaped being swept away eee 
Multitudes were rescued in the morning, chill and cold, but still 
alive, and were carried home by friends who strove to bring 
back to life. Seven were actually dead, and their bodies lay waiting 
the coroner's inquest, and other deaths were reported later. It is 
said that even some of the soldiers and custom-house officers 
in charge of the shore joined in the dismal tvelry 5 
ily the drinking went on all the next day, and the wid 
Is contrived to bury casks and cases for future use. AV 


Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 67 


length the chief custom-house officers, despairing of protecting thispart 
of the cargo, went along the coast, and stove in every cask that came 
ashore, and then only was the hideous carnival of drunkenness 
stayed. Not that the spirits were the sole temptation to the harpies 
who crowiled the shore. Multitudes were there who had not for- 
gotten the wrecking instincts of their forefathers, and who had 
assembled only to see what they could pillage, and thus vast 
quantities of goods which might otherwise have been saved for the 
‘ase of the luckless cmigrants were deliberately carried off, and we 
were told that many of the low shops in the neighbouring villages 
were full of the stolen goods, ‘These robbers lost no time in helping 
themselves to all they could carry, for so soon as the authorities 
came to their senses, the beach was guarded so strictly, and all 
dubious-looking characters were so rigorously searched, that not 
even an old rusty penknife might be carried off as a relic. 

Such was the terrible history which greeted us on our landing, 
filling our hearts with, thankfulness that, in the terrible gale of the 

previous night, we had been spared the like fate. A few hours 
later cen the survivors of the wreck were sent back to London to 
teturn to the homes whence (but a few days previously) they had 
started, so full of hope and energy. Only one woman was lelt 
behind, her mind having given way beneath the load of her agony. 
Husband and children were dead ; and even the madness, which 
in some cases lends a merciful veil to such intolerable anguish, 
failed to Tul! her into a deceptive peace, and her pitiful cries were 

to hear. 

Bit by bit, this story of the wreck was told to us by various eye- 
witnesses while we wandered about Weymouth—glad to be once 
more on fern: firme, and glid, too, to explore the nooks and 
crannies of the picturesque old town, where sundry quaint old 
houses claimed our attention, One in particular did 50, with steep- 
pitched roof and gable-ends to the street, and grotesquely carved 
black wooden figures supporting overhanging windows. Happily, 
its tenant is a poulterer who fully appreciates the quaint beauty of 
his domicile, and lends colour to it by well-arranged game, splendid 

and fish of all sorts. As I halted « few minutes to sketch 
this pleasant relic of olden days, the kindly old man came forward 
and presented mé with a pamphlet, recording a romantic legend 
concerning the house’ in the days of good Queen Bess, when its 
‘owner was a goodly merchant, whose son wooed some one else's 
) the manner of the Montagues and Capulets, and 
unwittingly, shared with his lover a poisoned goblet, 

we 





pl 


Ammonites the ‘size of a cart-wheel down to. 1hé:tinless) tanas) 
smaller than a pin's point, The buildings and walls are of course 


did ; in fact, as we looked down over the steep grey 

sea below, we were foreibly reminded of that from Gibraltar, for a 
strange and lovely calm had sacceeded the storm, and the sunny sea 
gave no bint of the wild mischief it had wrought so recently. It lay 
still and placid, reflecting the cloudless blee overhead ; the harbour 
was crowded with ships of many nations, which had here found 
shelter daring the gale, and now hoisted their white sails to 
the light breeze. So bright and summer-like was the weather that 
the wintry storm of the previous days scemed as though it must 
have been a dream. All was laughing sunshine, and only the 
presence of armed sentinels at every turn served to remind us of 
where we were, and of the moral chill that surrounded us. 

As the gentlemen of the party were anxious to see the internal: 
arrangements of the prison (to which no ladies are admitted) we left 
them there, and, retracing our steps, made for the pebble beach 
where, on the previous Monday, the poor emigrants had met their 
terrible fate, ‘The shingle for miles lies in three distinct ridges like 
huge steps, piled up by the waves. We struggled along this for 
upwards of a mils, to the place where the vessel had struck, and where 
portion of her still remained. ‘The whole shore, as far as we 
could see, literally glittered with sheets of tin, once 

but now broken up into fragments, battered and crinkled by the 
‘action of waves and stones, 

‘Though almost all that could be called salvage had already been 
removed, the beach was still thickly strewn with traces of the wreck—_ 
spars, planks, broken barrels, and packing-cases, bales of paper, half 
‘buried beneath the evershifting pebbles; tongues, cheeses, and | 










Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 69 


other stores, all destroyed with salt water, sardine eases, and turnips 
innumerable. ‘The water was still full of floating fragments, and 
spirit-cases, barrels, and portmanteaux were waslied to and fro by 
the waves, while men stood by with rope-nooses ready to dmw ashore 
‘whatever might come within their reach, All the serviceable raiment 
which bad been washed ashore had already been secured, but there 
still remained an amazing number of torn straw bonnets and women's 


T noticed one girl’s hat from which the waves had washed the 
trimming, only to replace it with a new one, scarcely less brilliant 
than the gay flowers which, but a few hours before, had been the 
pride of some young lassie—perhaps one of those whose life had 
passed away in the darkness of that terrible night. Now, the poor 
battered straw was wreathed with green and crimson seaweeds, and 
from that strangely suggestive garland I gathered a little branch of 
‘coraline, encrusted with tiny shells, as a touching memorial of the 
wreck. A weather-beaten tar standing near me picked up the tube 
of an infant's feeding-bottle as a similar relic, and on every side 
gleeful children shouted in their careless mirth while collecting 
treasures, the bitter import of which they so little understood. 

Jost before we reached the beach, the waves had yielded up two 
‘more of their dead, and as the bodies were carried ashore, a poor 
fellow pressed forward through the crowd of idlers to claim that of 
his wife, Others were still missing, and wo boats were plying to and 
fro along the coast, watching for any which might still float up from 
the deep. Ere Jong one more rewarded their search, and as we 
turned to teave that wreck-strewn strand we noted the scattered 
group of idlers gathering to one point to await the landing of the 
‘boat, and the last picture that met our cyes was the little barque with 
its dismal freight, rowed silently by strong willing arms, and cutting 
darkly against the lurid glow of an orange sunset ; while great banks 
of purple and leaden clouds foretold how quickly the treacherous 
calm would be succeeded by gales more violent than any we had yet 


experienced. 

_ Their prophecy proved but too true, and when, on Friday night, 
‘we left the peaceful harbour, and once more held on our course, it 
‘was to experience such 2 tempest as the most experienced old sailors 
ed they had never seen the like of in the English Channel It 
0 ieee following afternoon that we sighted the Plymouth 

med ourselves already well-nigh in harbour—a vain, 
‘| No pilot came to meet us in answer to our signals. 
arnt that one had started, but the gale had carried 








| 


cone mighty blow, though their wonder was | 

lessened when they noted the condition of the iron, all honey- 
combed with air-holes, Thus we were left rudderiess at the mercy 
‘of the waves, and all hope of steering for the harbour was at an end, 


while a strong breere was blowing us right on shore. =r" 

In the merchant service the ensign is a scarlet flag with the 
Union Jack in the comer; the Royal Navy carrics the Union Jack 
‘on a white ground, and the Naval Reserre on a blue ground. To 
Wolst the ensign upside down is the recognised signal of distress 

one on shore noticed it, for dark- 





Two Wintry Cruisis in the English Channel. 71 


waves) how the agent of the Company had offered large moneys to 
induce a Government tug to go forth to our rescue, but none durst 
face the storm, 

As straws indicate a current, so in ship-life the smallest irregu- 
larity in the hours of meals is a sure token of something being amiss, 
‘This evening all the stewards were hard at work helping in the 
dangerous task of repairing the rudder-gear; moreover, the big 
seas poured over the cook's galley, upsetting all the pots, so it was 
late ere a scrambling meal could be served—a meal, moreover, 
which many of us believed, with good reason, would probably be 
our last, as there was no knowing what might happen ere day 
dawned. 

‘The repairs which we had undergone at Portland were of the 
feeble sort, at which old ocean laughs as at the futile threats of 
Dame Partington and her celebrated mop ; consequently, the water 
was again pouring into every cabin by all the old crevices and a 
good many new ones ; for, though the good ship battled bravely 
against the terrific storm, she was desperately strained, as the raging 
winds and waves rolled and tossed her to and fro, in their mad frolic, 

‘The sleeping-cabins were 50 thoroughly flooded that only one 
oF two of us, who succeeded in finding moderately dry comers, 
ventured below ; all the others spent the night in the saloon. Of 
course no one undressed, as we all knew we might be called up at 
any moment; so we merely lay down, ready for an immediate start 
should such be made—not that any boats could have lived in such 
sea, The service ‘for those in peril on the deep’ was read in the 
saloon, and then all lay very still and quiet. 

T must siy for the passengers, one and all, that they behaved 
splendidly ; in this hour of extreme danger all were perfectly calm 
and collected, and I firmly believe that, if we Aad foundered (as 
was reported in the newspapers), we should have gone down without 
acy. Only one or two of the little children were sorely terrified 
when the ship gave such an extra roll as threatened to turn her right 
‘over, and one Tovely fair haired little one, would clasp her tiny hands 
‘and pray in her own simple words that her Father in heaven would 
hot suffer the ship to go down. Doubtless the prayer of that little 
‘one, and of many another anxious heart, was heard and answered in 
heaven ; and T cannot but believe that much of the strange calm 
that pervaded the ship that night was derived from the knowledge 
‘that from many a comer of the land, individuals, families, and even 
‘some congregations never failed to remember us in Whee dy 
rage Ms 


= 






72 The Gentleman's M 


petitions for those who travel by land and by 
the more securely in those links whereby 






Heak, and that the water in the hold, which 
measured four inches, and in the evening 
inereared to four feet, in spite of the steam-pumps | 
Mandy at work. Sen inches seere all that mew remained fel 
we wend the certainty of foundering ; for had the steam-pamps 
to net, all hope was at an end, and seven inches more 
rt out the engine fires. As it was, the firemen were 
deep water, All hands were called to the pamps, and by dint of 
hand work all night, the further ascent of the water was stayed. No 
efiurt, howavur, could reduce it by a single inch, 

‘Then |i was remembered that when the ship was being laden in 
dloek, it was found tat so soon as the cargo increased her weight 

wen 10 leak, and on further examination it was 
through some terrible carelessness one of the large bolts that fastened. 
hor tqwether lind never been put in. She was of course unladen an 
(he error rectified, but other errors might reveal themselves in more 
critical moments, and we wondered now whether our present danger 
was due to sume similar negligence. 

We were already aware that though the ship bad met with foul 
Weather on her preliminary journey from Glasgow to London, she 
ras then uoladen, and consequently so light as to draw fully ten feet 
love Water than afer shipping her cargo, so that many weak points 
thas pope unnoticed, and might have continued so for long enough, 

the Jest of this terrible galo—a gale which hardy old sailors: 
pet ihe) nave fad ren tic of te Cae 
ever whieh played wich dire havoc with shipping of every sort 
Jor many days the newspapers seemed to be but a record of wn 
and dlvasters, each more lamentable than the last. - 

‘The longest night, they say, must have an end, and thankful 

indeed we were when the morning dawned (albeit with the darkness 
wf adim December day), and the sun once more arising beheld us. 
stil afloat, I think the most thankful of all was our captain, a good 
tani, and wise, kind, and genial, and a first-class sailor of long expe- 
tience, who throughout this trying time bad inspired all on board 
with the utmost confidence in their leader, and who out of the ‘ 
nights since we left London had spent five in anxious 

tempest. Now, as we once more 











Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 73 
Plymouth, a pilot-boat came off to mect us, and the captain's 








responsibility was nominally at an end. 

Not that the poor vessel was by any means out of her troubles, 
however, for (failing to answer her broken rudder) she signalised our 
entry into harbour by all but running down an old man-of-war— 
H.MS Narcissus. Having happily. succeeded in stopping within 
#ix inches of her, we anchored, notwithstanding which the pilot in- 
sisted on steaming ahead, when of course the cable snapped and the 
anchor was lost. Next, we again swung round upon the Narcissus 
and carried off her life-buoy, whereupon an official deputation came 
on board to demand compensation! A current now drifted us 
down to the breakwater, and all but ran us upon it; in short, several 
anxious hours elapsed after we entered the harbour ere we found 
safe anchorage and were at rest, and ere a fresh supply of hands 
could be procured from the land, ta come and work the pumps and 
relieve the ship's company. 

Tt was Sunday morning (First Sunday in Advent), and all the 
church-bells were ringing for service—a welcome sound which we 
had scarcely expected ever again to hear, We rowed ashore in the 
bright sunshine and found our way to St. Andrew's, a fine old 
church, very large, with crowded congregation, to whom was ad- 
dressed a stirring Advent sermon. Yet to us one yersealone seemed. 
10 sum up the story of our day: “ Then are they glad because they 
are at rest, and so He bringeth them to the haven where they would 
be” Doubly welcome tc us was the solemn stillness of the old 
mother-church of Plymouth, wherein so many generations have 
in succession, then passed away to their rest ; beautiful 
the flood of sunshine that, streaming through many-tinted windows, 
fell in rainbow-light on the kneeling crowds who gathered round the 
altar! and even lent a passing gleam of colour to the quaintly- 
dressed children of an old charity school, in their Jong brown cloaks 
and hideous plush bonnets, like helmets—a_ sort of penitential dress, 
father of some grim monastic body than of the loving 
‘that cares for these orphaned little ones, 
| When the congregation had dispersed, we lingered awhile amid 
old monuments of bygone generations—coloured monu- 
ith cusiously-carved groups, showing the whole family whose 
below as they had appeared in their daily life: squires 















wrapped in wading clothes to denote the fact of their 
d, and showing various other domestic incidents. 


| 
"4 The Gentleman's Magazin 


Great was now the excitement of meeting such of our fellow 
passengers as had come thus far by land, and of | ot 
and one theorics and plans which were propounded our 
probable fate, past and future, = 

When all had been duly discussed, we returned on board, to find 
that though a gang of thirty men had been working the pumps all 
day (in addition to the steam-pumps) they ‘only succeeded in 
diminishing the water by four and a half inches, albeit in harbour 
and in comparatively smooth water, All night the monotonous and 
ominous sound went on, while the men sang in chorus to keep 
themselves cheery. 

We awoke toa morning of such peaceful sunshine as seemed to 
mock all memory of the storm. A canary belonging to one of the 
passengers was pouring forth its most joyous songs; the live stock 
of the ship were turned out for exercise, and the deck presented the 
appearance of a well-to-do farmyard, with cocks, hens, and) ducks, 
sheep and pigs, and, above all, ¢4e cow, walking about at large, and 
rejoicing in such unwonted liberty afier their close imprisonment. 
As to the children, they were wild with glee, more especially a quaint 
little half-caste, an exceedingly acute child, who, having been for 
some years at school in Scotland, had acquired the very broadest 
Scotch accent, and who was in every respect a source of extreme 
amusement to all on board, especially when singing all manner of 
comic songs in a clear high voice. She took a most kindly charge 
of the younger children, her usual companion being a singularly fair 
and pretty child, the contrast between the two little friends inre- 
sistibly suggesting the names of Topsy and Eva. 

It had by this time been ascertained that the general condition 
of the /Tindoo was such a3 to necessitate a complete overhauling, 
which could not be done till she was dry-docked, an operation that 
would entail so long a delay that it was determined to send on the 
passengers in two smaller ships ; the first detachment were to start 
in the Agra, a very stall vessel, while the remainder would follow 
a weck Jater in the Ofjello, Meanwhile all passengers were sent 
ashore on an allowance of ten shillings a day, to fill up the time in 
any way they pleased. So far as we were concerned, this delay was 
rather pleasant than otherwise, ax it enabled us to make a long- 
talked-of expedition to Cornwall and the Land’s End; while the un- 
toward season ehowed us the latter in magnificent phase of storm, 
which we should scarcely have sought under other circumstances, 

_ Ere leaving Plymouth, however, we devoted one long day exclu- 
sively to the great dockyards at Devonport and Keyharm—those 


— a | 





Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 75 


wonderful nurseries of Britain's mighty fleet. We went through huge 
building sheds, where we saw ships of every size and in every stage 
of building; mighty logs of teak, or mahogany, or pine, bending like 
wax in the hand of a child, till they assumed the faultless curves 


Tequired to build wp those strong and graceful lines. 

‘One vessel we saw which was being taken to pieces—the last of 
England's old wooden walls—a two-decker, which for years has been 
‘Kept unfinished, on the chance of its still being required when all 
the ironclads should have failed in their work, but whose death- 
warrant had at length been signed, and such of its timbers as had 
dry-rot were soon turned to account elsewhere. Passing 
‘thence to the mast-house we experienced a new sensation in masts, 
as we watched the whole process of building them up piecemeal—a 
work more elaborate than the uninitiated could ever dream of— 
‘masts and yard-arms, and all manner of separate parts accumulated 
in vast stores, and betraying their true size, which no one accustomed 
only to view them from the deck of a ship could possibly realise. 
‘The ropery next claimed our attention, a building a quarter of a mile 
Jong, known as the rope-walk, and divided into upper and lower 
stories, wherein is shown every process in the manufacture of ropes, 
from the combing of the raw hemp and converting it into yarn, to its 
‘appearance as string, and cord, and small ropes, which, when duly 
‘twisted together, eventually form the strongest cables. 

From Devonport we walked on to Keyham, these two points 
forming the two halves of the Plymouth dockyards. Here we saw 
‘men-of-war of all shapes and sizes, in dry docks and wet docks, with 
‘great guns and little guns, and duly inspected every corner of some 
of the finer ships. Amongst others, we explored the /ydrz, an 
‘extraordinary turret-ship of wonderfully hideous build, one of four 
“murderous sisters—the Hydra, the Gorgon, Cyclops, and Frente. 

We tumed aside to see the huge steam-engines which pump the 
docks dry when required; then, passing on to the blacksmith’s 
dominions, found ourselves in a world of furnaces, where strong arms 
‘masses of tedshot iron which would have astonished 
old Tubal Cain himself Thence we went on, and on, and on, 
* through endless machinery departments, where huge boilers and 
engines were in process of manufacture, and where the whirling of 
ead ‘the combined noise of hundreds of workers simulta- 
ng metal, soon became altogether intolerable, so 
d to beat a speedy retreat. 

nt from this stirring sound of wusy Wife was tha 
is outside, where the tolling of a sclemm minate bed, 


















Sl 


76 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


and the borough flag flying half-mast high, told that the Lord of the 
Manor, Sir Edward St. Aubyn, had gone to his rest. For the same 
reason, all the shops in Devonport were half-closed ; and when, on 
the following day, we made our way down to Penzance, a sad 
funeral company were beating the mortal remains of father and 
friend to their Jast resting-place in the quiet “God's acre” at the 
foot of St. Michacl's Mount, that strangely picturesque pyramid of 
grey rock, which, rising from the bosom of the waters, appears at 
high tide as an island, separated from the mainland by a channel 
five or six feet deep, while at low tide, not foot passengers only, 
but even carriages, may safely pass to and fro. 

At low tide then, in the dusk of a misty winter evening, this 
dark faneral train passed down from Marazion, and across the oald 
wet sands ; then slowly toiled up the steep rocky path which leads 
to the old castle, where, in the chapel wherein Benedictine monks 
of old were wont to hold vigil, and where many a brave knight 
has knelt ere going forth to battle—the chapel which has been 
dedicated to the Archangel for the last fourteen hundred years, 
ever since the fires of Baal ceased to blaze on this rock—in this 
time-honoured chapel he who had been Lord of the Mount was 
laid for a while (within the walls of his own romantic castle), ere he 
was onee more borne down that rock-hewn path to the little grassy 
cemetery, where fishers and seafaring folk sleep so calmly, amid the 
ceaseless murmur of the waves, 

Strangely picturesque, in truth, is that sea-girt home, whose grey 
walls and towers mingle with the stern grey rock, so that it is hard 
to tell where nature ends and masonry begins ; the whole interwoven 
with greenest ferns and ivy, and here and there grassy slopes or 
beds of bracken, the haunt of countless rabbits, which frolic and dart 
to and fro in perfect security. Add to all this the wondrous charm 
of its surroundings—the ever-changing sea in all its varied moods of 
sun and storm—and you find a home fit for a poet or an artist 

We lingered long watching the mysterious sunset lights on sea 
and land, and musing on the changes that have passed over the land 
since those early days when the Mount was described in the old 
Comish tongue as “The Hoar Rock in the midst of woods," a name 
which certainly could not apply to it now, but which is corroborated. 
by the remains of such large trees as are still occasionally found below 
the sea level, and scem to point to a time when the Mount, so far 
from. being an island, actually stood well inland in the heart of the 
forest. 


© ¥. GORDON CUMMING, 


(Zo be concluded.) 


= 


77 


HEDGEHOGS. 


English spring set in this year with almost more than its 
seal severity, In the early part of May every glade and 
hedgerow bank was thickly studded with tender green points 
thrusting their way upwards to find the sunlight, and bursting their 
winter wrappings just in time to be blighted by the March winds 
and November fogs that had lagged unconscionably behind their 
time. The way in which these humble and confiding vegetables 
meekly surrender themselves to the exigencies of the English climate 
% almost pathetic. A tender-hearted philosopher will therefore 
avoid treading upon them; and should he chance to see beneath 
some gnarled beech stump a pile af October's withered leaves gently 
upheaved, and, after much internal scuffing, a moist black point thrust 
forth, shining in the watery rays of the weak-cyed sun, then especially 
‘will he be careful to plant his foot elsewhere : for that point is pro- 
bably the nose of x hedgehog. Snails and slugs have been abroad 
for wecks ; night after night the blades of rank grass have bent 
beneath the weight of the obese caterpillars of the yellow under- 
winged moth. ‘The adder is sunning itself upon the bank of budding 
bracken ; and beetles of all kinds have committed wholesale suicide 
in the roadway puddles ; and at last the hedgehog has waked up 
from his five months’ sleep to the consciousness that “life is real, 
Tife is earnest,” and that snails, slugs, and caterpillars, vipers and 
beetles of many-legged rapidity, are waiting to be eaten, 

As he yawns and stretches his short logs for the first time since 
fast year, the hedgehog’s appearance is not preposessing. He 
resembles a spadeful of garden rubbish more than anything else. 
For one advantage of the spiky nature of his clothing is that before 
taking up his winter quarters, by rolling in heaps of leaves he can 
‘annex a considerable quantity of extraneous matter which serves as 
a blanket during his retirement. His nest, moreover, is as sub- 
‘stantial and as ill-ventilated as an underground railway tunnel ; and 

‘thus he makes shift to remedy Nature's negligence in supplying him 
with mere suit of needles for winter wear, Poets and rustic 
Jegends, with their keen eye for observing exacily those \kings 

a 


a | 





| 


78 ‘The Gentleman's Magazine, 


Nature which do not eaist, credit the hedgehog’s nest with the pro- 
pertics of an almanack :— 

Obserre which way the bedgebog builds her mest 

To point the north, or southy Or emt, or west ; 

For if'tis tree that common people xy, 

‘Tho wind will blow the quite contrary way. 
‘Therefore you have only to wait in spring until the hedgehog 
explains, by walking out of his circular domicile, exactly which point 
is to be considered the “ front," to be able to foretell the direction’ 
of the prevalent winds of the last winter. ‘The practical use of the 
knowledge is obvious. But this is the oaly good thing the poets 
have to say about the hedgehog. Its voice—which is perhaps not 
unlike the sound of a person snoring or breathing hard—has given 
almost universal umbrage to literature, being “easily mistaken,” 
according to Noles and Queries, “for the moaning of a disturbed 
spirit.” Those who are familiar with disturbed spirits would no 
doubt see the resemblance at once, Shakespeare, too, had a great 
idea of the hedgehog’s terrible voice. He estimates that “ten 
thousand swelling toads, as many urchins, would make such fearful, 
and confused cries as any mortal body hearing it should straight Gill 
mad,” and the horrifying climax of the Witches’ incantation was the 
second “whine” of the hedgepig. Shakespeare, however, wits a 
poet and followed the lamentable rule of that guild in borrowing his 
predecessors’ similes of animals and birds, with the usual lamentable 
results. An urchin with him was something a little less supernatural 
than “ouphes” or fairies, just as a nightingale, a phoenix, and a 
“ night-raven " were so many stuffed figures of speech. Of the real 
creature be knew absolutely nothing; but if Shakespeare had 
possessed a back garden and had placed a hedgehog there to cat 
the snails, he would perhaps have acquired some practical knowledge 
of the noise a hedgehog can make, The hedgehog’s normal pace: 
is about three miles an hour. Ona gravel path it sometimes atiains 
a still greater velocity, and on these occasions the astonishing way 
in which its splay feet scatter the pebbles about in its noctumal 
“spurts” after beetles, would lead a stranger to imagine that three 
men and a boy were trying to catch a runaway horse in the garden. 
Calculated upon this basis, thenoise often thousand hedgehogs, even 
without the “swelling toads,” would have given the poet a practical 
idea to work upon without falling back upon the urchin's “fearful: 
and confused cries.” The gravel path, indeed, seems to be the special 
province of the hedgehog. ‘here Gilbert White “loved” them, 
because they ate up the plantain roots which disfigured his neat 


i staal 








Hedgehogs. 79 


walks ; though he admitted that their excavations were more ex- 
tensive than the occasion required. ‘This qualified praise, however, 
is all the good that has hitherto been recorded of the hedgehog. 
His whole history isa libel, and bis very name an insult. He is no 
pig, but the relic of an ancient family, and his alleged connection 
with Heelzebub rests on little else than malicious conjecture ; though 
rustic legends, always tenacious of evil, still aver that the hedgehog’s 
merry jest & still to bathe in horse-ponds and greet cach thirsty ox 
with a fiendish chuckle and a well-directed spine, thereby causing 
biains and fatal murrain, 

‘The eridence of the crime generally stands thus: ‘There is the 
dead cow; there is the horse-pond; and floating in it is the water- 
Jogged corpse of a hedgehog, Clearer circumstantial evidence is not 
required. {¢ is true that the hedgehog itself is dead, and that a port 
mortem acquits it at ance of all felonious intentions in getting into 
the water, Its disarranged anatomy and evident print of hobnails 
amply suffice to carry out the theory of the defence that the animal 
was first stamped upon and then kicked into the water. Moreover, 
each spine can be shown to be fastened by a judicious knob, like the 
head of a pin, éwside the skin, rendering artillery practice at the 
catile mpossible, But rebutting evidence is useless, ‘There is the 
dead cow, and there is the water, and here is the hedgehog. Nor is 
this all ; for Pliny, who, without prejudice to the clains of any other 
person, has been most deservedly named “ the father of lies,” accuses 
the hedgehog of stealing apples—J/Hlian adds, figs—and the English 
rstie has, thanks to the ignorant mimicry of those who ought to 
have known better, Icarnt the same fable ; and what the dwellers on 
the fazth and of the village—the pagans of old times—have once 
learnt, they are, deste the English language, very heathen pagans in 
retaining. An English villager—capable, we are told, of recording his 
Vote on abstruse questions of free trade or foreign policy—will still 
tell you, with a grave face, how the hedgehog climbs his apple trees, 
and with its insignificant little legs jerks the branches till the fruit 
falls to the ground ; then, rolling itself up, leaps from the tree upon 
the fruit, and finally marches off in triumph with the apples stuck on 

its spines. More even than this: when the cows are asleep, this 
ill-conditioned vermin will enter the sheds and steal their milk. At 
all events, hedgehogs are olten found, rolled up and fast asleep, in 

ee Evidently they came there for some evil purpose, 
wa too big to eat, it must have been to steal milk, 


hedgehog must at once be trampled on ; for the 
eed with life, and no power to defend taal, 


— 


| 








daylight, and the bustle of 2 competition for which he is 
fitted, and cénteries of persecution seem to have given his face 





wistfal expression deprecatory of intended violence. Nowhere, 
indeed, has Nature sastained a more signal defeat than in the matter 
of the hedgehog. ‘Time was when our unsophisticated predecessors 
painted themselves blue and wore no clothing, much less boots, and 
the hedgebog’s armour was ample protection against any ordinary 
barefooted savage. But civilisation has supplied the mastic with an 
inch of solid leather and half an inch of hobnails, and poor Nature 
is checkmated. Even the poets, gratuitously credited with a “ keen 
sympathy with Nature,” have deserted to the enemy, and with their 
libellous fictions have raited every man's hand against er in this 
matter. Gamekeepers have some ground for accusing the hedgehog 
of eating an occasional young pheasant or a more frequent egg. 
Even young turkeys have at times fallen victims. But let the game- 
do their worst. Why should the agricultural public assist 
them? Do they love slugs and snails and caterpillars? or are they 
so fond of vipers that they should exterminate the only animal that 
preys wpon them ? . 
It is pleasing, however, to know that the hedgehog has a friend, 
ifonly in the Kalmuck Tartar, who cultivates its acquaintance in his 
rude dwelling to drive away the vermin. Once even in Europe it 
was held in higher honour as a household pet; and Lipsius wrote a 
funeral ode upon the death of Douza’s hedgehog. The Scriptures, 
too, assign the magnificence of ancient Babylon as an inheritance for 
the hedgehog ; though our English versions, with characteristic in- 
justice, have Changed it to the “bitten.” The Jews, however, in 
their translations of Holy Writ, have been more honest, and with 
the Rabbins the hedgehog retains its pride of place as copartner with 
the pelican among the upper lintels of ruined Median palaces, 
Another ancient race, the gipsies, who, with three sticks and a kettle, 
according to Cowper, “ cook the flesh obscene of dog,” honour the 
hedgehog also after their kind, for they cook that as well. The 
recipe is not elaborate, They first catch their hedgehog ; then stamp. 
upon it, encase the corpse in a ball of clay, and leave it in the fire 





_— _ 


Hedgehogs. 81 


till the clay becomes brick. This is subsequently cracked, like a 
cocoanut, and inside is the baked and skinless hedgehog, for its 

‘being imbedded in the brick, drag off the skin with thom. 
"Then it is eaten. But the commercial practicality of our civilisation 
Jooks askance at the hedgehog. We do not eat it, No one milks a 
hedgehog, and it never lays eggs. Formerly the Romans, indeed, 
employed its spiny cuticle for “ hackling " hemp, and farmers on the 
‘Continent still place it upon the muzzles of weaned calves ; but with 
gs even these insignificant titles to commercial value have been taken 
away by the adoption for those purposes of mechanical contrivances 
of leather and iron, Albertus Magnus used to recommend a hedge- 
‘hog’s right eye fried in oil for those who wished to see as well by 
night as by day ; but no specialist of note recommends it now. 

‘The only sphere of possible utility still open to the English hedge- 
hog fn the nineteenth century is the domestic circle; for a tame 
hedgehog has itsuses. It annoys the cat, and quenches blackbeetles, 
Occasionally it gets under the grate and walks off with a red-hot 
coal upon its back, filling the house with the odour of a brushmaker’s 
manufactory on fire. This, however, is only an error of jadgment on 
‘theurchin’s part ; as is also its occasional disappearance down a drain, 
thereby causing considerable inconvenience to the household. But 
there is one great blot upon the hedgehog’s moral character ; for, 
fike the Reverend Stiggins, its particular wanity” is rum, No one, 
however, need pander to its low tastes ; and in many respects the 
hedgehog might be found as useful as the dog. At the Angel Inn, 
at Felton, in Northumberland, one specimen used to act as turnspit 
as well as the dog that bears that name; and if it cannot bark at 
thieves or run after the carriage, still the hedgehog, as an article of 
domestic furniture, has many good points. ‘This « burglar with his 
boots off might casily find to his cost, Caliban's bitter complaint 
that Prospero had trained his hedgehogs to 

Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount 

‘Their pricks at my footfall, 
should be sufficient evidence, if any were wanting, of their capabilities 
for such service. 

But the special vocation of a hedgehog is, after all, the destruction 
of vermin ; and here it has been found doubly useful. In one house, 
where unlimited “ vermin-killer” had been employed with insignifi- 
Gant results, a hedgehog was introduced. It commenced operations 
bby eating up all the “ vermin-killer,” and then went gaily in quest of the 
cockroaches. This showed kindly forethought ; for the poison wig. 
i ae to the children, whereas on a hedgenog Whas 
ccey. 0, 1851. G 






/ 


82 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


no effect worth mentioning. After a strong dose of strychnine it 
has indeed been known to lie upon its back and airily gesticulate 
with its legs, behaving generally with a levity quite unbecoming its 
poisoned condition. But the effect soon wears off; and Messrs. 
Lenz and Buckland nearly exhausted their list of poisons in experi- 
ments upon hedgehogs, with the result that the quadrupeds were 
always ready for more. Nor have external poisons any better or 
rather any worse effect, and this is a considerable point in the hedge- 
hog's favour when he dines off a viper. On such occasions his 
proceedings arc simplicity itself. Te first smells the snake, and gets 
promptly bitten on the nose. This makes him quite sure, for he is 
very shortsighted, that the reptile is a viper, and he eats it. Perhaps 
he is bitten in half-a-dozen places during the operation, sometimes 
more, sometimes fewer ; but that was exactly what he expected ; and 
as it does him no harm, he does not mind so long as he gets his 
ilinner. Until therefore the last viper has vanished from the British 
Isles, it would be a great pity that an animal with such unique talent 
as the hedgehog possesses should be allowed to become extinct. 


E. KAY ROBINSON. 





83 


WAGNER, FAMULUS. 


‘T would not, perhaps, be difficult, even, at this late hour, for an 
exacting critic to mtise some doubts as to whether Dr. Faustus 
ever had a visible existence in the flesh. But the tide of opinion 
has long run the other way, and without, indeed, going so far as to 
settle that Johann Faust was born at Kundlingen, in Wiirtemberg, 
or to decide what the social position of his parents was, still Jess 
to boldly assert thar Melancthon was personally acquainted with 
him, we may receive that there was a German physician called 
Faust—not to be confounded with the celebrated printer whose 
jaime was occasionally so spelt—and that, in some way or another, 
he obtained a great reputation as an adept in the black art about the 
commencement of the sixteenth century. Once admitted that he was 
a magician, the facts that he had signed away his soul to the Evil 
Spirit and came to a frightful end follow casily enough. Although 
it has suited the purposes of narrative, or has emphasised artistic 
contrast, to make a theologian of bim, the historical evidence, such 
as it is, goes to show that Faust was a medical man, 

We need not, however, suppose that he was a person of any 
particular note. For fortune is most capricious in dealing out 
Teputations, extending a large celebrity sometimes to those who 
might, without injustice, have been forgotten. The first two names 
that occur to recollection shall be mentioned as instances in point, 
aml are those of Mr. Macadam and Madame Dugazon, 

The first, for a method of coagulating broken stones in road- 
teaking (which, by the by, must surely have been known in connection 
with Indian Anaker long before: his time), is renowned throughout 
Europe and America, and has been made the basis of a verb in more 
than one language. He has become so completely abstract, that it 
is almost refteshing to find him as a strong bony Scotchman in 
Rush’s “ Mernoranda,” driving the American Minister in a gig along 
the highway to Hertford, and being bowed to and not charged at 
the turnpike, in recognition of his pre-eminence as the Colossus of 
Roads. 


‘The French lady, Rosalie Lefevre Dugazon, was a liney access — 
G2 


| 


84 > Cie 


nothing more—but she was considered to have originated a genre, 
though it is difficult to see that she really did #0, and consequently 
‘her name appears on Parisian and provincial i 
the year, and she has become a noun, and has crept into 1 . 
tionary, Le premidre duyazes has come to mean pretty well what 
we call first singing-maid, innkeeper's daughter, or the like. - 

In the absence of reliable details concerning the history of Johann 
Faust, and yet with the prominence of three facts in connection with 
him—namely, that he was a doctor, that he travelled great deal, and 
performed wonders—we may, perbaps, without want of consideration, 
reduce him to a medical man, who, finding family practice rather 
dull, thought better, with the aid of a few chemical experiments and 
inysterious nostrums, to roam about as a thaumaturgist. He would 
want an accomplice for his tricks, a8 well as to advertise his powers ; 
und necordingly we find bim accompanied by Wagner, whom German 
commentators, with perfect gravity, describe as the son ofa clergy- 
man at Wasserburg. 

A charlatan, or itinerant quack-salver, was recently noticed at a 
French fair in a brocade morning gown of great magnificence, who 
‘operated for the toothache and for those swollen and ticd-up faces 
#0 common in foreign crowds with (according to himself) surprising 
wuecess. §=Wagner was on the top of the caravan, beating a drum, 
‘and shaking bis metal hat with a gesture which produced a chime of 
little bells, 

Tt may, perhaps, be attributed to mere chance that, out of many 
‘Impostors, Faust should have been selected to have his name assor 
‘clated with the idea of supernatural powers acquired at a grievous 
sacrifice, and to serve as an example of pride of intellect ending in 
complete disaster, But when the myth was once started, it was 
soon amplified, and in a very short time became prodigiously popular. 
Nor need this popularity surprise us, for the meagre foundation of 
the story was still sufficient to serve the purposes of two sets of 
people—those who wished to get some utterance for that uneasiness 
the questions of man’s destiny, if boldly examined, are calculated to 
‘ereate ; and those who were desirous to prove that reason could not 
supplant faith, and that unsanctified knowledge, as typified by for- 
bidden arts, ended in utter dissatisfaction. 

Between the two, opportunity was afforded for deep and striking 
thoughts woven into the tissue of a dramatic narrative not devoid of 
see seni) and of this opportunity genius was not slow to 

‘However, as the particular object at present is a view of the 





Wagner, Famulus. 85 


character of Wagner as he came at last to be represented by Goethe, 
we may Ieave the myth to itself, with the remark that as Faust 
increased in stature as 2 magician of unrivalled potency, there was a 
corresponding growth of his disciple, or famu/us ; whilst if it is 
insisted that we should take the Doctor au sériewx, Wagner may pass 
‘as the principal supporter of his views, and as the editor and anno- 
tator of his published works. 

‘The original idea of Wagner seems to have been that of a person 
of a comic turn, who possessed some of the powers and aped some 
‘of the performances of his master. And this character he preserved 
when the story of Faust was introduced into the old puppet plays. 
However, on this popular tittle stage it was thought necessary to 
present a professional merryman; and therefore Kasperl soon 
appears, who throws Wagner into the shade. Much the same occurs 
in Marlowe's “Doctor Faustus.” In the quarto of 1604, Wagner 
comes on first a8 2 humorous person ; but when he begins incanta- 
tions, it is at the expense of a regular clown, who henceforth makes 
the fun broader, 

Baffoonery is increased in the quarto of 1616 by greater pro- 
tinence given to Rabin and others, and by the conception of 
Béayolio, who is a strange and fantastic creature. 

‘Wagner is, however, represented by Marlowe as a man of moderate 
Scientific acquirements. The elementary parts of astrology, depre- 
ciatingly termed “freshmen’s suppositions,” are thought to be quite 
within his grasp : 

“ These slender trifles Wagner can decide.” 

Little was made, from a dramatic point of view, of the myth by 
Marlowe. He merely strung together « serics of ill-connected scenes, 
Suggested by the popular catchpenny life of the Doctor then in vogue ; 
and these scenes are disfigured by dull comic business, and even by 
hhorseplay. But the piece will always be read for its many beautiful 
lines, and for the really grand soliloquy at the end, 

‘The relapses from bravado to a terrified conscience on the part 
of the unhappy adept, if rather abruptly intimated, cannot fail to 
move the reader to a legitimate sympathy, 

‘Mr. Hallam has also remarked that “There is an awful melan- 
choly about Marlowe's Mephistophilis, perhaps more impressive than 
the malignant mirth of that fiend in the renowned work of Goethe.” 

_ This may be received, if the further remark be admitted that the 
fiend of Goethe sometimes shows traces of a profound sorrow under- 
Tying his scoffing bitterness. When Faust, in sane is SR 
‘scenes, seproaches him with not reporting Margaret's weery, Ye 


— 


a 
86 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


anewers, “Sie ist die erste nicht”. Surely this is. as full of pathos as 
‘Swift's terrible label, “Only woman'shair!" 


fiction, if not fertile in ineidedt-o& Pe seg ty 
Is always gloriously powerfitl in characterisation. — 

felt some disappointment as the romance of Fectersip tee 
dies out of the region of healthy every-day life into that of phantasy, 
rendeted less probable and attractive by the too discernible presence 
of allegory. Yet it cannot be said thar the laner part shows diminu- 
tion of power; the character-painting is so successful that if we 
wish things otherwise, we cannot close the book. "The Autobiography 
also is crowded with medallions, so to speak, in which the heads are 
executed with a firm and yet delicate hand, 

Inthe first night scene of “ Faust,” during a most exciting moment, 
when it has been suddenly impressed upon the aspiring experiment- 
alist what a distance there is between his own capacities and those 
of the spirit world ; when the child of fire vanishes with the shatter 
ing words— 

‘Thou art equal of the spirit thou ennst grasp 
Not of me!— 


there isa knock at the door. Itis Wagner, He enters in a dressing- 
gown and night-eap, and with a lamp, 

“Pardon 1” cries he, “I hear declaiming, You were reading, 
T dare say, a Greek tragedy aloud ; I should like to pick up something 
of the art; it comes very useful nowadays. I have often known 
people say a player might teach a parson.” 

Faust is vexed at the interruption, and answers bitterly — 

“ Yes, when the parson is a player; which occasionally perhaps 
happens." 

‘The sarcasm is entirely lost on Wagner, who pursues his own 
train of thought, 

“It is very difficult for a mere student who sees nothing of the 
world to lead his fellow-men by persuasion.” 

Faust points out with indignation that the acquirement and the 
arranging and delivery of the sentiments of others will never move 
men. Tt must be your own heart speaking to other hearts. You 


must feel what you say. 
‘But Wagner cannot admit that the rules will not effect a great deal. 
“Elocution,” he persisis, “is the secret of success with the orator, 





T feel T am sadly behind, myself, in the matter.” 
But the other, still scornful and impewovs, tells him if be has 


|); i 


Wagner, Famulus. 87 


got anything to, say, words will come. “Fine sentences full of 
commonplaces, what are they? Bah! the foggy wind of autumn 
amongst the dry leaves,” 

Wagner docs not catch the real gist of the satire. An image 
of emptiness and dissatisfaction awakens in his mind only the 
scholar’s regret at the lintits of memory and of time, 

He speaks sadly enough in that vein— 

“Art is lomg, and life fleeting! Head and heart both-ache 
sometimes in critical studies. It is so difficult to get at the original 
sources of information! And half-way, perhaps, you have to dic.” 

“ Parchment is a sacred well indeed!” sneers Faust. “No 
thirst after a drink of water from thence! Don’t you understand ? 
Refreshment, man, gushes out of your own soul !" 

Wagner cannot belie his life pursuits, “It is a great pleasure 
to realise the spirit of the old world; to know what the wise 
have thought before us, and to what a height we have carried 
learning |” 

“Oh, of course,” laughs the Doctor, “to the very stars! My 
good fellow, the past is a book with seven seals. You do not 
realise the spirit of the ancient times. It is the reflection from your 
own spirit that deceives you. And a plaguy exhibition it is! 
Rubbish—lumber! or if there is any movement, only the movement 
of puppets with dry aphorisms in their mouths, good for puppets 
perhaps—not for us!" 

“Well, but the world,” cries Wagner, warming a little, “ men’s 
intellects and affections—surely you would like to leam up some 
thing about them?” 

“Ves, yes," anawers Faust, impatiently, “but those who have 
really apprehended the problems connected with man’s powers and 
his desires, and have been unguarded enough to reveal the results of 
their reflections, what has always been their lot, my friend? ‘The 
cross or the stake! It is late. We must part.’ 

igsorry. Discussion fer seis pleasant to him, However, 
next day is Easter; there will be an opportunity of asking further 
questions He feels he has read a great deal; he must know 
something. Buta complete mastery of the subject is his ambition, 
What subject? The omne scibile 

When the two are next seen, their surroundings are widely 
different. The day has developed into a lovely spring one, and all 
the town bas turned out before the Gate, Mingled together are 
students and servant girls, soldiers, beggars, smug citizens and their 
pretty daughters, with the fortunc-teller who tries to deceive Yoera. 


a _| 


nl 
88 The Gentleman's Magusine. 


Life and gaiety and gladness reign everywhere Fayst has been 
through a terrible crisis since he last saw Wagner. He has been on 
the verge of suicide, ‘The ringing of bells, the singing of choruses, 
had called him back to thoughts of earlier days—to their simple beliefs 
and supporting hopes. Sweet tears burst forth. Tn this relieving: 
shower the dark cloud broke, He is pensive now, 

in his best, his most poetic mood. Wagner is by his. Zadaake 
awkward figure, we take it; in gala costume, perhaps, in which he 
feels little at home. ‘The gay, animated scene exhilarates Faust; 
he breaks forth into beautiful description, How variegated the 
spectacle ; too early indeed for flowers, but the hues of the bright 
dresses must do service for them. He feels the electric shock of 
humanity ; he is a man amongst the multitude ; he rejoices with a 
permitted joy in being so. 

‘This eloquence makes Wagner proud of his companion. The 
student says he is quite happy with such a man ; intercourse of this 
kind, too, must be very improving, He should be uncomfortable 
alone ; for he cannot abide coarseness. Fiddling, shouting, skittles— 
a devil.driven rumpus miscalled merriment ; amidst these frivolities 
he is quite out of his clement. We should think so. 

Presently some peasants come up and recognise Faust as the 
son of a popular doctor who paid great attention to the poor during 
the pestilence. ‘The san, too, himself, they declare, nobly devoted 
his time to the cause of alleviation, 

He is invited to drink, and is lustily cheered, The respect thus 
testified is greatly to Wagner's fancy. This is a proud moment 
indeed. Science at its apogee. In the scholar’s view it is an ova~ 
tion, The fiddle stops, the dancers pause, caps fly off; all half 
‘incline as if the Sacrament were passing. 

‘But Faust turns‘aside, mounts a height, selects a stone on which 
to sit. One of his cynical moods return, He knows his father was 
an empiric ; added astrology to his wretched medicine; did more 
harm than good ; got the credit of cures effected by nature, whilst 
his own mishaps were overlooked. He was, in short, a quack ; and 
as an accessory he too, Faust, was a quack himself. Shame seizes 
upon him. 

Wagner cannot agree. Surely the art can only be practised as 
it has been handed down. The son learns from the father, and if, 
besides learning, adds something new, Af; son again learns all from: 
him. Knowledge is thus piled up by accumulations. 

But the charm of the approaching sunset seizes upon Faust. Oh, 
to keep pace with that orb as it passes on to new life! ‘To pursue 


— os al 


Wagner, Famulus. 89 


the endless evening as it recedes! By sleeping vale ; by silver 
‘brook turned golden by our transit ; o'er rugged mountain with its 
dark defiles, an obstacle no longer, And now on to the warm, 
the tropic sea. On, on, sunset becoming sunrise ; night behind 
and the everlasting dawn in front; above, the sky, and under 
ws the waves. But human fect are, fixed; the day-god departs, 
Alas! the body cannot don the wings of the mind. And yet it is 
our nature to desire to rise; to press upwards, onwards, like the 
lark, like the eagle, or even the heavier crane still struggling towards 
itshome. Oh, for wings! And then Wagner gives utterance to that 
immortal sentence in which so very, very much is embodied, and 
which, if he had said nothing else, would have marked his cha- 
vacter for all time— 

“1 myself am subject to whimsical moments ; but such an im- 
pulse I have never experienced.” The student thinks woods and 
fields soon grow tiresome. What could one do with wings? No, 
no; @ book by the fireside, when the winter night grows cheerful, 
when the limbs grow warm. And then, perhaps, a manuscript ! an 
original source of information—heaven upon earth | 

“Ah,” sighs Faust, “humanity knows two impulses, One fastens 
justo earth ; the other would fain raise us above the mist into the 
regions of the ideal! The lower impulse alone is known to thee. 
Ob, if spirits would descend to lead to new and varying scenes. 
Costlier than king’s purple robe would be a magic mantle which 
should waft me to unknown seas and lands," 

‘The mention of spirits reminds Wagner that he has read in Para- 
celsus and other authors of the subtle beings which the different 
quarters of the compass supply, and he proceeds to detail their classi- 
fication ; the north sends such, and the south such, much as old 
Barton might have done in his “Anatomy.” Spirits, however, 
altogether, are very deceptive, he suspects, and should not be trusted. 
But what is Faust looking at? 

Faust was looking at the black poodle circling towards them, 
with whom his destiny was to be entirely bound up. With a fearful 

he feels that the object is one of intense interest, Surely 
‘that is a line of fire on itstrack! But Wagner thinks not; a poodle 
‘obviously—nothing more. A dog, indeed, he believes he has seen 
‘with the students. It has been taught tricks ; it will sit on its hind 
legs, or jump forwards, or fetch a stick from the water. When 
animal nature is thug instructed, even the learned may well take 
aa the interesting phenomenon. The poodle certainly de- 
serves favour from Faust. 


— 


ended in a fall! To measure wine, indeed, is wise ; and Goethe 
never touched stimulant during writing hours, which with him were” 
early ; but it is measuring men in vintner's fashion which is not so 
well. 


Reading some time back, in a notice of a man of genias by a 
man of talent, that it was a great pity the former did not get up early 
in the morning, settle down to his desk, and, by the application of a 
little beeswax to the scat of his pantaloons, secure an artificial alten- 
tion to his business, we fell into some reflection, Because we 
thought that if, pethaps, the art of weaving fiction was ‘to some the | 

vision, the vision must be waited for before the mmpho= 
Jept could take wing after it into the ficlds of air 





Wagner, Famulus. 91 


But relief came when it was remembered that though Wagner 
had had occasionally his whimsical moments, he had never wished 
to fly ; and’ therefore the desire to do so, naturally enough, seemed 
at once unintelligible and absurd. 

For beeswax certainly does not assist flight. 


J. W, SHERER. 


92 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


SCIENCE NOTES. 


Tur “ Brow-nonrs.” 


N OW that the “blow-hole” controversy is settled, and something 
else must be substituted, I may refer back to my note in the 
number for April, 1881, page 503, where a simple and effective 
mode of ventilation was suggested—one which doubtless would 
have been originally adopted had the underground railway existed 
anywhere in the neighbourhood of our collieries, or if the directors 
of the District Railway were familiar with the methods adopted 
for colliery ventilation, 

Compared with the difficulties of the problem that has to be 
solved in a colliery, where life or death depends on the sweeping out 
of choke damp and fire damp, that presented by the underground 
railways is but trivial. 

‘To show what was done long ago, and is now being done on 2 
still larger scale, I will quote a few figures from the Report’of the 
Lords’ Committee on Accidents in Coal Mines, 1849. 

In the Hetton Colliery, by means of only two ventilating shafts, 
one upcast and one downcast, no less than seventy miles of under~ 
ground roadways were ventilated. ‘The problem of ventilating all 
this was greatly complicated by the fact that the seventy miles 
through which the air had to travel was not along one simple 
line of tunnel, like that of our underground railways, but along a 
maze of passages running in various directions, The current of air 
had to turn and return in most complex windings, and was divided 
into sixteen “splits,” each starting from one main source, then 
running independently, but all finally re-uniting in the main current 
before ascending by the upcast shaft. The quantity of air thus 
drawn through was 168,560 cubic feet per minute at a mean nate of 
twelve miles per hour. The cost of doing this was simply the con- 
sumption of eight tons of coal per day, burning in the upcast shaft to 
determine the upward current, 

‘The upcast shaft of the coal-mine is one of the pits, the downeast 
another, If no ventilation were needed, only one pit would be sunk ; 
thus the cost of the second pit is an expenditure incurred simply for 

the purpose of ventilation. 


oY 


Science Notes. 93 


Tn the case of the railway, only one shaft is demanded—viz, the 
upeast—which might easily be made not only unobjectionable, but a 
very beautiful object. Everybody admires the campanile of Italy— 
those independent bell-towers that were built by the sides of their 
churehes—and one or another of these might be sclected as a copy, 
or I would rather say should be, seeing that if any original design of 
an English engineer or architect were selected, our self-created art 
critic would denounce it as hideous, whatever its real merit might 
be; but a copy of something that was old and Ttalian, such as the 
campanile of San Marco at Venice, or Giotto’s masterpiece at Florence, 
would of course be too utterly lovely. 

‘My reason for saying that only one such shaft would be required 
is that with proper management the stations themselves would form 
the downeasts. I need not here tell how these should be arranged 
with double doors for the purpose, as anybody who knows anything 
about the ordinary arrangements of colliery ventilation can supply 
the practical information. 

OF course ail the existing™blow-holes and open places would 
require to be closed or glazed, and the air only admitted at the 
stations, where it might be adjusted as a gentle breeze or mimic 
hurricane. With the upeast campanile near the middle of the line, the 
tunnel would be swept through from either end by an all-embracing 
Dlast moving at the twelve miles an hour of the Hetton Colliery, if 
required, or at much smaller speed, as the comfort of passcngers 
might demand, 

Before concluding this note, I must confess that I have been 
rather amused at the wild blast of controversy that has already been 
‘blown through these new blow-holes, while the multitude of old 
blow-holes of the Metropolitan Railway which have so long existed 
in the midst of some of the most important thoroughfares of London 
remain unnoticed. ‘They are made at convenient intervals along the 
whole course of the line, the best streets being usually selected for 
their openings ; but these openings being mere gratings level with 
the roadway, about nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine 
hundred and ninety of each of the million of Londoners who pass 
‘them are unconscious of their existence. 

Only yesterday I saw two active-minded urchins engaged in the 

of knowledge by lying prone, face downwards, to peep through 
the gratings of that one which opens into the middle of the Maryle- 
bone Road between the Baker Street and Edgware Road stations, 
and thought, if our newspaper topic writers were to do the like, 
what 4 storm would be raised around the Board of the Metropolitan 


—— 4 


a] 
o4 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


Railway Company, for keen, critical noses occupying the position of 
those of the inquisitive boys would actually be able 
sense of smell, the moment when a locomotive was | 





AVENTURINE. 


Lage was when this curious substance stood in Nabe 
among collectors of artistic nic-nacs ; now, only a 





colour, brown pink I should call it. Bedded and ; 
are innumerable brilliant gold-like spangles, remarkably paras 3 
their form, size, and distribution, 

It was a Venetian product, and its mode of manufacture kept a 
profound secret, and for aught I know still remains a secret, A paper 
in the Jakriuch fir Minerafogie of +882, by H. Fischer, reminds 
me of an almost forgotten experience in connection with this 
substance, 

Herr Fischer discusses the question of whence the ancients 
obtained their ornamental minerals and metallic ores. He states that 
the aventurine now offered for sale at Allahabad and North India 
generally, is not Venetian, but is brought there by the Afghans, who 
are practised in the production of artificial stones; also, that it is 
possible that these obtain it from Badakschan, which is the only known 
locality in the Kast where aventurine is made, In Delhi Venetian 
aventurine is sold. 

He suggests that probably Marco Polo, who visited Central Asia 
in the thirteenth century, learned the art of making this glass from 
soine of the native tribes who were skilled in the cutting, boring, and 
polishing of agates, chalcedony, &c., and that he brought it to 
Venice. 

My own experience above referred to suggests a totally different 
explanation of the origin of the Venetian art. One of my youthful 

jupils at the Midland Institute (Maude Walsh, son of a well-i ‘known 
Birminghawa glass-maker) was very ambitious to produce the ancient 
ruby glass, which chemical analysis shows to be coloured by copper, 
instead of the gold commonly used for ordinary modem ruby 

88. 

a was interested in his work and helped hin with it, my theory, 
based upon preliminary failures, being that the desired ruby glass was 
& compound of silica with suboxide of Taney ie ae 
copper glass being a compound with a higher oxide ; 
accordance with this theory, I suggested various means of ke 


a al 


Science Notes. 95 


down the oxidation and reducing the existing oxide. One that I 
now remember, was the use of precipitated metallic copper obtained 
by the action of metallic zinc on copper sulphate. 

Maude Walsh persevered with commendable diligence and 
equivocal results, making, now and then, a fair sample of ruby glass, 
but anable to obtain it regularly and of uniformly pure tint. 

One evening he brought me a specimen of unmistakeable aven- 
turine, resembling the Venetian sample in all respects but the size 
of the spangles, his being larger. 

At that time I was ignorant of the composition of ayenturine, but 
‘on reference to Gmelin, now find that “ Gahn has observed that the 
spangles consist of metallic copper crystallised in the form of flat 
Segments of a regular octahedron.” 

‘The name aventurine (or aventerina, its Italian form) is derived 
from a@ venture, by accident, ‘This is the acknowledged derivation in 
Venice, where a tradition remains that the spangle-glass was disco. 
vered hy accident, but nothing further is recorded conceming the + 
circumstances of the accident, 

Now, we know that the old Venetian glass-makers did solve the 
problem of making copper ruby glass, to do which they must have 
worked in nearly the same way as my pupil did, and with similar 
materials ‘Therefore it is but natural that they should haye stum- 
bled upon the same glittering result ag that which he found in his 
melting-pot. 

‘Such is my theory of the origin of this beautiful product, which T 
think deserves some restoration of its old reputation, as it may be 
worked, like other glass, into any artistic form. The above (especially 
theuse of the precipitated copper) may suggest to our ownglass-makers 
amcethod of producing it. 


‘Te Domestication or Monkeys. 


HE remarkable intelligence of dogs, and, ina minor degree, of 
eats, ig doubtless due to education and the hereditary trans 
mission of the cerebral development induced by education, A 
pointer that has been reared from puppyhood in town and has never 
‘seen a partridge, will point, the first time it is taken in the country, 
atts ‘first sight of game. Collies and other specially trained dogs 
‘similar hereditary aptitude. 
_ What would have happened if monkeys had been similarly do- 
‘and as carefully trained to useful work, such as frait- 
Sc, during a few Aeemcede of generation 





| 
96 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


‘The monkeys in our menageries usually die of consumption, 
Recent investigations which connect pulmonary tubercles with bacilli, 
ani indicate that the germs of these pestiferous creatures may be 
communicated by the breath, render it a matter of | surprise 
that the poor creatures, confined together in the detestable atmo- 
sphere of such places asthe monkey-house of the Zoological Gardens, 
should become thus infected and speedily die. 

Ic is a curious fact that the keepers of caged animals in mena 
are usually victims of pulmonary consumption, ‘This shows that 
there is something more than mere coldness of climate concerned 
in promoting the mischief 

There are monkeys and monkeys, some spiteful and dangerous, 
others docile and gentle as kittens, A dozen pairs of the latter 
sporting at large in the Crystal Palace would be immensely amusing, 
their trapeze performances throwing Leotard deeply into the shade; 
and living thus in something like their natural condition they would 
probably increase and multiply sufficiently to afford an 
of observing the hereditary results of domestication, and the soothing 
‘charms of much music. 

What would they do during the performances of the Handel 
Festival? Would they select the Reporters’ Gallery, the Royal Box, 
the upper regions of the orchestra, or the reserve seats on the floor ; 
‘or would they crouch behind the effigies of the kings and queens of 
England at the most remote end of the transept? 

‘These and many other questions conceming their habits are 
sufficiently interesting to scicatific and popular curiosity to render 
such an addition to the attractions of the palace a profitable invest 
ment for the shareholders. 

Some years ago I was much interested in observing the excep- 
tional frontal development and very intelligent expression and 
movements of a very pretty little monkey ut the Regent's Park 
Gardens, so much so that I made inquiries of the keeper concerning 
it. He told me that it was born there, Were these characteristics 
accidental, or the result of heredity under domestication ? 





Tue Furors or tHe Necro. 
N The Journal of Science of last March is a rather alarming 
paper by an anonymous writer, bearing the title of “ Coming 
Shadows : an Ethnological Study.” The author shows that at the 
present rate of growth in numbers, the negro population will, in the 
course of about another century, far outnutnber the whites, especially 


ae al 





Setence Notes. 97 


in the Southern States, where, according to his figures, they will have 
reached double the number of the white population in the year 1890, 

‘This anticipation is based on the results of the census of 1880, 
according to which the emancipated negro population is increasing 
at the rate of 3b per cent. per annum, or doubling itself every 
twenty years, while that of the whites in the States increases only 
at the rate of 2 per cent., or doubling every thirty-five years, 

‘Terrible pictures are drawn of the consequences of this, but in 
their delineation no allowance is made for the checking effect of 
density of population and the conscquent habits of town life x. 
country life. 

‘The actual results in the Southern States afford an interesting 
confirmation of the prediction of Col. Hamilton Smith, whose book 
on ethnology I read many years ago and can now only quote from 
memory. Instead of Blumenbach's division of the human species 
into five varieties, Caucasian, Ethiopian, Mongolian, Malay, and 
American, he divides them into only three, the Caucasian, Ethiopian, 
and Mongolian, corresponding to their natural or original habitats, 
the temperate, tropical, and arctic regions, with of course intermediate 
sub-vatieties, belonging to the sub-tropical and sub-arctie zones, He 
contends—and supports his arguments very ably—that when cither 
of these is brought out of his native region he degenerates, and in 
the struggle for existence cannot hold his ground against the native 
variety ; thos the Caucasian competing in the tropics with the negro 
would ultimately succumb, in spite of original superiority, while the 
‘negro speedily dies out in temperate climates. 

‘This appears to be sound, and I can sce nothing alanning in it. 
Tt merely means a distribution of the human race on the principle of 
putting the right men in the right place. If the white men in the 
South, finding their numbers declining, attempt by violence to kick 
against a natural law, they will simply get what they deserve. ‘Their 
Proper course is to study the subject philosophically, and procced 
accordingly, either by emigrating farther North or by submitting to 
live as a minority and bending their habits to the requirements of 

‘negro civilisation, which will doubtless assume a curiously different 
pect from that which constitutes our white ideal. 


Voucanic Manure. 
=) VERY observant traveller who visits Etna and Vesuvius 
=, sdmires the wonderful fertility of the country ground the 
volcanoes. The defeat of Hannibal has heen atmmbuted to We 
You. cexy, NO 1831. t 


Le 





98 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


enervating influence of a sojourn on the luxurious plains of 
G : 








1¢ explanation of this is afforded by some analyses made by 
jardi of ashes ejected from Vesuvius on 2sth February, 1882. 
He fonnd in them 43 per cent. of phosphate of lime, and more than 
54 per cent. of potash, and that the ash evolved a sensible quantity 
of ammonia when treated with caustic potash. 

‘These and other constituents indicate a valuable fertilizer pro- 
vided it is distributed in a pulverised condition, and such distribu- 
tiun takes place over a very large area of country during an eruption, 
for the masses of lava-crust ejected perpendicularly from the crater 
fall back towards it, and on their way down encounter other pieces 
coming upwards, and thus they are so continually crashing together 
that they grind each other into dust, which is blown away as soon as 
the particles become stnall enough to yield to the wind. 

At the great eruption of Tomboro, on the island of Sumbawa 
(east of Java), which continued from: April 5, 1815, to the beginning 
of June, some of the dust thus formed travelled to Tara and Celebes, 
a distance of 300 miles, and caused a darkness described by Sir 
Stamford Raffles as more profound than that of the darkest night. 
‘This dust was deposited over an area estimated at about 2,000 miles 
in circumference, and in some places was so deep as to do serious 
mischief. 

‘This, of course, is an extreme instance, but during ordinary 
eruptions a deposit of some inches in depth is spread over vast 
areas, supplying a “ top-dressing” that our farmers would envy, and 
which would put an end to the artificial manure trade in England if 
we were within reach of such volcanic beneficence. 











Pics anp ALCOHOL. 


N olden times, when the dissection of the human body was pro- 
hibited, pigs were used as substitutes, on account of their near 
ielationship to man. Blumenbach devoted a humorous lecture to 
the subject of the resemblances, physical and moral, of pigg to men. 
He divided the different breeds of pigs into Caucasian, Ethiopian, 
Mongolian, Malay, and American, and showed to his pupils the 
characteristic differences that are parallel to the corresponding 
human varieties. 
‘Thus the native pig of hot countries is black, has a prominent 
jaw and broad nose resembling the human Ethiopian, and so on 
with the rest as regards yariattons uf facial bones, hair, xe, 





Setence Notes. * 99 


He showed that the influence of civilisation on pigs was similar 
to its influence on man. The civilised pig is a most cleanly animal 
im its habits, 2s may be seen by observing the prize pigs at our cattle 
shows, while the uncivilised or illeducated pig is comparable in 
filthiness to similarly neglected human beings. 

I once witnessed a display of drunkenness among pigs at a large 
pig farm, where the proprietor had spoiled a barrel of elderberry wine 
and ordered his pig bailiff to put it into the wash, meaning little by 
little, but the bailiff being energetic used it all at once, and the con. 
sequence was that about 300 pigs of various ages were all drunk 
together in the square enclosure of the foal-yard, which was devoted 
to their use as a promenade. 

‘Their behaviour was intensely human, exhibiting all the usual 
manifestations of jolly good fellowship, including that advanced stage 
wherea group were rolling over each other and grunting affectionately 
in tones that were distinctly expressive of swearing eternal friendship 
allround Their reeling and staggering, and the expression of their 
features, all indicated that alcohol had the same effect on pigs as 
on men; that under its influence both stood on precisely the same 

jical level. 

With this grotesque exhibition fresh in my memory, I read with 
interest a paper in the Comptes Rendus of the French Academy 
of Sciences on May 28, by MM. Dujardin-Beaumetz and Audigé in 
which they describe the effects of alcoholic dict on pigs. Eighteen 
of these animals were treated sumptuously, according to old-fashioned 
notions of hospitality, by mixing various alcohols with their food, in 
proportions about corresponding to a modest halfpint of wine at 
dinner. The alcohols that we drink in wine, malt liquors, whisky, 

brandy, &c., invariably produced sleep, prostration, and 
general lassitude, while absinthe (included as another varicty of 
alcohol) produced an excitation resembling epilepsy. 

‘The experiments extended over three years, during which some 
of the animals died from the effects of alcohol poison, 

‘The survivors were killed, and subjected to post-mortem cxamin 
ation. All were found to be injured, and the mischief was greatest 
when crude spirit was used, less when it-was carefully redistilled and 


‘These results are worthy of the consideration of those who 
concede that morning drinks are mischievous, but that there can be 
no harm done by a fiir allowance taken with solid food, as at dinner 
or supper. 


— 


100 The*Gentleman's Magazine, 


LTHOUGH we know that potash exists in sea water and in 
many rocks, notably in feldspar, which is very abundant in 
‘Cornwall and elsewhere, we are still largely dependent upon the old 
source for our supplies of the carbonate. We do not literally 
obtain it, according to its etymology, from the ashes under the pot, 
aa our very great grandmothers did in the old times of wood fuel, 
‘but from the ashes of the succulent portions of great forest trees 
when their trunks are cut for timber, 

Another source has lately been suggested by M. H, Mangon, 
who has analysed the leaves of the ice-plant (mesembryanthemum 
erystatiinum), and finds that the drieé plant contains an average of 
43 per cent. of the salts of potassium and sodium, and that a hectare 
would yield about 863 kilos. of carbonate of potash, equal, in round 
numbers, to 7 ewt. per English acre, 

He, therefore, raises the questioy whether this plant may be 
cultivated commercially as a source of caustic potash and its car- 
bonates, and also be employed to remove from the saline soils of 
the Mediterranean coasts the excess of salts to which their barren- 
ness is attributed. 

I find, upon reference, that M. Mangon’s suggestion is not quite 
novel, as the Spaniards use the ashes of this plant, under the name 
of Zaritla Moradera, in their glass works, and barilla (crude alkali) 
is made in Egypt from the mesembryanthemum nodiflorum, another 
species of the same genus of plants. 


VECETARIAN CHEESE, 


ARNEST vegetarians who do not repudiate cheese have been 
seriously troubled by the necessity of using the stomachs of 
slaughtered calves as a source of the rennet which is used in making 
the curd, and many attempts to supersede the animal coagulant by 
using vegetable and mineral acids, alum, &e., have failed. 

‘They will doubtless be glad to Ieam on the authority of Sir 
William Hooker, that a shrub common in Northern India supplies a 
vegetable rennet. Its name is the Pumceria cogudans, A decoction 
of 30 parts of its powdered capsules in 1,150 parts of water is a 
coagulating liquid of such strength that a teaspoonful is sufficient for 
curdling a gallon of milk, or, otherwise stated, the quantity required 
{s one teaspoonful of the powder to 38 gallons of milk. 


‘W, MATTIRU WILLIAMS, 


10r 


TABLE TALK. 


Mx. Marmew Agnotp on Ma. Irvine. 

‘Tis pardonable to speak of Mr. Matthew Arnold as the author of 
the articles which appear from time to time in the Fal! Malt 
Gazette under the signature “An Old Playgoer,” since the assertion 
that they are by him has been publicly made and has passed uncon. 
tradicted. These contributions to the literature of the stage are of 
‘unequal value. When Mr. Arnold in dealing with “ Impulse” secks to 
reconcile with preconceived opinions the state of the English and 
French stage, and the audiences attracted to both, his utterances are 
—well, fantastic ; his estimate of the performance of the “ Silver 
King” agrees in all respects with that of modern criticism ; his 
speculations as to the manner in which the Sultanas are allured 
to see Shakespeare are pleasant and ingenious. To me, however, 
the most agreeable thing about these papers is the proof they 
afford of the renewed interest taken by men of cultivation in the 
stage. One opinion expressed by Ms, Amold has my warm 
assent. “Ttis," says Mr. Arnold, “almost always by an important 
personality that great things are effected; and it is assuredly 
the personality of Mr. Irving and that of Miss Helen Terry which 
have the happy effect of bringing the Sultanas and of filling the 
Lyceum.” This is strictly truc. At the period of his approach- 
ing departure for America Mr. Irving is réceiving such homage as 
few actors have known. Further distinctions are in store for him, and 
it is more than probable that he will, if he lives, be the first actor to 
Teceive the honour of knighthood. His popularity is not, however, 
the mere outcome of exceptional proficiency in his art ‘The secret 
Ties in the attraction of a worthy and delightful personality. A man 
‘with these gifts and with fair opportunitics would have obtained 
success in any line. Asan actor Mr. Irving has disclosed remarkable 
quality; his most artistic performances have not, however, been the 
most successful. He possesses, as Mr. Arnold says, the “rare gilt of 
delicacy and distinction.” He has one far higher, of humour in its 
full sense. Beyond all things, however, stands the charm of a 
striking and an attractive personality, and in this must be found toc 
secret of his unparalleled success, 


_— a= 


| 
102 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


‘Tue Growrmn or «4 Reraesenrative REePoravion. 


TENDENCY to prop up the reputation of a writer who while 
living has pushed his way to a foremost place, and to add to 
the cairn erected after his death stones taken, it may be, from old- 
fashioned or less important monuments, has always been apparent in 
mankind. To professed wits like Foote and Sydney Smith in past 
days, and Mr. Byron and Mr. Barnand in the present, the best jokes 
made by their contemporaries, and sometimes by their predecessors, 
are complacently attributed, while any cynical reflection of uncertain” 
authorship is, as a matter of course, fathered upon Rochefoucauld. 
One of the most characteristic stories told of ‘Theodore Hook is 
to be found in the writings of Taylor, the water poet, who died two 
centuries earlier, This application of the old saying, “ Qui enim 
habet, dabitur ci, et abundabit,” need surprise none, There seems 
indeed a species of intellectual gravitation which makes the current 
ideas of an epoch attach themselves to a man of high Intellectual’ 
capacity and serve to swell his fame. In the higher criticism, which, 
asa portion of the modern renaissance, has becn developed during 
the present reign, condemnation of the critical system once in vogue 
of censuring a man for not being other than he is, has become a 
commonplace. When, however, with no thought of appropriating 
the labours of others, but in mere repetition of an accepted idea'that 
could not with equal convenience be otherwise expressed, a writer 
like Mr. Matthew Arnold states that we ought not to blame a man 
for not being a different person, the sentence provokes in various 
quarters explanation, refutation, or comment, Henceforward, ace 
cordingly, the special view in question becomes a portion of the 
personal luggage of the greateritic. So insignificantin the possession 
of a man like Mr, Amold are a hundred similar sayings, it is neither 
worth while for him to repudiate, nor for another to contest, his claim 
to any one of them. Instances like this show, however, the manner 
in which to a future generation a man comes clad with the authority 
of an epoch, 





Gritvousty OVERLADEN. 
‘HOSE who have taken the side of Mr, Plimsoll in the con- 
troversy a8 to the treatment of merchant sailors and the 
manner in which ships are sent to sea, have had to face charges of 
falschood, sensationalism, and I know not what. Every device that. 
fraud ond rapine can invent to prolong their miserable existence and 
to reap an aftermath of unholy gain is put forward to discredit those 


= =| 








Table Taik. 103 


who drag their proceedings to the light. Listen, however, to words 
that are spoken, not by Mr. Plimsoll, but by one of the Wreck Com- 
missioners. “There was nothing,” seid Mr. Rothery, speaking at 
Liverpool of a vessel that had been lost with all hands, “in the con- 
straction of the * Hildegarde' to lead the Court to suppose that her 
loss was owing to her unseaworthiness ; but there was the fact that 
she was griczousty overdaden, Tt seemed to the Court abundantly 
clear that the blame rested with the instructions which the owners 
gave to the master, He did not say that they wilfully sent the vessel 
10 sea with the object of drowning these poor men, but they did not 
take the reasonable precautions they ought to have done to prevent 
keer from foundering. “The owners had got the full value of the ship 
and freight, and, on the whole, they bad not made a bad business 
affair of it ; but they had lost their ship and the lives of the sixteen 
men who were in her.” A rebuke such as this from aman like Mr. 
Rothery must, it would be thought, crush almost out of life any man 
whom the constant pursuit of gain had not hardened into stone. 
‘Yet the same thing goes on, not only in the Pacific, where the six- 
teen lives were sacrificed, but on our own coasts, and on the vessels 
which, at the bidding of some of our great railway companies, carry 
passengers across to France. Comment on this state of affairs is 
needless Not, however, for all the fortunes that have been made in 
‘Liverpool dare I take om my shoulders the reproach of sending forth 
living men in ships thus “ grievously averladen." 


Raitwav TRAVELLING IN ENGLAND aND ON TRE CoxYINENT, 

CCORDING to a report on railways issued by M. Wadding- 
ton, the proportion of railway journeys taken during the 

year by Frenchmen of all classes averages 3°7 per head. Against 
this we in England are able to oppose 17°2 per head, which of course 
‘means that Englishmen travel about five times as often as Frenchmen. 
No difficulty will be experienced by anyone familiar with the two 
countries in accepting these statistics. An attempt recently made 
by ‘T. H. Farrer, in an evening journal, to prove that the rates 
on English railways ste lower than those on the French lines 
has great interest. It strikes me, however, as unsatisfactory in one 
respect. Against one of the most spirited of English lines, the Great 
Northern, Mr. Farrer opposes the Paris, Lyon, and Méditerranée, 
which is the least liberal, the most old-fashioned, and the most 
y managed line in France: to the Parisian an object of 

tidicule when not of aversion. As the London and South-Western 
Railway is regarded ty one whom business or pleasure takes hen 19 





— =E— (aes =) 





tog The Ges 
‘Tunbridge, so is the Paris, Lyon, and » 





have each day fourteen third-class tains and fifteen first against four 
of the former and six of the ketter in France, and that our fares are 
perceptibly lower. To this pleasant view of the case must be added 
that there is much more civility in England than in France, and that 
‘our trains arenot crowded as are the French with a public that fears 
even in the hottest days of July any intrusion into the carriage of 
fresh air. Travelling, in short, is inconceivably pleasanter in Eng- 
Jand than in France. The one thing, however, our railway companies 
should be compelled to supply is either the bottle of iced water, which, 
in Sweden, occupics in summer time a place in most carriages, or the 
fountains at the stations at which, on the Continent, the third-class 
passengers wash their hands and replenish their bottles. 


Resroxsuiitirizs oF JourNatssa. 


REEDOM of the press is recognised as one of the most precious 
of English institutions, Without the aid of this most potent 
influence, the fabric of our liberties could never have been erected, | 

nor could the gigantic mound of class privileges and social ii 

ties have been swept away. In times of difficulty, however, it is 
‘expedient that the newspaper should recall its responsibilities as well 
as its privileges. I cannot sufficiently reprobate the manner in which, 
in its eagerness to obtain news, the press supplies the enemies of 
England with the exact information they want in order to camry 
‘out their schemes. One witness alone can. testify to the identity 
of a criminal whose conviction is greatly dreaded by his associates. 
‘The press forthwith mentions his name, his address, his place of 
work, and all particulars that can be desired by those who have 
most interest in getting rid of his testimony, New protection is 
suggested for certain buildings, and the pablic writer tells, for 
the benefit of evil-doers, the spots at which newly placed guards 
can be found. Ts the pablic so greedy for news that it would not 
So cette eae RL Dia sie SES 


SUrANOs UHRA 


— z= 


THE 


GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. 


Aveust 1883, 


THE NEW ABELARD. 
A ROMANCE, 


By Rorerr Buchanax, 
ACTHOR OF “THE SHADOW OF Tite SWORD,” “GOD AND Tite MAN," ETC. 


Cuarter XX. 


THE THUNDERCLAP (concluded), 


HE two men, father and son, had struck their blow boldly but 

‘very cnuclly, and it came with full force on the devoted woman's 
head. At first Alma could scarcely believe her ears; she started 
in her chair, put out her hands quickly as if to ward off another savage 
attack, and then shrank in terror, while every vestige of colour in 
her cheeks faded away. 

Sir George stood gazing down at her, also greatly agitated, for he 
was well-bred enough to feel that the part he was playing was 
unmanly, almost cowardly. Ic had spoken and acted on a mere 
‘Surmise, and even at that moment, amidst the storm of his nervous 
indignation, the horrible thought flashed upon him that he might 
he wrong after all. 

*** His first wife is still living !’” repeated Alma with a quick 
involuntary shudder, scarcely able to realise the words. “Uncle, 
what do you mean? Have yow gone mad, as well as George? OF 
‘whom are you speaking? Of—of Mr. Bradley?” 

“ Of that abominable man,” cried the baronct, “who, if my in- 
formation is correct, andif there is law in the land, shall certainly pay 
the penalty of his atrocious crime! Do not think that we blame 
Jou," he added more gently ; “no, for you are not to blame. You 
‘have been the dupe, the victim, of a villain!” 

Like a prisoner sick with terror, yet gathering all his strenghh 
about him to provest agzinst the death-sentence for a crime of wich 

Fok, CCEY, NO. 1832, t 


i 


dare ei le woh i : 


"T have only done my Lite, Alma!" 
uneasily, moving as he spoke towards, 
to support her, “My poor child—courage! r 
eet and save you.” 

Hereupon Mephistopheles junior Ree. 
munnur, yiich wes undealoed 19 he ee eee 
fellow's head—yes, smash him—-on the very earliest oppor 

“Don't touch me!" exclaimed Alma. * Don't ap 
What is your authority for this cruel libel on Mr. 
talk of punishment. It is you that will be punished, be sure of 
if you cannot justify so shameful an accusation,” 

‘The two men looked at each other. If, afier all, the ground 
should give way beneath them! But it was too Tate to 
‘or temporise, Tt. 

“Tell her, father,” said George, with a prompting } 

% You ask our authority for the statement," replied 
“My dear Alma, the thing is past a doubt, We have: 

rami 

“The person? What person?” 

* Bradley's svife |" 

“ He has no wife but me," cried Alma. “T love 
husband 1" 

"Then, a8 Sir George shrugged his shoulders pia 
forward eagerly, and demanded in quick, spasmodic 

“Who is the woman who wrongs my rights? 1 
ture who has filled you with this falschood ? Who is 
” 


NID tie ofthe ones ons th ba ce 
In vestry, and malay a 
que caer te vot ick had surrounded 
Mma grew faint, Some terrible and 
‘her, She thought of the pain 
of the strange woman, 








The New Abelard. 107 


nervous uneasiness, of the thrill of dislike and repulsion which had 
run momentanily through her own frame as she left them together. 
Overcome by an indescribable and sickening horror, she put her 
hand to her forehead, totvered, and seemed about to fall. 

Solicitous and alarmed, the baronet once more approached her 
as if to support her. But before he could touch her she had 
shrank shuddering away. 

Weak and terrified now, she uttered a despairing moan, 

“Oh! why did you come here to tell me this?” she cried. 
“ Why did you come here to break my heart and wreck my life? If 
you had had any pity or care for me, you would have spared me ; 
you would have left me to discover my miscry for myself. Go now, 
go; you have done all you can, 1 shall soon know for myself 
whether your cruel tale is false or true.” 

“Tr is true," said Sir George. “Do not be unjust, my child. 
We could not, knowing what we did, suffer you to remain at the 
mercy of that man. Now, be advised. Leave the affair to us, who 
are devoted to you ; we will see that you are justified, and that the 
true culprit is punished as he deserves.” 

And the two men made a movement towards the door, 

“Stop!” cried Alma. “ What do you intend to do?" 

“Apply for a warrant, and have the scoundrel apprehended 
without delay.” 

“You will do 30 at your peril,” cxclaimed Alma, with sudden 
energy. “I forbid you to interfere between him and me, Yes, I 
forbid you! Even if things are as you say—and I will never believe 
it till I receive the assurance from his own lips, never !—even if 
things are a3 you say, the wrong is mine, not yours, and I need no 
‘one to come between me and the man I love.” 

* The man yout love !" echoed Sit George in amazement, “Alma, 
this is infatuation |” 

“T love him, ancle, and love such as mine is not a light thing to 
be destroyed by the first breath of calumny or misfortune. What 
has taken place is between him and me alone.” 

“T beg your pardon,” returned her uncle, with a recurrence to 
his old anger, “Our good name—the honour of the house—is at 
stake; and if you are too far lost to consider these, it is my duty, as 
the head of the family, to act on your behalf." 

“ Certainly," echoed young George between his set tecth. 

“" And bow would you vindicate them?” asked Alina, passion 

By outraging and degrading me? Yes; for if you utter to 
‘other soul one syllable of this story, you drag my good name im 
13 





Ea 


a 


SI 


108 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


the mire, and make me the martyr. I need no protection, Task no 
justification, If necessary 1 can bear my misery, as 1 have borne 


my happiness, in silence and alone.” 
“ But," persisted Sir George, “you will surely let us take some 
steps to—" 


“Whatever I do will be done on my own responsibility, I am 
my own mistress. Unele, you must promise me—you must swear to 
me—to do nothing without my will and consent, You can serve 
me yet; you can show that you are still capable of kindliness and 
compassion, by saving me from proceedings which you would regret, 
and which I should certainly not survive.” 

Sir George looked at his son in fresh perplexity. In the whirl- 
wind of his excitement he had hardly taken into calculation the 
unpleasantness of a public exposure. True, it would destroy and 
punish the man, but, on the other hand, it would certainly bring 
disgrace on the family. Alma’s eccentricities, both of opinion and 
of conduct, which he had held in yery holy horror, would become 
the theme of the paragraph-mnaker and the leader-writer, and the 
immediate consequence would be to make the name of Craik 
ridiculous. So he stammered and hesitated, 

George Craik, the younger, however, had none of his father's 
scruples. He cared little or nothing now for his cousin's reputation. 
All he wanted was to expose, smash, pulverise, and utterly destroy 
Bradley, the man whom he had always cordially detested, and who 
had subjected him to innumerable indignities on the part of hig 
cousin, So, seeing Alma's helplessness, and no longer dreading her 
indignation, he plucked up heart of grace and took his full part in 
the discussion, 

“The fellow deserves penal servitude for life,” he said, “and in 
my opinion, Alma, it's your daty to prosecute him, It is the only 
coume you can take in justice to yourself and your friends, I know 
it will be deucodly unpleasant ; but not more unpleasant than going: 
trough the Divorce Court, which respectable people do every day.” 

“Silence |" exclaimed his cousin, turing upon him with tre 
mulous indignation. 

“ Eh? what?” ejaculated George. 

Twill not discuss Mr, Bradley with you, To my uncle T will 
listen, because I know he has a good heart, and because he is my 
dear father's brother; but I forbid you to speak to me on the subject, 
1 owe all this misery and humiliation to you, and you only,” 

“That's all humbug!” George George een fos, ut is her 

waved him to silence. 








The New Abelard. 109 


“ Alma is excited, naturally excited ; in her cooler senses she will 
acknowledge that she does you an injustice. Hush, George !—My 
dear child,” he continued addressing Alma, “all my son and I 
desire to do is to save you pain, You have been disgracefully 
misled, and I repeat, I pity rather than blame you, To be sure you 
have beer a little headstrong, little opinionated, and Iam afraid 
the doctrines promulgated by your evil genius have led you to take 
too rash a view of—hum—moral sanctions. Depend upon it, loose 
ideas in matters of religion lead, direetly and indirectly, to the 
destruction ofmorality, Not that I accuse you of wilful misconduct— 
Heayen forbid! But you have erred from want of caution, ftom, if 
I may so express it, a lack of discretion ; for you should have been 
aware that the man that believes in neither Our Maker nor Our 
Sayiour—an—in short, an infidel—would not be deterred by any 
moral consideration from acts of vice and crime,” 

‘This was a long speech, but Alma paid little or no attention to it, 
She stood against the mantelpicce, leaning her forehead against it, 
and trembling with agony ; but she did not cry—the tears would not 
come yet—she was still too lost in amazement, pain, and dread. 

* Suddenly, as Sir George ended, she looked up and said :— 

“The name of this woman, this actress? Where is she to be 
found?” 

“ Her name—as I told you, her assumed name—is Montmorency. 
George can give you her address ; but I think, on the whole, you 
had better not sce her.” 

“J must," replied Alma, firmly. 

Sir George glanced at his son, who thereupon took out a note- 
book and wrote on one of the leaves, which he tore out and handed 
to his father. 

Here is the address,” said the baronet, passing the paper on to 
Alma. 

She took it without looking at it, and threw it on the mantelpiece, 

“Now pray Ieave me. But, before you go, promise to do 
nothing—to keep this matter secret—until you hear from me. I 
must first ascertain that what you say és true.” 

“We will do as you desire, Alma,” returned Sir George ; “ only 
1 think it would be better—much better—to let us act for you.” 

“No; I only am concerned. Iam not a child, and am able to 
protect myself.” 

"Very well,” said her uncle. “But try, my child, to remember 
‘that you have friends who are waiting to serve you. Iam heart- 
broken—George is heart-broken—at this sad affair, Do noting, 


———— =| 


110 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


rash, I beseech you : and do not forget, in this hour of humiliation, 
that there is One above Who can zive you comfort, if you will tum 





niece, crew her to him, and kissed her benignantly on the forehead. 
But she shrank away quickly, with a low cry of distress. 

“Do not torch me! Do not speak tome! Leave me now, for 
God's sake ‘” 

After a long-drawn sigh, expressive of supreme sympathy and 
commiseration, and a prolonged look full of quasi-paternal emotion, 
Sir George left the room. George followed, with a muttered 
“Good-night !” to which his cousin paid no attention. 

Father and son passed out into the street, where the manner of 
both underwent a decided change. 

“Well, that’s over!” exclaimed the baronet. “The poor girl 
bears it far better than I expected ; for it is a horrible situation.” 

“Then you mean to do as she tells you,” said George, “and let 
the scoundrel alone ?” 

“For the time being, yes. After all, Alma is right, and we must 
endeavour to avoid a public exposure.” 

“It’s sure to come out. It’s digamy, you know—Bigamy !” he 
added, with more emphasis and a capital letter. 

“So it is—if it is true. At present, you know, we have no proofs 
whatever—only suspicions. God bless me! how ridiculous we 
should look if the whole thing turns out a mare’s-nest after all! 
‘Alma will never forgive us! You really feel convinced that there 
was a previous marriage?” 

“J'm sure of it,” returned George. “ And whether or not——” 

He did not finish the sentence; but what he added to himself, 
spitefully enough, was to the effect that, “whether or not,” he had 
paid out his cousin for all her contumelious and persistent snubbing. 





ji a 
112 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


‘or quite unknown to her. She had been astudious, reserved girl, with 
4 manner which repelled the approaches of Peete ee 
her own age ; her beauty attracted them, but her intellectual 
eyes frightened and cowed the most impudent among them. Not 
till she came into collision with Bradley did she 2 tiie what 
personal passion meant; and cven then the first overtures were 
intellectual, leading only by very slow degrees to a more tender 
relationship. 

Alma Craik, in fact, was of the same fine clay of which 
enthusiasts have been made in all ages. Born in the age of Pericles, 
she would doubtless have belonged to the class of which Aspasia was 
an immortal type ; in the carly days of Christianity, she would have 
perhaps figured as a Saint ; in its medimval days asa proselytising 
abbess; and now, in the days of Christian decadence, she opened 
her dreamy eyes on the troublous lights of spiritual Science, found 
in them her inspiration and her heavenly hope. But men cannot 
live by bread alone, and women cannot cxist without love. Her 
large impulsive nature was barren and incomplete till she had dis- 
covered what the Greek /e/afraf found in Pericles, what the feminine 
martyrs found in Jesus, what Eloisa found in Abelard; that is to say, 
the realisation of a masculine ideal. She waited, almost without 
anticipation, till the hour was ripe. 

Love comes ant as a slave 
To any beckoning finger 5 but, some day, 
‘When least expected, cometh as a King, 
And takes his throne. 


So at last it was with the one love of Alma’s life, Without 
doubt, without fear or question, she suffered her lover to take full 
sovercignty, and to remain thenceforth throned and crowned. 

And now, she asked herself shudderingly, was it all over? Had 
the end of her dream come, when she had scarcely realised its begin« 
ning? If this was so, the beautiful world was destroyed. If Bradley 
was unworthy, there was no goodness in man ; and if the divine type 
in humanity was broken like a cast of clay, there was no comfort in 
religion, no certainty of God. 

She looked at her watch ; it was not far from midnight. She 
moved from her support, and walked nervously up and down the room, 

At last her mind was made up. She put on her hat and mantle, 
and left the house. 

In her hand she clutched the piece of paper which George Craik 
had given her, and which contained the name and address of Mrs, 
Montmorency, 


aay a 


The New Abelard. 113 


‘The place was close at hand, not far indeed from Bradley's 
residence and her own, She hastened thither without hesitation, 
Her way lay along the borders of the park, past the very Church 
which she had spared no expense to build, so that she came into 
its shadow almost before she knew. 

Tt was a still and windless night ; the skies were blue and clear, 
with scarcely a cloud, and the air was full of the vitreous pour of 
the summer moon, which glimmered on the church windows with 
ghostly silvern light. From the ground there exhaled a sickly heavy 
odour—the scent of the heated dew-charged earth. 

Alma stood for some time looking at the building with the for- 
tumes of which her own seemed so closely and mysteriously blent, 
Its shadow fell upon her with ominous darkness, Black and sepulchral 
it seemed now, instead of bright and full of joy. As she gazed upon 
it, and remembered how she had laboured to upbuild it, how she 
had watched it grow stone by stone, and felt the joy a child might 
feel in marking the growth of some radiant flower, it scemed the very 
embodiment of her own despair. 

Now, for the first time, her tears began to flow, but slowly, as if 
from sources in an arid heart. If she had heard the truth that day, 
the labour of her life was done; the place she looked upon was 
eurst, and the sooner some thunderbolt of God struck it, or the hand 
‘of man razed it to the ground, the better for all the world, 

‘There was a light in the house close by—in the room where she 
Knew her lover was sitting, Shecrept close to the rails of the garden, 
and looked at the light through her tears, As she gazed, she prayed ; 
prayed that God might spare her yet, rebuke the satanic calumpy, 
and restore her lord and master to her* pure and perfect as he had 
been. 

Then, in ber pity for him and for herself, she thought how base 
he might think her if she sought from any lips but his own the 
confirmation of her horrible fear. She would be faithful till the 
last, Instead of seeking out the shameless woman, she would go in 
and ask Bradley himself to confess the truth. 

Swift action followed the thought. She opened the gate, crossed 
‘the small garden, and rang the bell, 

‘The hollow sound, breaking on the solemn stillness, startled her, 
and she shrank trembling in the doorway ; then she heard the sound 
‘of bolts being drawn, and the next moment the house door opened, 
and the clergyman appeared on the threshold, holding a light. 

‘He looked wild and haggard enough, for indeed he had been 
having his dark hour alone. Pe wore a black dressing jacker wit 


——— _| 









"Yes, it is J," she answered in a Tow 
to you. Many I come in?" ‘ 

‘He could not see her ‘ace; butthetondaof her rélee sartled ih 
as he drew back to let her enter, i 
and hastened along the lobby to the study, He ct 
softly, and followed her. 

‘The moment he came into the bright Iamplight of the room he 
saw her standing and facing hi, her foe white as/ Gent her eyes 
dilated. la al 


“My darling, what is it? ‘Are you iL?" be exied, | | 
‘But he had no need to ask any question, He saw in a moment 
that she knew his secret. i «| 
* Clascthe door," she sid in low voice jan after iad Obeye 
her she continued, Ambrose, I have come here to-night 
could not rest at home till I had spoken to you. 1 bate heben Sosa 
thing terrible—so terrible that, had I believed it utterly, J think I 
should not be living now. It is something that concerns us both— 
me, most of all. Do you know what 1 mean? ‘Yell me, for God's” 
sake, if you know} Spare me thé pain of an explanation : aaa 
Ab, God help me! T see you know |" ~ 
‘Their cyes met. He could not lic to her now, - 
“Yes, 1 know,” he replied. i] 
“Rocitis not trac? ‘Tell me it is not.true?” <j 
As she gazed at him, and stretched out her arms in wild entreatyy 
his grief was pitiful beyond measure, He tumed his res aoray 
with a groan of agony. 
She came close to him, and, taking his head in her 
hands, turned his face again to hers. He callecedsllhis eengitioe 
‘mect her reproachful gaze, while he replicd, in a deep tremulous 
voice -— a 
“You have heard that I have deceived you, that I am the most 
miserable wretch beneath the sun. You have! help met 
—that there isa woman living, other than yourself, who claims t0 be 
my wife.” oe 
wee thatis what Ihave heard. But Ido not believe will: 
believe i, Ihave come to Taian 
falsehood. Dear Ambrose, tell me so. 1 


f ‘tell me, T will believe with all my soul. 
















‘The New Abelard. my 


~ She clung to hin tenderly ‘ay she spoke, with the tears streaming 
fast down her face, 

Disengaging himself gently, he crossed the room to his desk, and 
placed his hand upon some papers scattered there, with the ink fresh 
‘upon’ them, 

“When 1 heard you knock,” he said, “I was trying to write down, 
for your eyes to read, what my lips refused to tell, what I could not 
‘speak for utter, overpowering shame. I knew the secret must soon 
be known ; I wished to be first to reveal it to you, that you might 
know the whole unvarnished trath. T was too late, T find. My 
enemies have been before me, and you have come to reproach me— 
as I deserve.” 

“I have wef come for that,” answered Alma, sobbing.  It.is too 

Tate for repreaches. Tonly wish to know my fate.” 
“Then try and listen, while £ tell you everything,” said Bradley, 
in the same tone of utter misery and despair, “1 am speaking my 
own death-warrant, 1 know; for with every word T utter T shall be 
tearing away another living link that binds you to my already broken 
heart. I have nothing to say in my own justification ; no, not onc 
word. If you could strike me dead at your fect, in your just and 
holy anger, it would be dealing with me as I deserve. 1 should have 
been strong ; IT was weak, a coward ! I deserve neither mercy nor 
ana strange how calia they both seemed ; he as he addressed 
her in his low deep voice, she as she stood and. listened. Both were 
deathly pale, but Alma’s tears were checked, as she looked in 
idle the man who had wrecked her life, 

Then he told her the whole story : of how, in his youthful in- 
fatmation, he Nad married Mary Goodwin, how they had lived a 
wretched life together, how she had fled from him, and how for many 
ayearhe had thought her dead. His face trembled and his check 

Jas he spoke of the new life that had dawned upon him, when 
ep taeatares be bocame acquainted with herself ; while she listened 
in agony, thinking of the pollution of that othcr woman's embraces 
from whieh he had passed. 

But presently she hearkened more peacefully, and a faint dim 
n to quicken ii in her soul—for as yet she but dimly 
Bradley's situation. So far as she had heard, the man 
rattis blameless, The episode of his youth was a 
but the record of his manhood was clear. He had 

an dead, he had had every reason to believe it, 
to all intents and purposes, free, 






















re 


116 The Gentleman's Magasine, 
‘As he ceased, he heaved so eee 
flowed more freely. She moved across the room, 


hand, “ 

“Tunderstand now,” she said. “O Ambrose, why did you not 
confide in me frotn the first! There should have been no secrets 
between us. I would freely have forgiven you, .. » And I forgive 
younow! When you married me, you believed the woman dead 
and in her grave. If she has arisen to part us so cruelly, the blame 
is not yours—thank God for that! '" 

But he shrank from her touch, and uttering a cry of agony sank 
into a chair, and hid his face in his hands. 

“ Ambrose !" she murmured, bending over him, 

“Do not touch me,” he cried; “I have more to tell you yet— 
something that must break the last bond uniting us together, and 
degrade me for ever in your eyes. Alma, do not pity me ; your pity 
tortures and destroys me, for I do not deserve it—I am a villain! 
Listen, then! I betrayed you wilfully, diabolically ; for when T went 
through the marriage ceremony with you I Awew that Mary Goodwin 
was still alive!” 

“You knew it !—and, knowing it, you——" 

She paused in horror, unable to complete the sentence. 

“T knew it, for I had seen her with my own eyes—so long ago 
as when T was vicar of Olney. You remember my visit to London ; 
you remember my trouble then, and you attributed it to my struggle 
with the Church authorities. That was the beginning of my fall; T 
was a coward and a liar from that hour; for I had met and spoken 
with my first wife." 

She shrank away from him now, indeed, ‘The last remnant of his 
old nobility had fallen from him, leaving him utterly contemptible 
and ignoble. 

“ Afterwards," he continued, “1 was like a man for whose soul 
the angels of light and darkness struggle, You saw my anguish, 
but little guessed its cause. I had tried to fly from temptation, I 
went abroad ; even there, your heavenly kindness reached me, and 1 
was drawn back to your side, Then for a time I forgot 
in the pride of intellect and newly acquired success, By accident, I 
heard the woman had gone abroad ; and 1 knew well, or at least 1 
believed, that she would never cross my path again, My love for 
you gtew hourly ; and I saw that you were unhappy, so long as our 
lives were passed asunder. ‘Then in an evil moment I tured to. 
my creed for inspiration. I did not turn to God, for I had almost 
ceased to believe in Him; but I sought justification from my con 


a 



















The New Abelard. 117 


selence, which the spirit of evil had already warped. 1 reasoned 
with myself ; I persuaded myself that I had been a martyr, that 1 
owed the woman no faith, that I was still morally free, T examined 
the laws of marriage, and, the wish being father to the thought, found. 
in them only folly, injustice, and superstition. 1 said to myself, ‘She 
and I are already divorced by her own innumerable acts of infamy ;" 
1 asked myself, ‘Shall [ live on a perpetual bondslave to a form 
which I despise, to a creature who is utterly unworthy?’ Coward 
that I was, T yielded, forgetting that no happiness can be upbuilt 
upona tie. And see how I am punished! I have lost you for ever; 
T have lost my soul alive! I, who should have been your instructor 
in all things holy, have been your guide in all things evil. I have 
brought the curse of heaven upon myself. I have put out my last 
‘Strength in wickedness, and brought the roof of the temple down 
‘upon my head.” 

Te: this manner his words flawed on, in a wild stream of sorrow- 
fal self-reproach. It seemed, indeed, that he found a relief in 
denouncing himself as infamous, and in prostrating himself, as it 
were, anider the heel of the woman he had wronged, 

But the more he reproached himself, the greater her compassion 

grew ; till at last, in an agony of sympathy and pain, she knelt down 
by his side, and, sobbing passionately, put her arms around him, 
“ Ambrose," she murmured, “Ambrose, do not speak so! do 
not break my heart! ‘That woman shall wef come between us. I 
do not care for the world, I do not care for the judgment of men. 
Bid me to rewain with you to the end, and I will obey you.” 

‘And she hid her face, blinded with weeping, upon his breast, 

For a time there was silence ; then the clergyman, conquering his 
emotion, gathered strength to speak again, 

“ Alma! my darling! Do not tempt me with your divine good. 
ness Do not think me quite so lost as tospare myself and to destroy 
you. I have been weak hitherto; henceforth 1 will be cruel and 
fnexorable, Do not waste 2 thought upon me; I am not worth it. 
‘To-morrow T shall leave London. If | live, I will try, in penitence 
and suffering, to atone ; but, whether I live or die, you must forget 
that I ever lived to darken your young life, 

“As he spoke, he endeavoured gently to disengage himself, but her 
Anns were wound about him, and he could not stir. 

HNO" she answered, “you must not leave me. I will still be 
, your handmaid. Grant me that last merey. Let 
loving sister still, if T may not be your wife,” 























‘ a 
418 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


“Ifyou go, I will follow you. Ambrose, sem will not leave me 
behind you, to die of a broken heart. To see you, to be near you, 
will be enough ; itis all Task. You will continen. the, great work 
you have begun, and I—I will look on, and pray for you as be 

It was more than the man could bear; he too began to sob 
eonyulsively, as if utterly broken, 

“© God! God!” he cried, “1 forgot Thee in mine own, yain= 
glory, in my wicked lust of happiness and power! I wandered far- 
ther and farther away from Thy altars, from my childish faith, and 
at every step I took my pride and folly grew! But now, at fast, 1 
know that it was a brazen image that I worship—nay, worse, the 
Phantom of my own miserable sinful self. Punish me, but let me 
come back to Thee | Destroy, but saveme ! 1 know now there is no 
God but Onc—the living, biceding Christ Whom I endeavoured to 
dethrone !” 

‘She drew her face from his breast, and looked at him in terror, 
At seemed to her that he was raving. 

© Ambrose | my poor Ambrose! God has forgiven you, as 1 for- 
gave you. You have been His faithful servant, His apostle!” 

“1 have been a villain! I have fallen, as Satan fell, from intel- 
lectual vanity and pride. You talk to me of the great work that I have 
done; Alma, that work has been wholly evil, my creed a rotten reed, 
A materialist at heart, I thought that I could reject all certitude of 
faith, all fixity of form. My God became a shadow, my Christ a fig- 
ment, my morality a platitude and a lie, Believing and accepting 
everything in the sphere of ideas, I believed nothing, accepted 
nothing, in the sphere of living facts. Descending by slow degrees 
toa creed of shallow materialism, I justified falseness to myself, and 
treachery to you. I walked in my blind self-idolatry, till the solid 
ground was rent open beneath me,as you have seen, In that 
final hour of temptation, of which 1 have spoken, a Christian would 
have turned to the Cross and found salvation. What was that Cross to 
me? A dream of the poct’s brain, a symbol which could not help 
me. I turned from it, and have to face, as my cternal punishment, 
al) the horror and infamy of the old Hell.” 

Every word that he uttered was true, even truer than he yet 
realised, 

He had refined away his faith till it had become a mere figment, 
Christ the Divine Ideal had been powerless to keep him to the 
narrow path, whereas Christ the living Lawgiver might have enabled 
him to walk on a path thriceias narrow, yea, on the yery edge of the 
great gulf, where there, is scarcely foothold for a fly, 1 who write 


_ — 











+» The New Abelard. cots) 


‘these lines, though perchance far away as Bradley himself from the 
acceptance of a Christian terminology, can at least say this for the 


scheme—that it is complete as a law for life. Once accept 
its facts and theories, and it becomes as strong a3 an angel's arm to 
hold us ap in hours of weariness, weakness, and vacillation. The 
difficulty lies in that acceptance. But for common workaday use 
and practical human needs, transcendentalism, however Christian in 
its ideas, is utterly infirm. It will do when there is fair weather, 
when the beauty of art will do, and when even the feeble glimmer 
of sesthetivisin looks like sunlight and pure air, But when sorrow 
comes, when temptation beckons, when what is wanted is a staff to 
Jean upon and a Divine finger to point and guide, woe to him who 
pats his trust in any transcendental creed, however fair ! 

Tris the tendency of modern agnosticism to slacken the moral 
fibre of men, even more than to weaken their intellectual grasp. The 
Jaws of human life are written in letters of brass on the rock of 
Science, and it is the task of true Religion to read them and translate 
them for the common use. But the agnostic is as shortsighted as 
an owl, while the atheist is as blind a5.a bat ; the one will not, and 
the other cannot, read the colossal cypher, interpret the simple 
apecch, of God. 

Ambrose Bradley was a man of keen intellect and remarkable 
intuitions, but he had broadened his faith to 90 gréat an extent that 
it became like one of many ways in a wilderness, leading anywhere, 

ornowhere. He had becn able to accept ideals, never to cope with 
ees His creed was beautiful as a rainbow, as many- 
coloured, as capable of stretching from heaven to earth and earth to 
heaven, but it faded, rainbow-like, when the sun sank and the dark- 
ness came. So must it be with all creeds which are not solid as the 
ground we walk on, strength-giving as the air we breathe, simple as 
es of childhood, and inexorable as the solemn verity of 


Sarge ‘been, throughout all success or failure, and such is, 
“practical Christianity. Blessed is he who, in days of backsliding 
‘and unbelief, can, became as a little child and lean all his hope upon 

it Its. penance and its heavenly promise are interchangeable 
dies that he may live; suffers that he may 
that he may gain; sacrifices his life that he may 
the beatitude of suffering, which no merely happy 
, We who are worlds removed from the simple faith 

rid may at least admit all this, and then, with a sigh 

go dismally upon our way, 

| 














and there was still a stake, 

‘The game was decided for the time being when the clergyman 
spoke as follows -— 

© My darling, I am not so utterly lost as to Ket pou share my 

degradation. I do not deserve your pity any “more than I have 
deserved your love. Your goodness only makes me feel my own 
taseness twenty-fold. I should have told you the whole truth; 
failed to do 50, and I grossly deceived you ; therefore it is just that 
I should be punished and driven forth I have broken the laws of 
my country as well as the precepts of my creed. J shall leave 
England to-morrow, never to return,” 
“You must not go,” answered Alma. “1 know that we must 
separate, I see that it is sin to remain together, but over and above 
our miserable selves is the holy labour to which you have set your 
hand. Do not, I conjure you, abandon that! The last boon T shall 
ask you is to labour on in the church I upbuilt for you, and to keep 
your vow of faithful service.” 

Alma, it is impossible! In a few days, possibly in a few hours, 
‘our secret will be known, and then——" 

‘Your secret is safe with me,"she replied, “and T will answer for 
my uncle and my cousin—that they shall leave you in peace. It is 
1 that must leave England, not you. Your flight would cause a 
scandal and would destroy the great work forever ; my departure will 
be unnoticed and unheeded. Promise me, promise me to remain.” 

“T cannot, Alma !—God forbid |—and allow you, who are blame- 
less, to be driven forth from your country and your home !” 

“I have no home, no country now," she said, and as she spoke 
her voice was full of the pathos of infinite despair. “TI lost these, 
1 lost everything, when I lost yew, Dearest Ambrose, there is but 
‘one atoncment possible for both of us! We must forget our vain 
happiness, and work for God.” 

Her face became Madonna-like in its beautiful 
Bradley looked at her in wonder, and never before had he hated himn- 
self so much for what he had done, Had she heaped reproaches 
upon him, had she turned from him in the pride of passionate dis: 
dain, be could have borne it far better. But in so much as she 
assumed the sweetness of an angel, did he feel the misery and self. 


— «al 








The New Abelard. 120 


And, ifthe truth must be spoken, Alma wondered at herself. She 
had thought at first, when the quick of her pain was first touched, 
that she must madden and die of agony; but her nature seemed 
flooded now with a piteous calm, and her mind hushed itself’ to the 
dead stillness of resignation. Alas! she had yet to discover how 
deep and incurable was the wound that she had received ; how it 
was 10 fester and refuse all healing, even from the sacred unguents of 
religion, 

“Promise me,” she continued after a pause, “to remain and 
Jabour in your vocation." 

“ Alma, 1 cannot!" 

"You must, You say you owe me reparation ; let your repara- 
tion be this—to grant my last request.” 

“ But it is a mockery |" he pleaded, “Alma, if you knew how 
hollow, how empty of all living faith, my soul had become |” 

“Your faith is not dead,” she replied. “ Even if it be, He who 
works miracles will restore it to life. Promise to do as I beseech 
you, and. besure then of my forgiveness. Promise!" 

. ee prothise,” he said at bast, unable to resist her. 

Good-bye!” she said, holding out her hand, which he took 
mae and covered with kisses. ‘I shall go away to some still 
place abroad where I may try to find peace. I may write to you 
sometimes, may Inot? Surely there will be no sin in that! Yea, 1 
will write to you; and youyou will let me know that you are well 
cat - 

“© Alma!” he sobbed, falling on his knees before her, “my 
Tove 1 my better angel! I have destroyed you, I have trampled on 
the undriven snow |” 

“God is good,” she answered, “ Perhays even this great sorrow 
is sent upon us in mercy, not in wrath, I will try to think so! 
Once more, good-bye!" 

He rose to his feet, and, taking her tear-drenched face sofily 
between his hands, kissed her upon the brow. 

“God bless and protect you!" he cried, * Pray for me, wy 
darling | Esball need all your prayers! Pray for me and forgive me! 

A minute later, and he was left alone. He would have followed 
her outinto the night, as far as her own door, but she begged himnot 
He stood at the gate, watching her as she flitted away. 
of anguish, he looked towards his empty church. 
in the cold moonlight, and re-entered his desolate 






= (Ti be continued) 


i Me wo 1832. x 





THE EXAMINATION MANTA, 


OME of us are old enough to remember the time when school- 
keeping was commonly regarded as a last resource for men 
and women who had failed in everything else. This stage of English 
educational evolution is happily passing away, though not quite gone, 
a there still remain a few private seminaries that are ‘neither more 
nor less than houses of refuge for destitute parsons, and to which 
‘some foolish mothers still consign their unfortunate children, believ- 
ing that the prefix of “ Rev.” is a sufficient guarantee of educational 
efficiency, and an infallible certificate of respectability. 

Outside of these and a few surviving “Dame ‘Schopls” of the: 
old pattern, our modern schools are now conducted by men and 
women who have legitimately devoted themselves to teaching as a 
profession, and have been more or less systematically trained to their 
work. Pdidagogé# is not yet recognised as an established branch of 
science in this country, as it is in Germany; it has no endowed 
fessorships in our universities, but we have a few normal schools and 
a system of apprenticeship, by means of which a goodly number of 
pupil teachers are prictically trained with some degree of efficiency. 

Besides these, we have socictics and examining bodies which 
five diplomas and certificates to teachers simply as teachers, All 
these are good, so far as they go, and better still in promise for the 
fature ; they indicate a dawning of national intelligence which may 
presently amount to an enlightened appreciation of the fact that a 
nation can only advance in civilisation and true prosperity according 
to the physical, intellectual, and moral training of the majority of its 

component units, and therefore that the cducation of al? classes is a 
business whose importance transcends superlatively every other that 
can occupy the attention of any civilised community. 

Among the symptoms of this recent awakening is the existing 
examination mania, the intention of which is admirable, though some 
of its results are becoming deplorable. I make these 
remarks to prevent, if possible, a misunderstanding of my in 
pointing out some of these evils Iam notdi 
nor underrating the motives of their institution, but Fron 











The Examination Mania. 123 


vouring to show that our preliminary leap in the dark has not landed 
tus inthe right place. 

‘The fundamental source of the mistake is that we are making 
examinations the end or object of education, instead of one of its 
means or instruments Our young children and advanced students 
are being educated in order that they may finish their school cduca- 
tion by passing examinations. 

‘The tme teacher depies with examination, its object being to 
ascertain not the gryfaiency, but the deficiencies of his pupils, in order 
that he may supply whet is wanted. Iam speaking now of primary 
school education, not of technical or professional education and 
examinations. 

‘The patting of books into the hands of children, and then hearing 
them “say their lessons,” is not teaching, but a fraudulent procecd- 
= lewis by educational, charlatans, or school-keeping refugees. 

teacher, properly 50 called, is continually examining his pupils 
io eae and step of their progress, helping them when they 
falter and setting them right when they deviate from the proper 
course. Lecturing, or other form of oral exposition, however lucid, 
fails more or less if it is not supplemented by continual examination. 
‘Such examination not only tests the pupils, but also the teacher. 
An example will illustrate. At certain schools where I have been 
as visiting teacher it was my practice to introduce each 
Jesson or “lecture” bya recapitulatory examination on the ; 
Fefitberchools the young ledica wrote absteacts of cach lecture and 
forwarded them to me by post. What was the result? In spite of 
‘most caref] explanation and much questioning by the way, I found 
‘that mistakes due to misunderstanding were abundant, sometimes 
outtageous. When a mistake was limited to a few pupils, I knew 
‘thatthe fault was with those particular individuals ; when a certain 
ran through all the class, Tlearned that the fault 
‘was in my teaching, and amended it accordingly, by going over the 
subject again and re-examining upon it 

_ This sort of examination js totally different both in its aims and 
‘Jn its results from the competitive examinations, for which prizes or 
cettificates are awarded cither at the school itself or byan outside 


examining body. 
and professional reputation of the teacher is 
‘mensured by the number of pupils he can pass in a given time, he is 
i very bad teacher‘in order to gain the reputation 
‘one, Payment by results," when these results are 
seccess of pupils in passing outside poblic examin 
Kz 





_ 


—— 


‘One of the most general and damaging cffects of severe’ com- 
petitive examinations on ordinary average pupils is to make them 
disgusted with the subjects of their study; the weary grinding, 
brought to a climax of overstrain as the examination time approaches, 
generally induces a pitching of the subject overboard, 
the examination is passed, unless a further examination is to follow. 
‘This is perfectly logical; the papil being constantly trained to regard 
the examination as the final object of his work, treats it accordingly, 
and when it is over works no more, . 

‘This is an absolute perversion or inversion of the whole business 
of primary school education, which, however far it may be carried, 
is but introductory. The title * Finishing School” is an educational 
absurdity. Even wniversity education of the highest class is, or 
should be, but introductory, and by the highest class of students is 
always so regatded.  —_— 





=| 


The Examination Mania. 125 


‘Having been largely engaged as a visiting teacher at schools and 
colleges for ladies, I have had opportunities of observing and com 
paring practical results, By far the most satisfactory were those 
obtained in a school where no compefifive examinations whatever 
were held or permitted in the school, mor any “ preparations” for 
outside examinations. There were fourteen to sixteen visiting “ Pro- 
fessors” engaged, besides the Indy teachers in the house, and we 
were all instructed to direct our efforts to solid teaching, without 
tegird to mere display ; in my department, the scientific, it was dis- 
tinctly understood that the main object of the teaching should be 
fo cultivate a taste for the subjects, and that nobody supposed that 
the girls could become chemists or geologists by means of weekly 
lessons. 

‘My connection with this school extended (with an intermediate 
break due to separation by distance) over a period of above thirty 
years, partly in Edinburgh, partly in London, and I had good 
opportunities of testing this teaching, as several of my carly Edin- 
burgh pupils sent their daughters to the school when it removed to 
London, and were occasional visitors to my class there. 

I found that their interest in the subjects to which I had 
introduced them remained; some of them told of dresiesthey had 
spoiled or other mischief done by disasters in making chemical 

and all were desirous that the same love of science 
which they had enjoyed should be cultivated in their daughters, by 
presenting tothem its most interesting features without any of the 
‘weary tasks that are involved in the pedantic charlatanism of forcibly 
dragging mathematical affectations into experimental science and 
natural history, or cramming for a display of mere verbal learning at 
examinations. 

Tam aware that the plea for our existing system of outside 
examinations of the pupils of primary schools is that it acts as a 
‘check upon teachers, and stimulates them to active effort. There 
twas some force in this when the dame schools and houses of refuge 
above-nientioned constituted the bulk of our educational establish- 
ments, Something then was necessary to stir up the slough of 
educational stagnation in which the youth of the nation was 
immersed. Examinations may have done some service in awaken- 
ing some kind of activity, and if the activity were of the right kind 
‘the service would have been immense, but as I have endeavoured 
to show it is stimulating only a perverted activity. 

__ Eadmit the difficulty of judging the merits of a teacher by those 
‘who employ his services, viz. the parents of the children, Wt Win, 


ae _| 


_ == 
126 The Gentleman's Magasine. 


not greater than that of estimating the ability of a medical adviser 
ora lawyer by patients and clients who are ignorant of medicine and 
law. Nevertheless we do somehow manage to judge | 

some approximation to justice. The same would be the ease with 
teachers, if parents depended more upon their own judgment, 
visited the schools themselves, and generally applied their own 
‘common sense, actively and critically, instead of depending on the 
rotten crutch of substituted parental duty performed. by professional 
examiners, When working as a teacher in Edinburgh, I was delighted 
to find that hard-handed Scotch artisans on coming home from work 
habitually questioned their children on their day's work at school. 
‘This was truly beneficial examination. Would that all parents were 
like these Scotchmen ! 

‘Those who insist upon the necessity of the testing of school 
teachers by outside public examiners, seem to forget that the ex: 
aminers themselves need quite as much testing or checking as the 
teachers, 

‘The reply to this will doubtless be that the examiners selected by 
the universities and other examining bodies are men of acknowledged 
eminence, This, however, docs not affect the demand for such 
checking, unless it be to increase it. ‘The ability to determine the 
value of the answers demanded by examination papers suitable for 
school children is cheap enough, A very moderate amount of 
special eminence is abundantly sufficient for such sae 
routine drudgery. 

Tt is not the eminence or the ability that is in question Aten 
the willingness to submit to the dull tedium of the necessary drudgery 
where papers are examined at so much per gross, a8 mere pot- 
boiling work. My experience of eminent men rather suggests that 
the higher the eminence the smaller the inclination to stoop from 
that eminence and submit to the severe commonplace monotonous 
labour of struggling through thousands of answers of school boys and 
school girls to questions that have long since been Jeft far behind as 
problems of interest. 

Having been both teacher and examiner, I know full well whieh 
work is the more wearisome and the more liable to be slurred over or 
performed ina perfunctory manner, Indirect teaching, the presence 
of the pupil or pupils, and the personal interest felt for their welfare 
by all true teachers, is am incentive to unsupervised effort, and a 
natural stimulant to spontaneous mental activity; while the weary 
headache-generating work of going over, and over, and over again 
the answers to the same questions puts a heavy strain upon! any mam, 


The Examination Mania. 127 


and demands for its efficient petformance an almost preternatural 
endowment of conscientiousness, 

Ihave occasionally checked the work of examiners, and have 
encountered some very sad results, both of pupils passed unworthily 
and of others unjustly rejected. My method has been of ascertaining 
from several pupils who have gone up for the same cxamination what 
answers’ were given in their papers, then comparing my own estimate 
of the value of these answers with that given by the examiner. 

As before stated, there is no question here of whether I was as 
good as the examiner, or better or worse, as regards the aédility to 
‘estimate these values, for either of us could do it easily enough ; it 
‘was simply a test of the attention and care bestowed on the work. 

‘The general opinion, based on experience, that there is a great 
deal of luck in the passing ofexaminations, really means that the state 
of the examiner's liver has a measurable influence on the number of 
marks given. 

But how can we examine the cxaminations of the examiners? may 
be fairly asked. 

Easily enough, if you must have examinations, by simply applying 
the principle which astronomers adopt in checking their own obser+ 
yations. Instead of depending on the absolute unchecked diction 
of anyone examiner, however eminent, there should be three working 
‘examiners, men not too eminent to afford to do hard drudgery work for 
a moderate fee, Over these a supervisor az eminent as you please. 

‘The juniors should cach complete, seal up, and deliver his report 
to the supervisor, without any communication with the others. The 
supervisor should go through these reports without, in the first place, 
troubling himsclf at all with the examination papers. Where the 
number of marks given hy all three nearly approximate, the average 
ofthese should be finally awarded ; whereverany serious discrepancy 
occurs the revisor should call for the examination papers, go care- 
fully through the answers producing the discordance, and arbitrate 
finally. 

‘This would keep the working examiners well up to their work, as 
the negligence or incapacity of any onc would be indicated by his 
discordance with the other two, and by his final correction by the 
supervisor, whose work would not be heavy, seeing that with such 

ity to supervision very little carelessness would be perpetrated. 

“If this is deemed too costly, then throw up altogether the idea of 
‘testing or checking the work of teachers by outside examiners who 
“need ‘more checking and testing than the teachers themselves. 
—— ‘Technical examinations of medical students and other yrotes. 


a se) 


128 Tike Gextiomsn’s Magazine. 












¢ wuchers Shemseives, is quite another 
Tie neve: required in these is that 


sirersity c¢ Eicborgh. It is absurd to 
ce Srar years can be fairly tested in 


cercSeates were unquestionably of higher 
sumicers. Under this system a diligent 
enéazce and general display of intel- 

¢ weight which is duz to them, 











Siar Wr oF oe quadrangle during 


yeied cp” by paying a grinder to 
< a few weeks prior to the examin- 








‘The idea that the Professer wr. have favourites is a shallow one, 
seeing that his favour, :f apy is displayed, will in the long run be 
won by a combination of moral and intellectual qualifications, such 
combination being of primary imporcance in most professions, espe- 
cially in medicine. 

An outside examiner cseAvratiag with the professor may be an 
improvement on this, and is quite sufficient to check any possible 
weakness in favour of sneaking teadying students. 

But returning to my main subject. the examinations for children 
in primary schools, I have yet to say a few words on a very serious 
aspect of the practice as it now stands, viz its effect on the health of 
the children. 

It is very satisfactory to see that many medical men are taking 
up the question, and I think I may venture to say that they are per- 
fectly unanimous concerning it. The last act of too many educational 
tragedies is performed too visibly under their eyes for them to have 
any doubts on the subject, and they are speaking out as well befits 
the guardians of public health to speak. 

My experience is such that I can generally pick out from a 
number of school girls those who have been during the few past months 
preparing for an examination, especially if their faces were familiar 
to me before commencing the course of cerebral torture. I have 
watched the fading of childish bloom, the undermining of childish 
joyousness the cruel growth of unnatural pallor, and the expression 














The Examination Mania. 129 


of anxicty and aged scriousness, Tn some cases a break-down has 

occurred before arrival of the awful day, and the victim has never 

recovered. Either death or permanent weakness of brain has fol- 

lowed. In others the ordeal has been passed, « holiday has partially 

restored the decaying health, but never totally; the fixed laws of 
i declare that to be impossible. 

‘The intellectual result is a hatred of every school subject, and 
refuge in the miserable literature of sensational fiction, The excep- 
tions are girls of masculine temperament, with high check bones, 
square shoulders, broad forelieads, big muscles, and exceptionally 
capacious chests. ‘They pull through like boys, who suffer far less 
from the modera implements of educational torture than girls, but 
there are boys of delicate physical organisation, and endowed with 
highly nervous susceptibility, that are sacrificed more or less com- 
pletely, and shut out from an intellectual career that might have 
been brilliant had the tender buds of the youthful germ of promise 
been lovingly handled and judiciously nourished in eccordance with 
the natural laws of their growth. 

My advice to all parents who are secking a school for their 
children is to carefully scrutinise the prospectuses of those under 
consideration, and whenever they find that an advertisement is 
put forth of the number passed at this or that or the other public 
examination, to decide at once against that school, as educationally 
pestiferous. Then, with the others that do not so unblushingly 
publish their shame, make careful inquiry respecting the general 
working of the school, and finally sclect that in which special 
preparation for annual or other competitive examinations, inside or 
Outside, forms the least prominent feature, or does not exist, 

‘This, of course, must not apply to the class.work examinations, 
which proceed far# possi with the daily teaching, and which I 
described at the commencement of these remarks. Such examin- 
ations, as means of education, are most valuable, but whenever ex- 
aminations are made the end instead of the means, the education is 
rotten, dishonest, and mischievous, and the sooner the poisonous 
perversion is stamped out altogether the better for the moral, intel- 
Jectual, and physical future of the whole community. 


W. MATTIRU WILLIAMS, 


MY MUSICAL LIFE. 
Il. 


ROM such heights T am loth to return to my own insignificant 
doings, but they happen to supply me with the framework for 

my present meditations ; they are the present pegs on which I have 

chosen to hang my thoughts. 

I was at a complete standstill: I sorely needed instruction. 1 
went to the seaside for my health, One day, in the morning, I 
entered the concert room of the town hall at Margate. It was 
empty, but on a platform at the farther end, half a dozen musicians 
were rehearsing. One sat up ata front desk and seemed to be lead- 
ing on the violin. As they paused, I walked straight up to him, 2 
was about twelve then, “ Please, sir," I began rather nervously, “do 
you teach the violin? He looked round rather surprised, but in 
another moment he smiled kindly, and said, “ Why, yes—at least,” 
he added, “that depends, Do you mean you want to learn?” 
“That's it," I said. “T have learned a little, Will you teach me?” 
“Wait a bit. I must finish here first, and then I'll come down to 
you. Can you wait?” he added, cheerily, 1 had been terribly 
nervous when I began to ask him, but now I felt my heart beating 
with joy: “Oh yes," said, “I can wait!" and I waited and heard 
them play, and watched every motion of one whom I already looked 
upon as my master. 

And he became my master—my first real master. Good, patient 
Mr. Devonport | I took to him, and he took to me, at once. He 
got me to unlearn all my slovenly ways, taught me how to hold my 
fiddle and how to finger and how to bow. It seems I did everything 
wrong. He used to write out Kreutzer's early exercises, over his 
breakfast, and bring them to me all blotted, in pen and ink, and 
actually got into disgrace, so he said, with his landlady for inking the 
table cloth! That seemed to me heroic ; but who would not have 
mastered thecrabbed bowing, the ups and downs and staccatos, and 
slur two and bow one, and slur three and bow one, and slur two and 

‘that! And I did my best, though not to his satisfaction 5 


a 
















My Musical Life. 13a 


but he never measured his time with me, and he had an indefinably 
sweet way with him which won me greatly, and made. me love my 
violin—a five-pound Vuilhaume copy of Stradivarius, crude in-tone 
more than ever. 

‘When I left the sea, E lost my master. Inever saw him again. 
Ifhe is alive now, and these lines should chance to meet his eye, I 
will join hands with him across the years. Why should he not be 
alive? Hullah and Sainton and Piatti and M® Dolby and M* Lind 
Goldsmid, and I know not how many more of his contemporaries, 
and my elders, are alive. Only there was a sadness and delicacy 
about that pale diapbanous face, its hectic flush, its light hair, and 
slight fringe of moustache ; I cam remember it so well; and J must 
own, too, there was a little cough, which makes me fear that Deyon- 
part was not destined to live long- Some one remarked it at the 
time, but F thought nothing of it then. 

‘T made a great stride under Devonport, and my next master, 
whom T disliked exceedingly, was a young Pole, Lapinski, who could 
pot speak a word of English. Our lessons were very dull. He 
taught me little, but he taught me something—the art of making my 
Singers ache—the great art, according to Joachim. 

‘My time with him was pure drudgery, unrelieved by 2 single glow 
of pleasure, or gleam of recreation; he was a dogged and hard 
task.master, knew exactly what he meant, and was utterly indifferent 
tothe likes and dislikes of his pupil—the very opposite to. Devon- 
port, whom in six weeks I got positively to love. 

Tn music, you learn more in a week from a sympathetic teacher, 
‘of at feast from gome one who is so to you, than from another, how- 
ever excellent; in a month. You will make no progress if he can 
give you no impulse, 

- What/a mystery lies in that word “teaching !". One will constrain 
You irresistibly, and another shall not be able to persuade you. One 
will kindle you with an ambition that aspires to what the day before 
seemed inaccessible heights, whilst another will labour in yain to stir 
Your sluggish mood to cope with the smallest obstacle. 

The reciprocal relation is too often forgotten. It is assamed that 
any good master or mistress will suit any willing pupil. Not-at all— 
any more than A can mesmerise B, who gocs into a trance im- 
mediately on the appearance of C. All personal relations and 
teaching relations are intensely personal, have to do with subtle 

‘but inexorable and instantly perceived, 
soul puts out, az it were, its invisible antenna, knowing the 
‘su that is Kindred to itso 


Ua rill 


a 
132 | =‘ The Gentleman's Magazine. 


T do not want to be told whether you can teach me anything. 
T know you cannot. 1 will not learn from you what 1 met learn 
from another; what he will be bound to teach me, All you may 
have'to say may be good and true, but it is a little impertinentand 
out of place, You spoil the truth, You mar the beauty. I will 
not hear these things from you ; you spoil nature ; you wither art; 
you are not for me, and I am not for you—" Let us go hence, my 
songs—she will not hear." 

‘My next master was Oury. I fell in with him at Brighton when 
1 was about sixteen. He had travelled with Paganini and was a 
consummate violinist himself He was a short, angry-looking, stoutly 
built little man, Cienial with those who were sympathetic to him, 
and sharp, savage, and sarcastic with others—he made many enemies, 
ane was unscrupulous in his language, I found he had been wn 
lucky, and [ hardly wonder at it, for a man more uncertain, unstable, 
and capricious in temper I never met—but he was an exquisite 
player ; his fingers were thick and plump, his hand was fat and 
short, not unlike that of poor Jaell, the late pianist. 

How he could stop his intervals in tune and execute passages of 
exceeding delicacy with such hands was a mystery to me; but Jacl 
did things even more amazing with his—stretehing the mést impos- 
sible intervals, and bowling his fat hands wp and down the key+ 
board like a couple of galvanised balls, 

I was at this time about sixtecn and a member of the Brighton 
Symphony Socicty. We played the symphonies of the old masters 
to not very critical audiences in the Pavilion, and 1 havealso played 
in the Brighton Town Hall. 

T think it was at these meetings I first fell in with Oury. 

LT noticed a little group in the ante-room on one of the rehearsal 
nights ; they were chattering round a thickset crotchety-Jooking 
little man and trying to persnade him todo something. He held his 
fiddle, but would not easily yicld to their entreatics, ‘They were 
asking him to play, At last he raised his eremona to his chin and 
began to improvise. What fancy and delicacy and exeeution | what 
refinement! His peculiar gift lay not only in a full round tone, 
but in the musical “ embroideries "—the long flourishes, the torrents 
of multitudinous notes ranging all over the instrument. 

I can liken those astonishing violin passages to nothing but 
the elaborate embroidery of little notes which in Chopin's music 
are spangled in tiny type all round the subject, which is in large 


‘ype. 
When Oury was ina good humour he would gratify us in this 


amie) a 


My Musical Life. 133 


way, and then stop abruptly, and nothing after that would induce 

him to play another note, He had the fine large style of the De 

Beriot school, combined with a dash of the brilliant and pomaniic 
and the most exquisite taste of his own. 

“In those days De Beriot’s music reigned supreme in the concert- 
room until the appearance of Paganini, {It had not yet gone 
out of fashion, and I remember hearing Oury play De Beriot's 
showy first concerto with a full orchestra, at the Pavilion, in away 
which reminded me of some conqueror traversing a battle-field ; the 
‘enthusiasm he aroused was quite remarkable, in that languid and 
ignorant crowd of loitering triflers, He certainly brought the house 
down. He wasa great playcr, though past his prime, and he knew 
how to score point after point without ever sacrificing his musical 
‘honour by stooping to clap-trap. 

From Oury I received, between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, 
my Jast definite violin instruction. After that I studied for myselfand 
heard assiduously the best players, but I was never taught anything. 
Oury had been trained himself in the fine old and new schools of 
Rode, Baillot, and De Beriot, and only grafted on the sensational 
discoveries, methods, and tricks of Paganini, Ernst, and Sivori, 

Bat he was artist enough to absorb without cormption and 
‘appropriate without mimicry. He always treated me with a semi- 
humorous, though kindly, indulgence. He was extremely impatient, 
and got quite bitter and angry with my ways ; stormed at my sel(- 
‘will; said I had such a terrible second finger that he believed the 
devil wasin it [had 2 habit of playing whole tunes with my second 
finger on the fourth string, It seemed more muscular than the rest, 
and from his point of view quite upset the cquilitrium of the hand. 
He had a habit of sighing deeply over the lessons. “You should 
have been in the profession. What's the use of teaching you? Bah! 
you will never do anything. I shall teach you no more.” Then he 
‘would listen, as I played some bravura passage in my own way, half 
amused, half surprised, half satirical ; my method was clearly wrong, 
‘but how had I got through the passage at all? Then taking the 
‘violin from me he would play it himself, without explanation, and 
then play on and say, “ Listen to me; that is your best lesson, you 
tascal! E believe you never practise atall. Nature has given you 
‘too much facility. Your playing will never be worth anything. You 
deserve the gifts God has given you.” At times poor Oury 
on eae alee of me. He would sit long 


er ying away and playing to me, telling me stories 
‘Set Pana oon the horschair of his bow and. yossing Yue 


ia a 





j a 
136 The Gentleman's Magasine. 


bernertarameradcmumeamrpsi ee kp 
Captain: Newberry’s, Brunswick Square, The captain must hare 
been nearly seventy about that time. He was y good. 
humoured, but belonged to the old school of Haydn and Mozart. 
Beethoven's earlier quartets were admitted, but the Razamousky's 
were declared to be outside the pale, and the captain annoyed me 
extremely by speaking in a very slighting way of Mendelssohn. 
* Rides his subjects to death,” he used to say ; “ tears ’em all to 
pieces,” “ goes thin, very thin.” Those were the days when I felt 
quite sure that no one ever had or ever would write such inspired 
music as Mendelssohn. I think M. Sainton's calm verdict, not long 
afterwards, irritated me still more. I said to him with ill-advised 
confidence, ““T had svoner hear Mendelssohn's canzonet or the 
quintet than any of Beethoven's chamber music.” “ Vous aves 
cependant tort,” said the great artist, “ there is no comparison to be 
made. You cannot speak of the two together. Mendelssohn, 
était un jeune homme d'un énorme talent ; mais Beethoven—oh! 
est autre chose 1” 

‘The captain had some fine violins ; one 1 specially coveted ; he 
held it to be a genuine Stradivarius ; it was labelled 17125 quite in 
the finest period, and of the grand pattert—the back a magnificently 
ribbed piece of maple; the front hardly so fine; the head strong, 
though not so fine as I have seen—more like a Bergonzi—but the 
fiddle itself could hardly be mistaken fora Bergonzi, Tt had a tone 
likea trumpet on the fourth string ; the third was full, but the second 
puzzled me for years—it being weak by comparison—but the violin 
was petulant, and after having it in my possession for more than 
twenty years, L know what to do with it if I could ever again take the 
time and trouble to bring it into perfect order and keep it so, as it 
was once my pride to do, 

On Captain Newberry’s death that fiddle was sent me by his 
widow, who did not survive him long, She said she believed it was 
his wish, 

‘This violin was my faithful companion for years. I now look at 
it under a glass case occasionally, where it lies unstrung from one 
‘end of the year to the other. It belonged to the captain's uncle ; he 
had set his heart on it, and having a very fine pair of carriage horses, 
for which he had given £180, he one day made them over to his 
uncle and obtained the Strad in exchange. This was the last price 
paid for my violin, some fifty years aga. 

It came into the hands of Newberry’s relative early in the present 
century—how, T know not, 


= _ | 








My Musical Life. 137 


Many ago T took this fidelle down to Bath and played it a 
good deal there in a band conducted by the well-known Mr. Salmor, 
T found he recognised it immediately, I there made acquaintance 
with the score of Mendelssohn's “Athalic” by playing in the 
orchestra. T studied the Scotch and Ltalian symphonies in the same 








No amateur should omit an opportunity of orchestral or chorus 
work. In this way you get a more living acquaintance with the 
internal structure of the great masterpieces than in any other. I 
first made acquaintance with the “ Elijah" and “St. Paul” in this 
way, What writing for the violin there is in the chorus parts! what 

ling passages are those in ‘' Be not afraid,” where the first violins 
lift the phrases, rise after rise, until the shrill climax is reached and 
the aspiring passage is closed with a long-drawn-out #7 

When the violin pealed louder and louder, mounting upwards, it 
was always a delight to me to hear my own powerful first string shril~ 
fing through all the others. ‘The conductor ‘bed to know this pas- 
sage and the way in which it told on my Strad, atid invariably gave 
mea knowing nod as he heard my violin at the first fiddle desk 
through all the others. £ may add that, as a rule, when any par- 
ticular violin in a band is heard above the rest, it usually belongs to 
abungler, but there are passages where the leading violins have 
«arte blanche to play wp, and then, if you can, you may be allowed to 
‘sing through the test, and if this be anywhere allowable, it is of 
course $0 at the first violin desk. 

Most boys find it difficult to keep up their music at school; with 
me it was the reverse : my ill health was the making of my music, 

1 tad been an invalid on and off up to the age of seventeen. [ 
remember Sir Benjamin Brodie, the great doctor, a thin, wizen, little 
‘oki man, coming and staring at me, about the year 1848, in Spanish 
Place, my grandfather's house in London, 1 was then suffering from 
hip disease. ‘They asked him whether I should be taken to Brighton. 
He mumbled something to himself and turned away to speak with 
my father aside. I merely noticed an expression of great pain and 
anxiety on my father’s face ashe listened, Afterwards I knew the 
great doctor had said it did not matter where I went, and, anyhow, I 
could mot live. He thought it was a question of weeks. He little 
knew how much it would take to kill me, People are born long: 
lived. It runs in families. It has little to do with health and 
disease. If you are long-lived you will weather discase, and if you 
are short-lived you will drop suddenly in fall health, or be blown out 
Tike'w candle, with a whiff of fever or bronchitis My grandfather 

YOR. CcLY. NO. 4832 L 


(mm ! 





to do, we cast lots; I think it was at my suggestion. ‘The lot came 
‘out in favour of Brighton. To Brighton I was taken, apparently in a 
dying state, but at my grandmother's house in Brunswick Square 1 
Dogan rapidly to amend. ~ 

‘My violin was my solace, when I got strong enough to hold it 
again. The time that should have been spent upon mathematics, 
Latin, and Greek was spent in my case upon French, German, and 
music—I may add novels, for between the ages of twelve and six- 
teen I read all)Bulwer, Walter Scott, G, P, R. James, Fenimore 
Cooper, and, in certain visits to Bath and Bognor, 1 took care to” 
Ss Ae tent mcren of thon LA oe 
‘aatiquated lending libraries of those privileged resorts, * 

When I was sixteen it became evident that I was not going to. 
die : my health was still feeble, and my general education defective. 
et erid ss Gest fos ab lia tau orgie 
Bicknell, now incumbent of St. Savicur’s, Highbury. ‘Thatgood man 
never overcame my dislike to mathematics, buthe got me on in Latin, 
and he was kind enough to tolerate my violin. 

T-could no longer play cricket, or climb trees, the chief delights of 
my earlier days—nor could I take long walks with the boys, Iwas 
left entirely alone in play hours—fe almost every afternoon, I 
think I was perfectly happy by myself. Freshwater, Isle of Wight, 
im 1855, was very different from Freshwater in 1883. ‘There were 
no forts built then, no tourists, hardly a lodging house, and only a 
few cottages. ‘There was the Rector, a Rey. Mr, Isaacson, 
dogmatic, and of the old high and dry school in the pulpit ; there 
were two or three familics who owned between them most of 
of the island—the Haromonds, the Croziers,and the Cottons, ‘There 
was a rotten steamer called the ‘ Solent” which plied between the 
dirty little town of Yarmouth and the mainland—and when: 
we got letters ; and when it did not cross we went without. And 
there was such utter solitude for me, in the silent Janes, the 
woodlands, and by the lovely sea-shore, that—well—I 
timeto think, Isat on stiles and thought; I tasted almost, 
of berry and herb that grew in thehedges. 1 watched the b 


— 









My Musical Life. 139 
the tecming insect lifc, and I would lic down in the woody recesses 





and leafy coverts like one dead, until the birds, the rabbits, and even 
the weasels and stoats came close enough for me to see their 
exquisitely clean soft fur, bright eyes, or radiant plumage. 1 have 
surprised a wild hawk on her nest in the gorse, and she has never 











mored. 

~ About this time I wrote quantities of the most dismal poetry, 
which appeared at intervals in the columns of the Brighton papers. 
It was paturally a mixture of Bryant and Longfellow, later on it 
became a jumble of Tennyson and Browning—but such matters 
belong more to literature than to music, 

‘Oury had already begun to direct my violin studies, I had ample 
time at school in the Isle of Wight for practising, and I practised 
well, nearly every day. I had a faculty for practising. I knew 
what to do, and Idid it, Ivalways remembered what Joachim had 
said about tiring out the hand, and with some abominable torture 
passages invented for me by that morose Pole, Lapinski, I took a 
vicious pleasure in making my fingers ache, and an intense delight in 
discovering the magical effects of the torture upon my execution. 

J put my chief trust in Kreutzer’s exercises admirable in inven- 
‘tion and most artractive a5 musical studies—the more difficult ones 
in chords being little violin solos in themselves, 

I perfected myself in certain solos at this time, 1 had no one to 
play my accompaniments, and no one cared to hear me play at 
school, except some of the boys who liked to hear me imitate the 
donkey and give the farm-yard entertainment—including the groans 
ofa chronic invalid and a great fight of cats on the roof—which never 
failed to be greeted with rapturous applause. 

“My great solos were Rode’s air in I', De Beriot’s “First Con- 
certo,” and several of hia “ Airs variés"; Ernst's “ Carnaval de 
Venise,”’ his Elegie, and some occasional “* Morceaux” which I had 
heard him play shockingly out of tune at Brighton. 

‘Then there was the Cuckoo solo—one of the picces played by 
the little girl of six who so fascinated me at Norwood. Besides 


Thad certain mixtures of my own—a mixture of ftalian airs 
with s rodigious cadenzas and a bravura passage at the end in 
o taste, which always brought down the house. 










@ final variation to the Carnaval de Venise, more 
rous than any of the Paganini or Emst series. ‘This varia 


| 


140 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


monest kind of musical audiences in this 
thankfal to say this is far less trac now, and in London, 
in the days of my boyhood. ¥ 

‘I said no one cared to hear me play at Freshwater. Yeu (unre 
people did. One autumn whilst I was at Freshwater, an old house, 
Farringford, with a rambling garden at the back of the downs, was 
Jet to Baron A.—an eminent light of the Bench—and his charming 
family. I forget how they discovered my existence, but I have no 
doubt Lady A. and the young ladies found the place rather dull, and 
they were not the people to neglect their opportunities. 

1 received an invitation to dinner ; my violin was also asked. 1 
did not reply like Sivori when similarly invited to bring his violin 
with him: “Merci! mon violon ne dine pas!" I saw to my strings 
and screws, put together my solos, and went. 

Lady A,, with her beautiful grey hair, her sweet and dignified 
smile and her graceful carriage, and a soul full of musical sensibility, 
received me with the most flattering cordiality. ‘he eldest young 
lady, now the Marchioness of S——, J remember seeing her once or 
twice only at Farringford. Table-turning was all the fashion then. 
‘The Farringford circle was, like most others, divided on the question, 
but the old Baron was a sceptic, 

‘We all sat round a heavy dining-table one night, and the thing cer- 
tainly began to go round, and was only arrested in its course 
a large bow window by the hurried breaking up of the circle. I 
didn’t tum any more tables at Farringford, but Lady A. used to 
beg me tocome as often as I could and play, and I think I went there 
on an average twice a week and enjoyed myself immensely. The 
Farringford music was not strong, as to pianoforte playing at least, 
but the youngest daughter, Miss M., little more than a child, had a 
sweet voice and scemed to me altogether an angelic being, and 
between them they managed to get through some of my easier ace 
companiments. 

Oury had given me an air of Mayerseder’s, to which he had added 
a pathetic little closing cadence of his own, 

He had taught me to play it with due expression, and this air 
Lady A. could never hear often enough. 

‘The little eadence in sliding chords at the end, she maid) 
made her feel inclined to scream. One night Miss Nt indeed Bier 
mother to sing “ Auld Robin Gray." “ Youknow, mamma,” 

“every one used to cry when you sang ‘Auld Robin Gray." “Ant 










my dear,” said the old lady—that was long ago. I can’t si 
old woman 5” but she did sing, and with a pathetic sim 





My Musical Life. 14t 
grace and fecling which I can remember vividly even now; and as I 








Histened I easily perceived where Miss M. had got her sweet soprano 
voice from, 

‘Soon after the A's left Farringford it was taken by the Poet 
Laureate. At that time I was rapidly outgrowing Longfellow, and 
my enthusinsm for Mr. Tennyson amounted to a mania: he was to 
me in poetry what Mendelssohn was in music. 

Ian now place him. I can now see how great he is, I can 
understand his relation to the poets, Then I could not, He con- 
fused and dazzled me. He took possession of my imagination. He 
taught me to sce and to feel for the first time the heights and 
depths of life; to discern dimly what 1 could then have had 
little knowledge of—"'The world with all its lights and shadows, 
all the wealth and all the woe.” In fact, Tennyson was then 
doing for the rising generation of that age what Byron and 
Shelley, Wordsworth and Coleridge, had done for theirs, only he 
united in himself more representative qualities than any one of 
the poets who preceded him, and in this respect he seems to me 
still a greater poct, and certainly a greater thinker, than any one of 
them, Wordsworth and Coleridge not excepted. 

All these are after thonghts. Then I did not analyse or compare, 
‘The Brighton papers received claborate prose effusions from my pen 
Upon the subject, at the time, of a frothy and rhetorical character, 
‘Sometimes I look at them in my old scrap books, and marvel at the 
bombast, inflation, and prodigious inanity of the matter and the 
effrontery of the style. 

No doubt 1 was not quite right in my head about Tennyson, and 
this accounts for my wending my steps towards Farringford one 
autumn afternoon, soon after he had come there. 

‘The poet never went to church, so the poet could never be scen, 
‘The man who, in the “In Memoriam,” had recently re-formulated the 
religion of the nineteenth century, might, one would have thought, be 
‘excused the dismal routine that went on at the parish church, and 
the patristic theology doled out by the worthyrector. Butno! Mr. 
‘Tennyson’s soul was freely despaired of in the neighbourhood, and 
many of the people about would have been “very faithful” with him 
if they could only have got at him—but they could not get at him, 
‘Under these circumstances I got at him. 
_ T suppose the continued play of one idea upon my brain was too 
‘rach forme, To live so close to the man who filled the whole of 
and imaginative horizon without ever seeing him, was 
bear, T walked over the neglecred grasiqroen 















‘has Woes Mes. Tennyson at home? 

‘Phe servant looked dubious. 1 was a sh 

quough, but there was something about me which could. 1 d 
pay! Tevidently meant to get in, andinT got 


In another = 
tenanted by the Baron and Lady A. ow 


Appeared, and bowed silently tome, I had to begin then, 

Thad no excuse to make, and s0 T'otfered no apology. aie 
ealled desiring to see Mr. Tennyson, that was all. 

mvbs lndy looked aurpetied, cba ast Cowal Spee 
with a little work-basket on it, She asked me very to sit 
down too. So T sat down, What next? Now I gotc 
vengeance, All my wits forsook me. I looked out at the tangled 
garden—everything was allowed to grow wild. Ihad to say some- 
ing. I looked at the kind lady, who had already taken up her 
work and begun plying her needle. 1 said that 
Mr ‘Tennyson's poems was so great that, as T was living in theneigh- 
bourhood, I had called with an earnest desire to see him, 1 
then began to repeat that I considered his poems so exquisite that— 
‘a smnile was on the kind lady’s face as she listened for the thousand 
and first time to such large and gencral praiscs of the Laureate's: 
genius, But the smile somehow paralysed me. She evidently con- 
sidered me a harmless lunatic, not an impertinent intruder 


should not have been surprised. was 
desparate and prepared to show fight, and be kicked Re 
Jy the Tavirente alone, but the Fares were propitious 

Sid Mim ‘Tennyson, My ulead ence 
do Hot al all think if Likely he can see you.” i 

‘De you think he would if you ask him?” I stammere 

Hint Mra ‘Tennyson, a tittle taken aback, “1 don't kn 

ee heres ter ke: 





My Musical Life. 143 


What passed in that indulgent lady's mind I shall never know ; 
the uppermost thought was probably not fattering to me, and her 
chief desire was, no doubt, to get rid of me. “ He won't go till he 
has seen my hushand—he ought never to have got in, but as he is 
here, 1’ manage it and have done with him;" or she might have 
reflected thus ; “The [poor fellow is not right in his head ; it would 
bea charity to meet him half-way, and not much trouble.” 

At any rate at this juncture Mrs. Tennyson rose and left the room, 
She was gone about four minutes by the clock. It seemed to me 
four hours. What I went through in those four minutes no words 
can utter “Will he come? I almost hope he won't. Jf be won't 
comic, I shall have done all I could to sce him, without experiencing 
a shock to which my nervous system is quite unequal.” At that 
moment, indeed, E was trembling with excitement from top to toc, 
Tthought would try and recollect some of his own sublime verse, 
it might steady me a little, I knew volumes of it by heart—couldn’t 
recollect a line anywhere, except— 

Wrinkle ostler yelia and thin, 
Here is custom come your way, 

te and Jead him. in, 

with mouldy hay, 
I believe I was muttering this mechanically when I heard a 
‘man's voice clase ontside the door. “Who is it? Is it an impostor?” 
‘Ah, verily, the word smote me to the heart. What right had I to 
be there? Conscience said, “Thou art the inant” I would have 
‘disappeared into my boots, like the genius in the fairy tale. 

*@, tht this too, too solid flesh would melt ;" but I remained palpable 

and motionless—glued to the spot. 

‘Tp another moment the door opened. ‘The man whose voice I 
had beard—in other words, Mr. Tennyson—entered. 
‘He was not in Court-dress ; he had not gota laure! wreath on his 
head, nora lily in his hand—not even a harp. 
Je was in the days when be shaved 1 had two portraits of him 
without a beard, I believe they are very rare now. 
I thought it would be inappropriate to prostrate myvelf, so 1 
standing and stupefied. He advanced towards me and 
shook hands without cordiality. Why should he be cordial? I began 
desperately to say that 1 had the greatest admiration for his poetry ; 
that I could not bear to leave the island without seeing him. He 
s00n stopped me, and taking a card of Captain Crazier’s which lay 
| ov lesa Lknew him. I said I did, and described 








Bes grounds in the neighbourhood of Freshwater. 
a” raat 








ay 
144 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


T have no recollection of anything else, but I believe some allu- 
sion was made to Baron A——, when the poet observed abruptly, 
“Now I must go ; good-bye!” and he went. Wee Tsaw 
of Mr, Tennyson for nearly thirty years. The next time T set eyes on 
him was one Sunday morning, about twenty-eight years later, He 
came up the side aisle of my charch, St. James, Westmoretand Street, 
Marylebone, and, with his son Hallam, sat near the pulpit, almost in 
the very spot that had been pointed out to me when I was appointed 
incumbent as the pew occupied by Hallam the historian and his son 
Arthur—the Arthur of the “In Memoriam.” 

But I have not quite done with the interview at Freshwater. As 
‘the poet retired, Mrs, Tennyson re-entered and sat down again at her 
work-table, ‘To her surprise, no doubt, I also sat down, ‘The fact is, 
Thad crossed the Rubicon, and was now in a state of considerable 
elation and perfectly reckless, I thanked her effusively for the 
privilege I had had—I believe I made several tender and irrelevant 
inquiries after the poet's health, and wound up with earnestly 
requesting her to give me a bit of his handwriting. 

‘This was perhaps going a little too far—but I had now nothing 
to lose—no character for sanity, or prudence, or propriety; so I went 
in steadily for some of the poet's handwriting. 

‘The forbearing lady pointed out that she treasured it so much 
herself that she never gave it away. ‘This would not do, J said 
1 should treasure it to my dying day, any litle serap—by which I 
suppose I meant that I did not require the whole manuscript of 
“ Maud,” which the poet was then writing, and which is full of Fresh- 
water scenery, IT might be induced to leave the house with some- 
thing short of that. 

With infinite charity and without a sign of irritation she at last 
drew from her work-basket an envelope in Mr. Tennyson's hand 
writing, directed to herself, and gave it to me, 

It was not his signature, but it contained his name. 

Then, and only then, I rose. 1 had vew/, I had oti, 1 had nia. 
I returned to my school, and at tea-time related to my tutor with 
some little pride and self-conceit the nature of my exploit that after- 
noon, 

He administered to me a well-merited rebuke, which, as it came 
after my indiscretion, and in no way interfered with my long- 
coveted joy, T took patiently enough and with all meekness. 

‘There is a strange link between these two old memories of 
Farringford, Isle of Wight, I may call it the link of a common 

oblivion, 


b | 





My Musical Life. 145 


Years afterwards 1 tried to recall to Lady A., who frequented my 
church in her later days, the, to me, delicious evenings 1 had spent 
with her and her daughters at Farringford. 

She had not the slightest recollection of ever having received me 
there, or sung to me there, or heard me play. She reintroduced me 
to her eldest daughter, the Marchioness of S., then Viscountess C., 
one night at her house in Portland Place, who was probably not 
aware of ever having seen me before, although I remembered her 
well at Farringford. 

Years aficrwards I tried to recall to Mr, and Mrs. Tennyson that 
preposterous visit of mine, which I have detailed, but neither of 
them could recall it in the slightest degree. 

So strange is it that events which upon some of the actors leave 
such an indelible impression pass entirely away from the memories of 
the others—and what a sermon might be preached on that text! The 
very same scene in which you and I are the only ones concerned— 
is nothing to you, everything to me, 

‘O ye tidal years that roll over us all—Bekind! Wash out the 
memory of our pain and the dark blots of sin and grief, but leave, oh 
leave us bright, the burnished gold of joy, and the rainbow colours 
of our youth! 





H.R. HAWES, 
{Tio Ne confined.) 


146 





FRENCH ART TO-DAY, 


HE English amateur who stays at home has two 
of learning something about French art, and neither 
satisfactory, He visits, from time to time, in 
exhibitions of French painting as the dealers think | 
Tikely to be curious about; and just as the Sil opens | 
in the English newspapers what is to be contributed price 
fashionable men. He reads the “advance notice,” and, afterwards, 
there is a little of more weighty criticism. But of the nature and the 
tendency of the great mass of work which the Salm contains itis 
obviously difficult to get a notion wnless the Salon itself is visited. 
‘The visit, if paid ut all, is generally paid early. Tt would be more 
fruitful if it were paid late, when things have settled into their places, 
when merit hitherto unacknowledged has become evident from out 
ot the vast show, and when notorious mediocrity has withdrawn to its 
proper place, ‘The Saévn, it must be borne in mind, represents French 
art even more completely than the Academy represents the art of 
England. In Paris there is nothing to recall the Grosvenor Gallery. 
Les Aquarellistes Francais, again, do not yet for a moment rival 
our “ Society” or our “ Institute.” 

‘There haye been times when English art has influenced the art of 
France, or, rather, there was one such time very notably—Constable’s 
time—when French landscape tock fresh inspiration from the 
Englishman's “Hay Wain," exhibited at the Louvre. But the 
French Painting of this generation is influenced by Constable (and 
by England at all) only indirectly, As regards landscape, it is 
very desirable that the French should study minutely more than one 
of our carlicr and one at least of our living masters, ‘There was: 
not asingle landscape in this year's Sa/o which for true artistic 
delicacy was so good as to be for even one moment suggestive of the 
marvellous art of Turner, and there were few that were for an 

instant comparable with the work of Mr. Hook. And yet a very 
saan quality in Hook's work—the quality of force—is sought much, — 
and often sought successfully, by the best of the younger French 
paiaters of the land and sea, But then in Mr. Hook's 


rane = 


























French Art To-day. 147 


allied with extreme refinement, and this the French, in land- and sea- 
scape, do not reach; si that, riming at the virtues of Hook, they 


reach those of Colin Hunter. But the “ Pilote,” by.M. Renouf, 
is more impressive than anything that has been done as yet by our 
clever young Scotchman, and it owes its impressiveness to a union of 
qualities, It is vividly felt, powerfully drawn, strongly though not 
delicately coloured, It represents the difficult passage of a rowing 
‘boat with four rowers, riding on open sea in violent storm, and the 
oat just swung on the ridge of a gigantic wave. Of pure landscape 
there was hardly anything that it was possible to persuade oneself 
was of the first order, though in Madame Demont-Breton’s * La 
Plage” —not to speak of the accustomed work of Jules Breton, her 
father—we had an adinimble mixture of landscape and figures, in 
which naked children, richly coloured, and with the vivacious eyes of 
the South, sported upon a sunny coast overgrown with pale blue 
weed And, again, a marine picture only inferior to M. Renouf's 
was M. Montenard’s “La Corrtze,"" a transport ship leaving the 
harbour at Toulon, and stcering right at you, as it seemed, over a 
fresh blue sea. It had the vivacity of Mr, Wyllie. 
‘Military pictures are few at present in France, and they are not 
very noteworthy ; the once much reputed “historical” art seems to be 
dead ; domestic anecdote has never been in fashion in France ; and 
there is but little attempt to paint the themes of religious story. 
‘There remain three classes of pictures in which a widely cultivated 
society is capable of taking intcrest—first, portraits ; then, the treat- 
ment 6f moder incident and the aspects of the streets ; then, the 
treatment of the figure for its beauty af colour and line, and quite 
independently of any story which its gestures may tell. In por- 
traiture France is fairly strong, as England also to-day is fairly 
‘Strong ; but in Franee, as in England, there is for the most part a 
failure to do justice to the faces and the carriage of refined and 
simple women, In England, for this matter—to name no other 
‘Grtiste—we have at least Mr. Millais and Mr. Watts. Mr. Millais 
sees everything, and so he sees simplicity. Mr. Watts does not see 
‘everything, but he doca sce refinement, The most fashionable 
French painters of portrait are Carolus Duran and Bonnat. Bonnat 
‘is essentially a painter of men ; his transeript of masculine character 
pee and accomplished. Carolus Duran is a brilliant 
mnt, but he is more occupied with his performance than with 
‘He never causes the evidence of his own skilful artifice 
a character it was its business to create. And he 





















by the very circumstance of his vogue, \oo mada 





4] 


148 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


devoted to the portrayal of the least interesting of fashionable folk. 
He is called in to paint those who are over-rich, and middle-aged 
women who are either dressed too much or clothed too little, Some- 
times his canvases are like the window of a shop on the Boulevard 
—a score of yards of ruby velvet, a erinolette, and, presumably, a 
lay figure. Dubois, the sculptor, has become a painter of portraits, 
He is hardly a colourist, but he perceives character, and the 
modelling of his faces betrays the science of the sculptor, who, 
occupied with form alone, cannot afford to evade its intricacy. His 
subjects, as it happens, are Jacking in charm. The two most 
brilliant portraits of women that the late Sw/om contained were those 
by M. Léon Comerre and M. Gervex. Léon Comerte’s was of 
Mile. Achille Fould, a fair young face, delicately modelled, and a 
Vittle overpowered, it may be, by the masses of brilliant drapery, 
She wears a Japanese gown, chiefly of pink and gold, but splashes 
of violent red striking the tender pink. ‘The figure is 

draped ; the drapery splendidly painted. As 2 pictare the work is 
triumphant, but asa portrait the character is a little effaced ; it is 
somewhat too distinctly subordinate, Gervex’s portrait was that of 
the Baronne de Beyens, a tall and stately person, who goes to 
an excellent dressmaker. The*fice counts but for little, and the 
best art of the painter was bestowed on the feather fan in the 
Baronne's hand, and on the wreath of flowers at the back of her 
skirt. Here, ag far as the actual touch is concerned, Velasquez was 
ag clearly the model as in similar labour—or similar magic—by 
Millais or Whistler. And the touch was indeed one of absolute 
and assured and easy art. 

Gervex, the painter of a portrait memorable only for the very 
slightest of its accessories, is an adept in its frank yet artistic 
presentation of modern life, and the presentation of modern life with 
candour and skill is the great characteristic of contemporary work in 
France. But Gervey's last effort in this direction, his “Bureau de 
Bienfaisance,” with its applicants for relief, is certainly not a whit 
more accomplished in ¢echmigue and is less rich in individual éxpres- 
sion than Mr. Fildes’s somewhat kindred picture of five or six years 
ago. Much fuller of movement and character, and a more brilliant 
part of the same manifestation of contemporary art, is Giron’s “ Two 
Sisters". We have here a scene that pasres, not altogether naturally, 
in front of the Madeleine. The one ‘Sister, honourably poor, but, it 
may be, somewhat too obtrusively virtuous, stands to denounce a 
pretty painted person who leans back in a barouche—the second 


| 


















French Art To-day. 149 


of the noisy virtue of the Adelphi or the Ambigu—seems tomar what 
‘would otherwise be wholly a success. The work is thus not faultless, 
Dut it is ina high degree remarkable. With it we must place a very 
much stsaller canvas, which is by M. Beraud, "La Brasserie.” ‘The 
painter is a painter of gaslight and of the second-rate caf? There 
was absolutely no occasion so far to exaggerate the types of dissipa- 
tion, as has been done here in more than one figure, The man in 
the foreground is the worst. But the disposition of the visitors about 
the seats of the café, and the easy familiarity between the people 
who frequent and the people who live in it, are caught by an eye 
that observes, and are recorded with point. M. Victor Gilbert 





paints with greater force of colour the strong daylight of the fish 
market ; the white slabs, the fish of all kinds—extended, flabby, and 
wet—and the cveryday humanity that presides behind the counter. 
‘These four pictures are typical. A hundred young Frenchmen are 
chronicling the same daily life, but as yet with a less accomplished 
art. 


The picces devoted to the pure beauty of the figure—or some- 





fimes to that which is hardly its beauty at all—are not less numerous, 
‘This summer there was much talk, and nearly all of it was laudatory 
talk, about the Venus of Merci¢, a refined and vigorous sculptor, 
who, in his painting, forgot to be refined and remembered only to 
be vigorous. None but the degraded taste of Flanders could fairly 
‘be invited to discover a Venus in so unqualified and unrestrained 
@ portrayal of a gross and vulgar model. No doubt the work was 
realistic, but such ugly prose is only more revolting when it claims to 
be poetry: ‘M. Emanuel Benner and M. Foubert and M. Urbain 
Bourgeois were more fortunate in the sources of their inspiration ; 
they likewise gave to the results of their study of the model a certain 
gracious and calculated | vagueness not without value and charm. Of 
‘this vagueness, this artistic restraint in the treatment of the nude, 
another French artist, M. Henner, is the most complete master. The 
characteristic instances of his various man- 

‘to be Just, of the full development of his manner ; and the 

‘Dijon holds a not less considerable masterpiece. But 

gman Reading "—the last of his paintings—is not among the 
works, ‘The shadows arc too opaque; the forms too 
the flesh is blank white, its coldness only redeemed 
hair, If Henner was not at his highest level this 
Perrin, in his group of “ The Dance,” was more ex- 
‘Six figures spread themselves, or are met here 
ef, upon a bit of sunny greenaward, near the edge 


«| 











150 The cna 


of the sea. They are im full act 
certain rhythm of line is preserved from end to end 







Salon of 1883. In such canvases, with their undaunted 

the actual, those fascinations of refinement and beauty a 

so much M. Feyen Perrin's and M. Henner's, are too n | 
But the less mature work among French contemporary 
characteristic French painting of the present moment—is at least 
alive with the charm of unexhausted energy and the interest of 
artistic experiment, 

Nor, as every one, I hope, now knows, is there less to be said for 
the sculpture. French sculpture of the day, more than 
painting of the day, retains, along with the fascination of | 
the virtue of style. Chapu, Dubois, Falguitre, Mercié—the | 
the elders, of the present schcol—have preserved a fair measure of 
the traditions which have belonged to sculpture in France more o 
less for a couple of hundred years, And in all that 
rightly said, in England, in praise of these inen, one is 
for the avoidance of one error that does creep in. We have 
told that there have been three great periods of sculpture 5 
period of Greece, the period of the Renaissance, and, last, 
epoch in France. That, however, is saying not too much for | 
living, but too little for the dead. French sculpture has at all times 
‘been honourable and attractive. Clodion, with his amiable errors, 
if errors they were, was an artistic kinsman of Carpeaux, ~ 

Some of the greater and more mature masters of French model 
ling and carving have said nothing to us during. the present 
Atthe Savor, Falguitre, for instance, was pectesly soared 
‘but his group at the top of the Arc de 'Friomphe looks down: : 
freshly, Half mile distant almost, along the Champs £ 
asserts its energy of movement, its freedom of design. 

Savon, Dalou and Barrias were the masters whose work 

crowd. Dalou was rewarded by the authorities on ar 
productions in high relie/—ZLa Aépubligue and Les Etats 

French patriotism, or French political feeling, is an 
some of the applause. Dalou’s work, on this x 
evidenced science and a picturesque impulse—it 


<_ ke 





French Art To-day. 15t 
Pee cei oot 12 be dangerously near to the pictorial. 






it exacts qualities of draughtsmanship similar to those 
demanded by “ the round,” it suffers the presence of design less 
independent and Jess masterly, Barrias's group—a group in the 
sound, with figures as numerous as work in the round can hope to 
afford —was styled Ler premitres Funératiiés, and was concerned with 
our first parents, bearing Abel to the grave, To carry out the con- 
peers whos, its author was beset with difficulties. He had 
courted these difficulties, and he has conquered them. But has he 
charmed, or even impressed? The art of the artist is certainly su(fi- 
cient to have robbed the sorrow that he chose to depict of all that it 
contained of too bitter and too cruel But has not the technical 
‘victory somehow left us indifferent to the disaster ? 

For some of us the sculpture of the year in France included much 
that was more delightful than the popular and the rewarded success, 
There was the Exsommeilée of Delaplanche—the famous artist of 
PB Education maternelle—there was the Ondine de Spa of M. Houssin, 
and, above all, there was this year in marble the Brblis changle en 
Source of M. Suchetet. Delaplanche’s work is memorable, as his 
‘work indeed is wont to be, for the breadth of treatment bestowed on 

treatment thoroughly according with the large sim- 
plicity of his design. But the scale of his adoption ix a scale that 
disconcerts us. It is not life size, yet is too suggestively near to it. 
‘The Ondine oe Spo bas grace. tis hardly in the first rank, but it is 
in the second. The #id/#s of Suchetet is deemed by some 
tohaye been slightly enfeebled by its transfer to the marble. Ithas still 
sufficient strength, however, along with its beauty ; its individuality has 
not been supprested ; and its refinement of sentiment permits ux to com- 
that treatment of the figure which we have admired already 
of Henner and of Feyen Perrin. Different in many 
‘things, in their refinement these two masters are alike. And Suchetet, 
‘ofa truth, is of their company, for in his vision of the figure he loses 
count, not of nature, nor of the finer charactenistics of the individual, 
‘but only of the detail that is without significance, the accidént we 
peeueccee to remember. Here, briefly named, then, or briefly 
d, are 2 few of the more memorable works of recent 
‘sculpture. But even more memorable than any one parti- 
‘is the general level that is attained by the school, 
has never been discouraged. Will its exercise in 
s be confined to the posthumous bust of the provincial 
croft, Mr. Maclean, Mr, Mullins, and Mr, 

‘hope. 















FREDERICK WEDWGKE. 


152 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


NOTES OF TWO WINTRY CRUISES 
IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL, 


i, 


ROM the sandy shores of Penzance we turned to a very different 

coast—the stern rock bound coast of the Land's End. On our 

way thither we stepped aside to see the old church of St. Buryan (a 

curious name for a saint, and said to be derived simply from an 

ancient burial-ground which existed here cre Athelstan founded the 

church in the tenth century). It stands on high ground, and its 
tall tower is an object of mark from all the country round. 

‘To us its chief interest lay in the fact of its having been chosen 
by Augustus Smith (so well known by his sobriquet of "Emperor 
of the Scilly Isles") as his place of burial—a resting-place on the 
mainland, yet within sight of his beloved island kingdom. We 
turned from his grave, whereon the kindly grass had not yet had 
time to grow, to another where, but a few days since, nine drowned 
sailors were laid side by side; they had perished on one of the 
countless unknown wrecks of these terrible days, and were cast up 
by the aca, to receive from Mother Earth a nameless grave, 

We next halted at the farfamed Logan Rock, that strangely 
poised mass which quivers at a touch ; and, as a matter of course, 
we scrambled up and made it tremble, I am not quite sure that in 
coming down again it might not have been our turn to tremble (just 
a little shiver), had there not been strong hands ready to help us 
down. 

We voted it too far to walk all the way from here to the Land's 
End, a distance of about six miles, so we drove as far as the village 
of Ros-Kestlan, and thence scrambled along the top of the eliffs— 
in and out of every cove, and to the farthest point of every head. 
land—a magnificent piece of coast stenery, reminding me forcibly ise 
parts of the Isle of Skye and the west coast of 
specially of the grand headlands on the Mull of Cantyre. rte 
principal formation is granite, though of so very coarse a texture that 
it f# bard to think of it as in any wise related to the beautifil close 


= = 





Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 153 


grained granites of the North, or, indeed, to that which is found near 
Falmouth, and extensively worked. Here, all the component parts 
are thrown together in lumps, each the size of your thumb. 

Tam bound to say, however, that this rock affords first-rate foot- 
ing, so that a scramble along this line of coast is pleasant, and 
comparatively casy walking. Nowhere else have I scen rocks s0 
weather-beaten and yet #0 thickly coated with soft grey lichen. 

‘Soon after we had dismissed the carriage with our luggage, the 
weather set in fora regular wet afternoon, and though the pouring 
main rather enhanced the beauty of the coast, by lending richer 
colour to the rocks, I cannot say it added much to our comfort, or 
lessened our aggravation when, on arriving at the “ New Inn” (which 
stands on the very verge of the Land’s End, and where we had set 
‘our hearts on living), we found it shut up for the season—the last 
guests having departed the previous week, and no more being 
expected till next year. So there was nothing for it but to trudge 
inland for a weary mile across soaking moorland, to the village of 
Sennen, whither our landlord had retreated, and where we found a 
Kindly Cornish welcome in an exceedingly dilapidated house. 

We were amused by the constant allusions in the names of places 
to our position inthe land. Everything is called “ First and Last." 
Penzance is the “first and last town” ; Sennen the “ first and last 
village" Tis church, its inn, its refreshmeat-house, are each first and 
last of their kind—the first to cheer the coming, the last to speed 
England's parting guest. 

"The raits having cleared the atmosphere, there followed a day of 
vivid sunshine, of which we made the most, and explored every nook 
‘and cranny of that wonderful coast, with its mighty rock castles 
and strange fantastic figures, like weird Egyptian giants overlooking 
the broad expanse of ocean, while great green billows rolled in 
ceaselessly, with snow-white crest, to break with thunder-roar upon 
the dark hidden rocks, and surge around them in sheets of 
snowy foam. The waves here are of that glorious green so 
familiar to us all in the North country, but which, unfortunately, so 
tarely find their way to English shores without some discolouring 
influence, 


Here, as everywhere clse along the coast, we were greeted with a 
sad story of sorrow wrought by the beautiful, treacherous waves. 
‘Only an hour or so ere we arrived, a lad of sixteen, the mainstay 
of « widowed mother, had been washed from his post at the new 
Highthouse on the Long-ships while engaged in taking in stores, W 
‘was but two months since the Trinity House had promo\ed Yam to 

‘YOL CCLY. NO, 1832, M 


— 


- 








Tete Wintry. Cruises te the English Channel. 155 


Judge, then, how. camestly the hymn for those at sea was sung,! 
and how thoroughly the preacher enchained and rivetted his con- 
@regation when he chose a verse from the Gospel for the day, as the 
text of an Advent sermon, “ The sea and the waves roaring,” as 
one of the signs that will one day precede the return of the Master 
for whom we wait, “Then shall they sec the Son of Man coming in 
the clouds with power and great glory." 

‘The waves were roaring in truth—raging with such deafening fury 
3 at times almost to drown even the grave calm voice that spoke to 
‘us, yet unable to hinder it from carrying its message of strength 
and peace to those who heard. He spoke of that strange weariness 
of the ever-chafing Agean Sea, which made St. John, when in his 
island prison of Patmos (longing for his home in Judea), crave for 
the time when there shall be no more sea—no more sea of separa- 
‘on, or of change, or of storm. 

T canaot tell you what was said that night—would that I could !— 
for it was spoken with the grand ¢loquence of a man telling out his 
own heart to listeners whose every sympathy was intensely awakened. 
by his subject, and to whom his local illustrations were vivid 
pictures of daily life—a man “ who could not bear to enter Heaven 
alone.” 

Ese the sermon had ended, the brief twilight that represented 
day had given place tonight, and the concluding hymn ( “A few more 
‘years shall roll”) was chiefly sung from memory, the only lights in the 
church being those at the harmonium. Then, through the darkness, 
the grave carnest voice was once more uplifted in touching, heastfelt 
pleadings for all our brethren in peril on the great deep, and more 
especially for any who might oven then be in jeopardy off that rock- 
Dound coax. In the hushed stillness that followed, it seemed as 
though an answer of peace had been youchsafed, and the storm 
shor of half its terror. 

‘Yet all through the long night the angry winds raved and raged, 
and the mad roaring of the waters cume to us from every side, 
awakening anxious thoughts for the many on the sea. Altogether 
our Sunday at the Land's End was one never to be forgotten. 

We afterwards learnt that our friends in the Agra had indeed 
hattled with that appalling gale, and had. suffered severely, though 
mereifillly the brave little ship was enabled to weather the storm, 
and retamed on the following day to Plymouth for repairs, Several 

a ss * Eternal Father, strong to save, . 

0 bear us when we cry to Thee 


‘For thoie in patil oa the sea. 
= “ua 


i 


‘Then a more mighty sea crashed over her, ¢ 
Haat dnd nach Cotheort aciding mae aee te aaa 
stecring is generally done. 

‘The strong ironwork of the steering-gear was shivered, but happily 
the second wheel astern escaped uninjured, so that the rudder was 
still under control, so far at least as to enable the steersmen to keep 


the ship's head straight, they themselves being lashed to the wheel. 
Meatiwhile the water was pouring into the cabins, which were all 
afloat, and the wretched passengers were fairly washed out of their 
berths, though few indeed attempted to lic Gown, Moreover, the 
cook's galley had been so effectually swept that no food could be 
obtained, and so, hungry and miserable, they watched through that 
awful night—more terrible by far than even the gale of the previous 
Saturday !—indeed, every seafzring man we spoke to all round the 
coast agreed in saying that im all their twenty or thirty years’ 
experience they had never known anything approaching to tia 
violence, though, happily, it was of such short duration. 

‘On Monday morning, then, the poor Agra, sorely battered from 
the fray, returned to Plymouth, and her passengers, more dead than 
alive, rejoined their friends in their comfortable quarters at "The 
Duke of Cornwall,” there to recruit their energics and. their courage 
ere starting once more on their outward journey, “There, too, they 
received abundant sympathy from fellow-sufferers, for the house was” 
filled to overflowing with passengers from other ships, all alike storm- 
stayed. One large vessel in particular—the dfntle—bound for 
Melbourne, had actually been driven back to Plymouth for the third. 
LS ee at pres ee eee 
she first sailed. 

‘She, too, was a splendid new vessel on her trial trip; 
warren et i a 


—_. = ne 











Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 157 


shaft gave way, and the engines broke down, necessitating a return 
to English dockyards—a weary journey of three weeks in retracing 
what they had done in five days ! 

‘Our anxiety on that terrible Sunday would have been sorely 
increased had we known that our own steamer, the //irdos, had 
actially sailed for London on the previous day, as it was deemed 
advisable to take her there for repairs, with all the risks of the journey, 
rather than have her dry-docked at Keyham, thus incurring the extra 
ten per cent. for the use of Government docks. Had the vessel, in 
her leaky and altogether unsatisfactory condition, encountered the 
herricane, there was scarcely room left for hope that she had not 
foundered, as we all fully realised when the news of her haying left 
Plymouth reached us. Judge, then, how great was our thankfulness 
on receiving a telegram to announce that she had actually made the 
return journey in twenty-seven hours, and was safely anchored in the 
‘Thames cre the storm burst which proved the death-warrant of so 
many a gallant ship. 

From every quarter came tidings of dimster and of wreck ; of 
bodies washed ashore, and of vessels that had foundered with all 
hands ; of large steamers, and small ships innumerable, reported 
‘missing, of which never a word more will be heard till that day 
when the sen shall give up her dead, We heard how, somewhere off 
the coast of Holland, two lightships had drifted away from their posts, 
and had sailed away into the darkness as wandering lights—false guides, 
increasing the perplexity of already bewildered mariners ; while 
the lighthousemen who should have extinguished these truant“ Will 
o' the Wisps” had themselves been washed away by the dark waters. 

Even within the comparative safety of Plymouth Harbour, dire 
dismay had reigned, and sucha scene of confusion as the oldest 
inhabitant could not remember the like of, Many vessels, including 
two of her Majesty's ships—the Narcissus and the Cambridge (the 
latter a huge old three-decker, now used as a training-ship)—broke 
from their maorings and drifted helplessly before the gale, to the 
terror of smaller craft, who dreaded destruction from collision with 
such unwieldy monsters, Signals of distress—the firing of guns, and 
‘baring of bhic lights—were marked with dismay by crowds assembled 

on the Hoe (that high ground overlooking the harbour), and ere the 
gale subsided seven vessels that had deemed themselves safe in 
harbour were helplessly stranded, while two of them actually filled 
‘and sank, and many sailors were rescued from the water, having 
perieeespet) death. Nor were dangers and peril confined to 
On land, roofs were blown off and walls blown down, 





158 The cans 


~ S 
and various accidents occurred, while the 

multitudes, ready enough to acknowledge their 

a time so awful as this. 

With great reree we tured twnj hous Che Dante 
the fascination of its rocks and waves, ‘and drove back—-through 
and lanes, which, even in bleak December, 

with banks of ivy and of the glossiest hy 
—to the quiet sandy shores Caney ieee a eee 
luxurious quarters at the Queen's Hotel, anent which we found anentry 
in the visitors’ book to the effect that, if any one cou/d contrive to be 
uncomfortable there, the fanlt must surely lic on his own conscience! 
Here no raging tempest disturbed our repose; only the wavelets 
murmured soothing lullabies as they crept gently over the white 
sands to our very feet, and pleasant voices in the fisheretown sang 
Sere paiton of Weel may Che eee 
bread.” 

lence we drove’ of to Helston, once tore Sigg eae emnS 
Mount—a most picturesque object, from wheresoever seen. Ourroute 
lay through part of the mining districts, where tall shafts and engine- 
towers for pumping the water from the mines, alone suggest a hint of 
the busy life that is toiling underground in the tin and copper mines. 

Tn one of these mines—the Botallick mine, beyond the Land's End 
—the workings actually extend nearly a mile and a half below the 
sea, and we were told that when tempests mge, and the sea rolls 
great rocks to and fro in its fury, the noise in the mine is so terrific 
that the miners, notwithstanding the stern stuff they are made of, 
are occasionally compelled to leave off work until the storm 
subsides. 

This mining country is all somewhat dreary, though often relieved 
by glimpses of the sea, and even in this bleak winter time | 
by patches of golden gorse, suggesting the wealth of colour and 

which, in warm summer days, it lends to the grey land. — 

We halted at the pretty little town of Helston, and found excellent: 
quarters at the comfortable old-fashioned “Angel Inn,” a house 
which had long been known to us by name as the starting-point of a 
very curious old May Day? ceremony ; namely, the Furry or Floral” 
Dance, when all the townsfolk make holiday, and a multitude of old 
and young, bearing flowers, and headed by the Lord of thie Manor 
and flower-bedecked flag-bearers, proceed to dance through all the 
principal streets, winding in and out of every house in turm—in at 
the front door and out at the back—the dance being a jiggy step, in 

* Observed on May Day, old style, fie, May Sth. ae 


a = 





dn the English Channel, 159 


peculiar to Cornwall, Wales, and Brittany— 
Rte iers the antiquity of the ceremony, and bids 
‘us trace it back to the common ancestors of these three Celtic tribes, 
‘The festival detives an extra charm from the abundance of flowers 
which greet the Cornish spring, the gardens being gay with lilacs 
and Ixburntins, and the hedgerows gleaming with sheets of primroses 
and other wild flowers, ‘his is by no means the only peculiar 
custom of the sort that was here recalled to our memory. 

‘Among the various lingering traces of the old fire-festival of Mids 
summer's Eve is a torchlight dance by the fisherfolk of the villages 
near Penzance, which, however, they have transferred from the 
orthodox eve of St. John to that of St. Peter—the fisher’s patron 
saint. The townsfolk adhere to the true Midsummer's Eve, and 
celebrate the night with bonfires and fireworks. 

And here, in Helston, we find another quaint old custom, con- 
nected with the Loe Pool, a fresh-water lake, three miles in length, 
Tying in a valley extending from the footof the town right down to 
the sea, which it is only separated by 2 bar of shingle, constantly 
thrown up afresh by the waves. This bar acts asa dam to force 
back the lake, which bas no other outlet, and which, consequently, in 
rainy weather overflows its banks and floods the valley and the 
Jowor houses. 

“Then the Mayor of Holston goes forth with his men, bearing a 
small Jeathern purse, containing the munificent sum of three-half. 
pence, which he formally presents to the Lord of the Manor of Penrose," 
‘craving permission to cut the bar. This being granted, the men set 
to-work to cut channel through the shingle, which being accom- 
plished, the waters finish the work for themselves, flowing leisurely at 
first with slow trickle, then, as if they had thought better of it, with 
gathering energy they dash onward, and, pouring madly through the 
‘breach in foam and fury, rush down to the ocean with such impetus, 
and carrying with them so much mud, that the sea is discoloured for 
miles, The uproar and wild confusion of the clashing waves when 

fiver invades old ocean's kingdom is indescribable. 

_ The upper end of the lake is thus completely drained, and the 
Tower end restored to ite orthodox limits. So quickly, however, 
‘oes the sea re-commence its work of casting up the bar, that within 
ee again separated from the great 








we missed this curious sight, but the carriage 
bore ample trace of the recent inundation. We were. 


‘bundle of the curious little leather purses containing the three-half- 
penny tax, each marked with the initials of the various Mayors and 
‘the date when they were presented. 


Here, as everywhere, tales of shipwreck greeted us. Only a few 
days previously a vessel in distress had espied the lights in the town 
‘of Helston on the brow of the hill, and, noting their reflection in the 
Jake, had doubtless mistaken its calm water for a safe harbour, the 
har béing completely hidden by the angry sea outside and the over- 
flowing lake within, 

Deeming a refuge so near, all on board, numbering fourteen men 
and the captain's wife, came off in the boats and rowed straight for 
the bar, thus unwittingly courting their own certain destruction. Had 
they but stuck to the ship all might have been saved, for the coast- 
guardsmen and the seafaring folk at Port Leven had espied the 
vessel, and had hurried on with ropes and rockets ready to receive 
her at the headland to which they calculated she would probably 
drift. 

But others, following later, beheld with horror a lange boat steering 
direct for the Loe Pool bar, the deadliest landing on all the coast, 
and knew at once that her fate was sealed. She breasted the waves 
gallantly, passing breaker after breaker, and the poor souls on board 
doubtless thought that they had but to clear one or two more such 
ere they reached the quiet harbour, whose still waters. lay before 
them. - 

‘Hut the awe-struck spectators knew better. Justas the boat came 
within twenty yards of them, so that they could distinguish the 
features of every man on board, they saw one monster billow rolling in 
and knew that all hope was vain. At that instant the boat had passed 
what seemed the very last breaker, and in so doing fell into the 
inuek, or hollow of the wave, and ere she could recover her balance 
this huge mass of water rose like a wall behind her, and, curling right 
‘over, engulfed her with all her precious cargo of human lives, — 

A moment later her shattered fragments were dashed up by the 
surf, and such of the men as were not stunned by the blow struggled 
(gallantly for life, but all to no purpose. The moment they set their 
feet on that treacherous footing of small shifting pebbles, swirling 
backward beneath the rushing water, it gave way, and dragged them 
Hack into the surf, where one and all perished, while stretching out 

hands to the pitying men on the shore, who stood utterly 
to help, not having with them so much as a rope; and 


= | 








Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel, 161 


though they strove to make a human chain that should be long 
‘enough to reach the water (by linking on every man to his neighbour), 
it was of no avail. ‘They had to stand helplessly looking on at the 
dying struggles of those whom they would so fain have helped, and 
strong men were there, who sink down in agony upon the beach, 
‘unable to look upon the horrible fate which they could not avert. 
One brave fellow, who had stood within ten yards of the boat in his 
longing to sive some of her crew, told me that in all the dangersand 
perils of a long life spent on the sea he had never experienced any- 
thing to compare with the appalling horror of that terrible’ dawn. 
Only to of the bodies were washed ashore, both utterly destitute of 
raiment—a common circumstance, owing to the frightful grinding of 
the wayes and stones, which tear off every shred of clothing. 

‘The luckless vessel (which was returning home from the Black 
Sea laden with grain) was called the FZiwer of Loch Leven, and there 
seemed bitter mockery in the fact of her being wrecked just off the 
fishing village of Port Leven, which proved anything but 2 port to 
her, The place where she actually ran aground was on the rocks 
just below the great precipitous clifis of Halzephron, the very spot 
where, forty years previously, a transport was wrecked—a row of 
green mounds on the brow of the cliff marking to this day the spot 
where were buried the bodies of thirty men which were afterwards 
washed ashore. 

In truth every creck and headland on this coast has its own tale 
‘of shipwreck and horror, cither in bygone days or in more recent 
times. One wreck, so terrible as to be still spoken of with awe after 
the lapse of well-nigh a hundred years, was that of a transport carrying 
troops, yoo men besides the crew. The vessel was driven ashore 
and dashed to pieces, and, of all on board, only two men escaped 
to tell the tale. Two hundred dead bodies were washed ashore and 
‘buried in great pits, twenty or thirty men in each, The spot where 
the ill-fated vessel struck, close to the Lizards, still bears the name of 
Man-o'-War Rocks, while the grassy headland where the dead were 
buried is called Pistol Meadow, because of the abundance of fire- 
arms which were here collected, 

- But a very different interest attaches to the great fresh-water 
Jake of which we spoke, the lake which is only separated from the 
sea by the ever-shifting bar of shingle. For this Loe Pool—with 

2 ‘The many-knotted water-fags 

‘That whistle stiff ond dry about the marge— 


‘is said to be that very mere wherein King Arthur's wondrous sword 


) «x= 


Teo Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 163 


reficcted the wondrous afterglow which lighted up the heavens, then 
slowly faded away, giving place 10 delicate grey clouds, 

_ Slowly from the midst of these there shone out one star of sur- 
passing brilliance, and, as the still lake faithfully mirrored this in 
@ waving flame of light, it needed small imagination to deem that it 
was in truth the brand Excalibur, and that we could even discern 
the arm robed in white samite, and the hand which grasped the 
jewelled hilt Then, as we once more looked back, the great full 
‘moon had risen, mellow as in time of harvest, and lighted the whole 
Take with quivering lines of glory ; and, as we wound our homeward 
way (on an evening balmy as if it had been early autunm), at every 
turn the weird old oaks framed fresh pictures of beauty on the 
‘moonlit waters. 

To me those hanging woods of Penrose possessed a more per- 
sonal interest, as having been the ald home of my Comish ancestors. 
‘Three generations have passed away since a vessel, bound, like our 
own, for the sunny East, was driven hy stress of weather to seck 
refuge in Falmouth Harhour, where the officers, naval and military, 
were hospitably entertained by the kind people of Cornwall. 

A large ball was given in the town, whereat the young heiress 
of Penrose was graciously pleased to intimate her willingness to 
dance with any officer present, “except that ugly Scotchman!” (as 
she described my great-grandfather). Nevertheless, ere the vessel 
returned to sea, that canny Scot had wooed and won the maiden, and 

found thata pleasant home at Penrose had more charms for him than 
soldiering in the East. 

cian his quaint letters to friends in the north of Scotland are 

Cornish blessings” whereby his revenues were 
aeat these being none other than the wrecks which brought 
him goodly stores of all sorts. Hogshcads of Madeira, brandy, and 
rum, and many another useful offering was brought as tribute by old 
ocean, to say nothing of the abundant firewood which was for ever 
drifting on the shore; firewood which the people gather up thank- 
fally, yet sadly, knowing what bitter tales of sorrow, and of dear 
lives lost, are attached to those battered planks, and not knowing 
‘but that some day, wives and mothers on other shores, may in like 
‘manner gather up the shattered fragments of the ships once manned 
by their own Comish men. 

_ From Helston a drive of ten or twelve miles brought us to the 
‘Lizards, passing over a tract of country which, in the summer time, 
‘must be quite delicious by reason of its profusion of many-coloured 
‘Dioszoms, Even in this mid-winter we still found a few heads of 


a Pian! 





164 The Gentlenan's Pe 7 


the white Comish heath (Zrfar agans), which T believe is not indi- 
genous to any other part of these isles, but which grows abundantly 
in this neighbourhood, and is found on every uncultivated corner 

for a space of about seven miles. Its presence is said to be due to the 
magnesia in the Serpentine rock. It grows luxuriantly in large tufts, 
in company with the three varieties of purple and pink heather com 
‘mon toour Scottish moors. Variousother unfamiliar plants attracted 
‘our notice, chiefly the tamarisk shrub, now bearing its second edition 
‘of pink feathery blossoms, We also found sundry rare ferns, but 
none so beautiful as the fronds of the Asplenivm marinume which 
we had brought from the Land's End, where its tufts of glossy 
green adorn many a crevice of the storm-riven rocks. 

Not least among the attractions of Cornwall in our eyes are 
its hedgerows of Javish width, which no economical farmer has 
reduced from things of beauty to mere land boundaries, but where 
all manner of trailing plants are allowed to grow gracefully at 
nature's bidding, And here and there, beneath some 
tree, you come to a stile—those unique Cornish stiles, formed of 
long narrow blocks of granite set in detached steps, across which 
you may chance to see a picturesque group of lassies coming from 
the well, bearing red earthenware pitchers of almost Eastern form, 

Having sent our dogcart and luggage across the moor, to give 
notice to the good folk in Kynance Cove of the unlooked-for 
adyent of winter guests, we walked on to the headland known as 
the Lizards, where a tall double-tlighthouse warns all mariners to 
steer clear of the dangerous coast. ‘T'wo tall towers, standing on 
cither side of a long dwelling-house—the whole kept so dazzlingly 
whitewashed as to afford a mark by day as well as by night; each 
tower burns nineteen Argand lamps with concave reflectors of 
copper lined with polished silver—a more troublesome light to 
manage, and less effective, than the newer lights with intensifying 
crystal lenses, 

From this point to “the Cove” is not more than 4 couple of 
miles, but the beauty of the coast and of the balmy summerlike 
weather tempted us to linger on every headiand and explore every 
corner, climbing as far as the tide would suffer us over the blue- 
black slaty rocks, while rushing waters swirled around; 
green waves carrying on their ceaseless warfare with the cliffs, for 
ever dashing onward as if bent on scaling their summit, and as 
often falling back foiled, to melt away in a sea of surging foam. 

We lingered till eyes and ears and mind were alike imbued with 
waves—wayes—waves—and we drank in a sense of exhilaration from 


en = 





Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 165 


their life and energy, their perpetual sound and motion. Yet (lest 
familiarity should lessen the sense of awe, and tempt us to forget the 
treachery of the untamable beauty), in every crevice of the rocks lay 
fragments of wreck, dashed up as if in derision of man’s puny power 
—masts, spars, planks, battered and bruised and frayed like bits of 
old cloth ; here and there splinters of wood coloured or gilt, telling 
‘of the care once expended on the poor vessel that had gone down 
like a nutshell before the angry water; and here and there great 
bits of solid iron, portions of engines and boilers, all telling the same 
dread history. 

As we near Kynance Cove, the character of the rock wholly 
changes, to the hardest, many-tinted Serpentine—a rock which not only 
takes a brilliant polish from the hand of the manufacturers of cups 
and vases, fonts and crosses, but even from the action of the waves ; 
and when the tide goes down, the rocks farthest out are so smooth as 
to be extremely unpleasant to walk upon, while the shingle is all 
formed of rounded pebbles of every size and colour, which, while 
still wet, gleam in the sunshine like brilliant jewels. 

When we reached the Cove the tide was still high, washing close 
Up to the two white cottages wherein two rival families signify their 
willingness to receive guests. More scrupulous cleanliness and a 
more cordial welcome could nowhere be found than in the quaint 
Tittle rooms where we picnicked and slept like queens, 

When the full moon rose, we once more followed the retreating 
tide, and sat on the fur-out rocks, watching the gleaming of the white 
surf; and again, ere day broke, we were on the alert, and clambered 
on to a great rock, which at high tide had scemed to us an island, 
‘and thence watched the sun rise in glowing splendour, Descending 
from this outpost, we explored cave afler cave, each more curious and 
beautifal than the last, radiant with every conccivable colour, and 
paved with brilliant pebbles, white sands, or clear green water. 

‘My companions being learned in such matters, tried to teach 
me the true names of those gem-like stones, but for me it was 
‘sufficient to look upon them, as on a ray of crystallised rainbow-light. 
Perhaps if I were addressing a sympathetic Scottish ear, I might 
whisper that there was one great rock in particular which suggested 
nothing so much as a Cumming-tartan plaid—bcing composed of 
Chequers of scarlet and vivid green, crossed and recrossed with narrow 
Tines of black and white. ‘These white veins are generally Steatite or 

but all the other colours are produced in the Serpentine 
‘by the presence of various orcs. Thus copper produces the 
‘most exquisite green of every shade, from the cleat yalowish Ynys 


Ul 


se" 


ourselves again and again, “Could this really be the middle of 
December?” while we sat on the clifis, in all bat summer raiment, 
watching the changing lights and shadows on 


sas fa ema raps een 


pictures, 
Araki of we, tmp te Het frig ta 
once more ventured out of their harbour 





Senta on an | 
where King Arthur died ; little did we reck of en) 

y, asserting that there, in Armorica, the great 
his last. For us the Cornish legend was sufficient, 


very position of the little chapel invests it witha 

‘it nestles into the green headland, just where the rivulet 
ward Hoh le iene Be 
strip of barren moorland lies the great water with 


mystery. 
We watched the sun set like liquid fire, behind 
pakices of purple cloud ; then, passing on, we n 


— 














Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 167 


heavier cargo, including two and a half tons of dollars, sank to rise 
mo more Only a few stray dollars have from time to time been 
washed ashore, as if to whet the appetite of adventurous spirits who 
fain would work that submarine mine and spoil the sea of its ill- 
gotten treasure. One or two such attempts had been made, and 
had hitherto signally failed. This year, however, the experiment 
had been renewed on a large and costly scale by one not wont to 
be readily foiled by difficultics, and, though no success had as yet 
crowned his Jaours, he still determined to persevere, hoping to 
construct a gallery beneath the sea whereby to reach the rock basin 
where, it is believed, the dollars rest beneath a great bank of sand. 

‘The suggestion of trade with far countrics raised by the Spanish 
dollars presents itself in another form in the quaint name of Pol- 
Jew, a neighbouring headland—a name which, thar of Market 
Jew (which occurs twice in and near Penzance), is said to be derived 
from olden days, when Jewish trading-ships found their way to 
‘Cornwall in.search of tin. 

‘The prefix Pol, like those of Tre and Pen, which belong so 
peculiarly to this part of the country, had by this time grown quite 
familiar to our cars, both in the names of places and people, as in 
Penlerick, Penrose, Penzance, Pendennis, or, again, Pol-peer, Pol- 
Jew; or sometimes we find it in the middle of a word, as in the head~ 
land rejoicing in the name of Tol-pedn-pen-with, As to the ‘'re- 
warthas, ‘Trevenas, Trewellas,"Trevanions, ‘T'revoses, ‘Tregonys, their 
fames were legion; and in each village through which we passed 
we noted new varieties, just as. a Sasscnach coming North might take 
count of our endless Afacs. 

ling found us once more in the comfortable “ Angel Inn" at 
Helston, where we duly inspected the “Hell stone," whence the 
pleasant little town derives its unfortunate name ; a large boulder of 
Iack rock which the Devil, for reasons of his own, was once carrying 
im mid-air, when he was attacked by St. Michael, and, as a matter of 
‘course, worsted in the fight, during which he dropped the infernal 
Stone, a precious legacy for the town, but one which some utilitarian 
‘builder has thought fit to break up and use as building material, so 
thar it now figures in the outer wall of the Assembly Room It is 
simply « large metcorolite. 
_ ‘The town stands on a steep hillside, with the main street running 
‘ight up anddown ; so every shower of rain that falls washes and 
; On either side of the street a clear rivulet 
th the open gutter, thus keeping all fresh and sweet. 
+heard a lamentable account of the draiosge of toe. 


‘| 












ae 
168 The Gentleman's Magasin 


town and of the prevalence of smallpox in consequence. Many of 
and gable-ends to the street, But the most: 1 

fashions is the frequent sound of the coachman’s horn, blown to 
summon the passengers for divers so-called coaches {in reality 
qmnibuses), which ran thrice a day, to and from Falmouth and 
Penzance, roa 


We took our places for the former, and drove through ugly mining 
country as far as Penryn Station, the way being enlivened by hideous 
statistics of mining accidents by way of variety on the usual tales of 

From Penryn we looked down on Falmouth and its 
harbour, and a few minutes later we were ensconced in a large bow 
window of the “Old Green Bank Hotel,” commanding a magnificent 
view of the whole harbour, and so close to the shipping that we could 
have thrown a pebble on board of sundry Jarge vessels, 

‘The harbour at that moment represented a large shipping hospital, 
e great was the multitude of vessels of every sort and size and 
wation which had all crowded thither, in more or less disabled 
‘eomlition, after their conflict with the hurricane. Seareely one was 
‘there which had not experienced some damage. Some had sprung 
Jwaks all but fatal, and the exhausted crews had been pumping for 
Vhe dear life, and all but given up hope ere relief reached them. 
‘Ouhers had had their decks swept, their boats and compasses carried 
oll, their rudders or their engines destroyed, their deck-houses 
‘swinshed. Others had Jost bulwarks and masts, and were picked up 
‘A{ son as helpless hulks, and towed into harbour by more fortunate 
yotwele ‘The loss of sails, spars, and rigging soundedjquite trifling 
idl the mass of more serious casualties ; while the destruction of 
‘argo, either thrown overboard to lighten the ship or spoilt by sea 
water, was spoken of as a very slight matter, as welllit might be 
when compared with the precious lives imperiled, 

Jt ty said to bean ill wind that blows nobody good, and so it 
soonvedd (n the present instance, for all the shipwrights’ yards were 
jomited, and work enough and to spare for every willing hand that 
fault lake a turn either in repairing the cripples or in discharging 
giul roshipping their cargoes. . 

All day long busy little tugs were hurrying to and fro, on the 
Jyoleout for veusols that might have succeeded in nearing the harbour, 

that needed their help ere they could enter that desired 








Tae Waly Critics tie the’ English Channel, 169 


more to drag some great unwieldy steamer, whose engines refused 
radia 






But the vessels that contrived, in whatever condition, to reach 
the port, were fortunate indeed as compared with the terrible list of 
those reported as allogether missing—many of which had undoubtedly 
foundered with all hands, others had been cast on the cruel rocks 
and totally wrecked, with the loss of perhaps half their crew, while 
others again had been forsaken and their perishing mariners rescued 
by passing ships at the risk of their own lives, 

‘One such terrible tale of suffering was in every mouth the 
moming we reached Falmouth, when a Swedish brig came in, bring- 
‘ing with her thirteen men, which at her own imminent peril she had 
tescued from the wreck of the Zonisa of Shields. The vessel had 
‘been stricken early on Sunday afternoan with such appalling sudden. 
ness that the crew were literally paralysed, The first squall carried 
‘off the upper and lower maintopsail yards. “Fhe vessel trembled like 
a leaf before the terrific gale, which lashed the sea into raging fury. 
Ware after wave swept over the deck, the vessel rolling fearfully, 
‘while the crew for two hours struggled ineffectually to take in the 
sails. Meanwhile the waters poured into the hold, and all hands 
were called to the pumps. Again and again they were washed away, 
yet, feturning to their work, they toiled on till seven o'clock in the 
evening, when, despite their efforts, the vessel was full of water, 
Further toil being useless, thoy gave up the attempt in despair, 
‘Heavier and heavier grew the seas that washed over them. At 
Tast they saw through the darkness one mighty billow sweeping down 
upon them with resistless force. As it dashed over them it threw 
‘the vessel on her side, and as the water within prevented her righting 
She lay right over. Her wretched crew, seventeen in all, were 
plunged in the raging water. ‘Two succeeded in scrambling into 
the rigging, the others struggled to reach the upper side of the ship, 
‘but every fresh wave that broke over her hurled them back into the 
howling waste of waters. Four were washed away never to rise 
again. The otbers, with superhuman effort, regained their post, and 
‘eontrived to hold on till the vessel fell quite over on her broadside, 
‘again casting them all adrift in the breakers. 

~ Onee more they reached the ship, and finding that the copper 
al ‘keel was partially loose they contrived to grasp it, and thus 

ingers, and in the freezing cold, they held on for 
while the violence of the hurticane increased every 

‘the end of this time the mainmast wat carned away, 
p sighted. Then with the utmost Aifientty Yor 
N 




















Two Wintry Cruises in the English Channel. 174 


‘And now my tale is told. ‘This sketch of our wintry wanderings 
was penned ere we Ieft Falmouth, while sitting in a quiet bow 
‘window of the old hotel, overlooking the harbour. The picture 
that then lay outstretched before me seems still present to my 


‘The fall moon had risen in her glory, illumining the calm water- 
street where small craft plied to and fro, while the larger vessels lay 
thankfully at rest. ‘They, and their lights, and the coloured lights of 
the city, and the colder ray of the moonbeams, all lay faultlessly 
mirrored in the still water ; and one long ripple followed in the wake 
of the ferry-boat conveying belated passengers to the opposite 
shore, where lies the old town of Flushing. Thence, floating across 
the water, came the sound of church-bells, summoning the people 
to evening worship. 

‘The following day we returned to Plymouth, to receive our 
sailing orders, again passing through the village of St. Austell, where 
great tanks of liquid white earth mark the presence of the white 
china clay which forms so large an item of the revenue of this 
district ; clay which not only supplies some of our own Midland 
factories, but also is largely exported to France and the Baltic, the 
wessels which carry it thither returning laden with timber. 

‘Then, bidding cordial farewell to Cornwall, to its kindly people, 
we Once tnore started on our journey to Ceylon, leaving the Land of 
‘Cream for the Isle of Cocoa-nuts, and grey English skies and leafless 
Bowers for the cloudless blue that canopies the tropical jungle. 

* "The Agra having already been despatched with a large number of 
‘Our passengers, the remainder were sent in the Ovhello, and a 
pleasant of cordial friends we were, thenceforth to be 
Tecognised in the social life of Ceylon as the “ Hindoo-Othellos.” 

‘At least four very hippy couples in India and in Ceylon look 
back in gladness to the Hinuos-Otields voyage, which transformed 
60 Many strangers into life-long lovers. 

As for the poor Hideo, £10,000 had to be expended on repairs 
anda lawsuit with her ‘builders cre she could again put to sca. OF 
her further adyentures I only know that once off Halifax and once 
‘off Hull she was in imminent danger of foundering, and had to be 
towed into port in a’ disabled condition. Now her stormy and 
froublous life is over, and her owners can rejoice that her carcer has 
ended without a Tanger loss of precious human life, 


G F GORDON CUMMING. 


—_— 


(i x P| 


ya The Geutleman's er . 


THE LOVES OF A ROYAL BIRD, 


ERHAPS the peacock might not haye been greatly to blame 

when he tried to abduct the wife of the guineafowl He 

had not enjoyed the advantages of a carefisl education, and merely 

followed his own uncorrected instincts. Yet Tam prepared to state 

that there is a code of morals in things matrimonial even among 
birds, and this the peacock undoubtedly violated, 

We know that among the feathered tribes the male gains the 
affections of the female by various artifices and accomplishments. 
‘The bird of paradise which has the most beautiful plumage is able 
to choose the mate who is most to his fancy, while the one who 
is least conspicuous has to espouse her whom his more fortunate 
brethren have left. The scratching birds win their wives by strength 
and personal prowess, and the song birds enchant their mistresses 
with their music. How the stern and solitary birds of prey select 
their mates is a mystery which has not been solved. A pair of 
falcons will live in the same eyrie for years and not tolerate the 
intrusion of birds of their own species in the neighbourhood. ‘The 
sportsman will constantly see the same couple in certain haunts and 
in vain try to discover others in the same locality, yet if one is 
killed the survivor has no difficulty in procuring a mate, We may 
therefore infer that the bachelors and spinsters of the falcon world 
live just beyond the boundaries of the hunting grounds which the 
married couples consider their own, in the distant hope of achieving 
connubial bliss. How the falcon proposes I do not know, He 
probably says in truly baronial fashion, “Madam, you shall be 
mine !” and the affair is settled. A refusal would result in blood, 
feathers, and brains, 

If one could only get a glimpse of the courtship of the wood- 
cock in the solitude of Norwegian forests, or of the pretty love 
making of teal and widgeon among northern marshes where molluscs: 
are plentiful and banks of sedges reflect themselves in the water, 
what an entertaining chapter could be written on the Art of Popping 
the Question. 

Any way, it does not matter how the bride is won Conjugal 


En | 


The Loves of a Royal Bird. 173 


fidelity and an objection to unions between different species is a 
marked characteristic of the birds, Have you not heard the swallow 
twittering idyls to his mate of several summers? Docs not the 
thrush reserve his most luscious song for his sitting hen? Are not 
the magpie and the daw most entertainingly garrnious among the 
gooseberry bushes and chimneystacks where they build their 
nests? 

‘Then when does the turkeycock, with all his faults, try to con- 
tract an alfiance with the barndoor fowl, or the gander go a-wooing 
the heron or the moorhen? ‘These mixed marriages are as repug- 
nant to our feathered friends as matrimonial unfaithfulness. 

‘Theve are some people who are always reacly to reject reasonable 
explanations, They will say that creatures of kindred habits and 
family connection naturally arc hostile to cach other. They interfere 
with each other in the struggle for existence. ‘They will assert that 
ft was for this reason that the peacock attacked the guineafowl, and 
his attraction to the guineahen was an adventitious result of the 
dispute. ‘They will give as examples the ostracism of the chough by 
the jackdaw, of the black rat by his grey congener, of the British 
partridge by his red-legged Continental cousin, of the martin by the 
swift, They will show that the Colchican killed off the Chinese 
pheasant, absorbed the foreign hens into its scraglios and stamped 
its own identity on the offspring ; and that no pheasint is found in 
the area of geographical distribution of the peacock. 

Well, if Pavo had such an objection to Pintado, why the dickens 
‘did he not haye the row before? 

‘For my part I believe the peacock coveted the guineahen, and 
it was this unrighteous passion which made him pursue her spouse 
with untiring hatred, If I thought his hostility was duc to class 
feeling or clannishness, I could forgive hima, for these sentiments are 
‘not far removed from patriotism. Alas that a creature so beautiful 
in form and colour should’ be morally a whited sepulchre, an apple 
‘of the Dead Sea ! 

‘Let us leave our narrative for a moment and look into the family 
history of our actors, We all know that Argus was Juno's private 
detective, and when he was collecting evidence in the delicate case 
‘of Jupiter and Io, Mercury sent the intelligent officer to sleep with 
amusic or whisky, and made short work of him. The queen of 
gods, instead of building a mausoleum to her faithful servant, 
Jook out his hundred eyes and used them to decorate the tail of her 
favourite Wird. In later times the peacock figured in Christian art, 
the circular armmgement of these eyes in the owspread tail Wdog, 


— <<“ 





of « Royal Bird. 175 


© ‘The guineafow! came originally froth Africa and Madagascar. 
‘Tt has been known for centuries in Europe, and esteemed for its 
flesh and the fine flavour of its cgzs, as well as for its graceful shape 
and spotted plumage. Sir William Jardine, it is true, calls “simple 
Susan's guineahen” a clumsily formed bird, but Oliver Goldsmith, 
whose taste was as good as Sir William's, says that it has “a fine 
@elicate shape.” It has been known under the name of Meleagris, 
‘Numidian fowl, and Pintado. Pierre Belon de Mans says that the 
‘Meleagris was a turkey. But this is spiritedly refuted by Mr. Brode- 
tip, who maintains that turkeys were imported with tobacco and 
‘Potatoes by the discoverers of America, and were therefore unknown. 
to the ancients, neither were they introduced by the Jesuits from 
India to Europe. The wild guincafowl is said to have but one 
tate, He shares with the female the labour of incubation and the 
care of the young. He diligently seeks food for his family and will 
defend them from marauders with his life. During the heat of the 
‘day be enjoysa sand bath to rid himself of the parasites which 
infest him, and when the sun begins to sink he disports himself with 
‘his companions in innocent games. His though metallic, is 
capable of modulation, and his calls are various, whereas the pea- 
cock is at all times brazen-tongued, and communicates to the hearer 
the sensation of sharpening siate-pencils. In climates warmer than 
‘out own, where large flocks of guincafow! are kept in a halfwme 
state, they may frequently be seen going through a form of amuse: 
‘ment which I will try to describe. Some open place is chosen as a 
place of meeting, and the birds Icisurely collect by twos and threes 
‘till x goodly party is formed. When all are ready one guineafow! 
eaves the flock and walks in front of them with an air which seems 
‘to say, “Now then, ladies and gentlemen, look this way if you 
please. The sports are about to begin. The great event is the ten- 
yards race, which we believe will be done in the shortest time on 
record. It will have to be run in heats ; one competitor at a time,” 
When he has secured attention he ruffles his feathers, separates his 
wings slightly from his sides, and off he starts at full speed, running 
‘in a semicircle, poe covered the required distance, he returns 
ata processional pace, as much as to say, After 

ike that you ought to be just thunderstruck, Bird 
Ss aps goes through the evolution till evening, when some retire 
‘to roost in the trees and others with chicks nestle among the swect 

and fragrant cuxs-cuss. 

have studied guincafow! will notice that they have 
very different modes of expression. The ordinary 














the peril is over. Then one little wattled head aft 
eee foly inl. Maki aa ee 
doubt that they are asking each other if all is right. 
“The scene of the story lies near Dublin. A few 
Trish capital is a square substantial hoxse standing aw 
and pasture land. A tributary of the Dodder flows 
grounds and expands into an artificial pool, where perch 
and pinkeens breed undisturbed and unfished for. 


lanes leading to nowhere, suggest the diversity of tastes and 
tions of previous occupiers. ‘ 
‘The place is suid to have been built bya noble 

of the first Georges, and afterwards passed into the hands 

what celebrated character, who had risen from a flunkey’ 

and boon companion of the Prince Regent. Perens 
slept under this roof, and fashion under the table. Fecsoners Sie 
Huish had chronicled and Hogarth depicted and Gillmy carical 

the jovial monks of the Screw and the mad demons who b 
+ to the Hell Fire Club, had probably gambled, intrigued 

drank together in this house during two generations, b 

thirties it had been tenanted by people who had no 

four-bottle men, or bucks,ar masters, and its pres 

desired no greater excitement than to pick up & David 

eee EGR Oe 5 4 Peer se 


ap ahaarierngeape tect ony Ss f 











Wfhe Lobes of a Royal: Bivit 177 


rime. His deportment was elegant and his manner easy, and he and 

a very handsome couple. On sunny days, whea the 
air was warm, he would spread out his tail covert and tread a stately 
measure, making each feather of his train shiver as if it had the ague 
whenever he approached his spouse. She, good soul, knew that 
these attentions were meant to please her, and flattered him with 
feminine blandishments. On these oceasions the peacock discarded 
his character of courtier and became a handsome barbarian, whom 
you admired and yet felt sorry for because of his vulgar ostentation. 
‘The absurdity of his pompous bearing became more accentuated 
when the turkeycock, not to be outdone, would spread his tail also 
and strut and gobble after his distinguished relative. 

‘The guineafowl frequented! the same haunts as the peacocks, and 
except an occasional peck were fairly treated by the bigger birds, 
‘They deserved some consideration, for they were a highly respect- 
able middle-class family, and much superior to the tagmg and bob- 
tail of the farmyard, 

‘Things went on well enough till death removed the peahen and 
‘one of the female guineafowl ‘The guinea cock regarded his loss 
with indifference, but the percock was inclined to quarrel with fate, 
Me stalked about in majestic sorrow, pondering on his departed 
consoler anid companion, No longer did he spread his tail in the 
sunlight to court the admiration of all beholders, He sought the 
solitude of the kitchen garden, or of the top of the house, and aban- 
doned himself to sadness, when the Evil One whispered to him, 
“You are lonely. The guineafowl has a wife. If he were to die, 
pethaps she might suit you.” 

Having made the suggestion, the demon let the peacock work 
out the idea for himself, ‘The ferment had been introduced, and the 
hird’s mind became a vat of black wickedness, generating vile plots 
and loathsome bubbies of intrigue. No serpent has licked my cars, 
rey rentte supernatural gifts of Melampus to interpret 





“One dowy tnorning, when the sun was shining slantwise through 
‘the elms on to the petunia beds, we saw the peacock make advances 
to the guinenhen, With dignified steps he walked beside her and 
peeked about, as if unconscious of her presence. After a while he 
found dainty morsels—a seed, a worm, a choice piece of gravel 
wherewith to triturate the food in the gizzard—and he dropped thern 
‘The lady at first secmed suspicious of these advances. 

her noble friend only put these delicacies in her way to 

peck at her topknot, but she soon found that his highness 


178 ee 


‘had no hostile intentions, and her ee 
She walked by his side with a sort of swug satisfaction at having 
‘made so great a conquest a gl 

Cinderella’s little foot had won the heart of the beautiful prince, 
‘but the boy who cleaned the boots (Cinderella's companion, who is 
not mentioned in history) felt a lump in his throat after the visit of 
‘the royal chamberlain, and resolved to throw halfa brick at the royal 
noddle on the first opportunity. So with the guineacock. He was 
not going to sce this allicrinted aristocrat of the farmyard rob 
him of the affections of his spouse without striking a blow. 

“With your permission, sir,” said the guineafowl, “Swill pick 
worms and seeds and gravel for my wife. You need not be solici+ 
tous about her welfare.” 

And he elbowed himself between the bird of Juno end the Ackle 
fair. The manner was offensive, intentionally objectionable 

“Confound you!" cried the peacock, angrily, “how dare you 
jostle me! If you do not wish to sole better not intere 
fere in my affairs.” 

“Zounds, sir! Your affairs! Do you think Tams going! td allow, 
you to whisper soft nothings in my wife's car and offer no objection ? 
No, by Jove, you are mistaken if you suppose that your lofty manner 
and superior size will make me cornplaisant." 

And the little guincafowl ruffled his feathers and looked fr 
cious. 

“ Take that !" said the peacock, making a dig at Ee eae 
cranium. 

* Bad shot !” cried the guincafowl as he evaded the blow, and 
with half-ourspread wings wheeled round the peacock bine = 
curve, 

Rage seized the peacock, and, forgetting all his dignity, bem 
dled after his enemy like an ostrich, ‘The 
quick. He flew before the wind like a clipper, cad id ist 
behind a rhododendron bush. 

“Won't I give it him!” thought the peacock as eats 

‘The Philistines be upon thee, Samson! Reshing from his 
ambush the smart little bird twice plumped his opponent on the head — 
like a fighting cock. A few feathers flew in the air, and off he was 
again to another bush of refuge, 

‘The battle continued in 2 desultory manner ait the morning. 
Each bird tied to gain an advantage by fraud. Each innocently 
pecked about till he got an opportunity of dashing on his rival when 
he was unprepared. Several times*they were driven away from 


“ach other, but they managed to meet pretty often, 





of a Royal Bird, 


Ido not know whether the two guineafowls talked it over when 
they went home, and the male discovered that his wife had an admira- 
tion for the peacock's beautiful tail, but his tactics were changed the 
ext morning. Instead of leading his enemy into ambush and 
‘binding him with a few smart strokes from his pinions, the guinea- 
fowl harassed the peacock by running rapidly round him and picking 
‘oat his tail feathers, Vainly did the larger bird try to protect his 
rear. Like a Bedouin, his tormentor swooped down on his tail and 
was off like a shot with a feather in his beak, This method of 
attack served admirably toirritate the peacock to madness, and so 
pleased the guineafowl. 
‘Thos the war continued. The peacock became haggard and 
careworn, His tail-feathers were of all lengths and hung at various 
angles, and he looked as-scedy as the jackdaw of Ingoldsby. His 
gorgeous airs forsook him. He looked a determined muffian, a des- 
perate cut-throat, With outstretched neck and angry eye he drove 
‘off the poultry when the girl scattered the barley in the yard. ‘The 
ducks waddied away from him in gabbling terror, and the fowls eyed 
‘him with fear. When he took 2 walk in the kitchen garden the 
‘Dackbirds flew into the apple trees, and the sparrows and finches 
‘cowered in the gooscbemy bushes and uttered small chirping notes 
of anxiety, riendless and draggle-tailed, with his heart full of 
revenge, the peacock remained for weeks the victim of the guinea- 
fowl by day and of harrowing thoughts by night. The female 
Gallina no longer coquetted with her former admirer, She cither 
‘appreciated the courage or feared the wrath of her husband, Any 
way, she was apparently faithful. 
_ Qne morning on coming to breakfast we noticed that the 
guineacock was lame. He stood on one leg, and when his enemy 
approached him he hobbled off precipitately. He was caught and 
‘examined, and it was found that his leg was broken, and shortly 
caiterwands he died, 
See Nolons wiinesed that last combat, No doubt the tittle guinea- 
valiantly till a stroke of his adversary’s wing fractured his 
ultimately caused his death. ‘The memory of the brave 
cherished by his wife. She became the companion of 
But the fates were just ; she was killed by a dog. 
” 











W, 1h T, WINTER. 














STRAY THOUGHTS 
IRELAND, 


SUMMER visit to the Sister Island inay be sufficient to dispel 
many English misconceptions, but it is cist, peter 
foe an eenge inguiet to grasp even one division 
question. There is some gain, however, in securing di 
from Saxon prejudices under any conditions ; and, as a 
measure towards an accumte knowledge of the Celt, TATMSIE 
national or personal prejudice, to an extent, if not entirely, is 
essential. But Ireland is no exception to the general law that 
there is no royal road to 2 quick mastery of involved and unique: 
positions. It is, perhaps, fruer of Ireland than of many other cour 
tries, that the more you take over with you—may I say from the 
land of the oppressor?—of every kind of travellers’ lore, the more 
you will bring back, whether it be legendary in character, OF hise 
toric or social or commercial; or whether it be in the nature of 
truths and first principles in the tangled knotty skein of 
and pre-eminently of modern Irish, politics, Definite and antecedent 
informal bout the country visited, of course, enables 
to trade with advantage on his own intellectual Sa 
capital enables him io know instinctively what faeta to look for 
and collect; what questions to ask and, with their answers, to 
plaee.on recon; what items and details gathered froin’ 


1 E incompetent 
or interested witnesses to doubt, or ultimately Behr 
worthy. In short, knowledge, like wealth, is 7 
although @ traveller may be unable cither to clair 


quaintance with, or to apply scientific investigation to, 
affairs, yet a ficld of inquiry is not for these reasons: 

Tn Ireland, in common with other countries in a tran 

say an abnormal, state, a candid but 

facts as they exist, of ideas as they may strike others, 
which haye depth and capacity for general ui 


scence ely india nee eee t 
‘these latter, and other qualifications for securing an ui 


| 





| Stray Thoughts about Freland. Sn 


ment on political and social topies in a new country, are within 
the reach of every intelligent person. 
A tour in Ireland for personal investigation suggested itself to me, 
$Sr,.0n various grounds [hada keen sense of my own want 
of real acquaintance with Irish matters. I had a strong desire to see 
and hear upon the spot what I was powerless tolearn at home. I had 
& profound mistrust of much that others and myself were taught on 
this question at this side of St. George's Channel, To lessen my 
‘own ignorance, and 10 be able to afford to others testimony acquired 
‘at first hand, T'was urged also by wider and less selfish considerations. 
To the Gest place, the unjist and ungencrous treatment of Ireland 
and the Irish race at the present day, by the daily and weekly news: 
Paper press—chielly of Conservative politics—with but few noble 
‘exceptions, was @ potent inducement to travel in Ireland. [ do not 
forget the provocation, both inside and outside of Parliament, and 
60 either side of the Irish Sea and of the Adantic Ocean, to the 
prejedice of a calm estimate of Hibernian topics. But, our public 
teachers and prophets have proved themselves incapable to rise 
above petty, not less than above serious, provocations, which at the 
most disturh the accidents of solid argument, and Jeave its substance 
untouched. ‘They have allowed themselves to distort and exaggerate 
faets; to suppress or colour opinion; to write scornfully and 
ifiously of a sensitive people, and unfeelingly and even brutally 
‘ofa nation which knows itself to be conquered and believes itself to. 
‘be downtrodden, Next, the selfish and bigoted Philistinism of 
much upper-class society, which almost prides itself on and actually 
‘enitivates distike to and aversion from all that bear the Trish name, 
‘was a further inducement to ascertain experimentally if the deoon of 
“Hibernia were really 3 black as he was painted. ‘This Philistinism 
‘was not always exhibited by those who best knew the country, 
practically or by study ; nor by those who differ on principle from 
‘its world wide faith. Perhaps converse propositions to these might 
‘be the more exact. But, in any case, English country gentlemen 
Annocent of definite information respecting Ireland ; Irish landowners, 
‘Wy nomenns ignorant, but not living on their property, and degenerate 
with the Saxon oppressor ; halfpay army 
‘retired Indian civil servants imbued with professional 
governing mee, and its superiority to * natives "" ; 
ere f all kinds, loungers at the clubs, or overworked clerks in 
offices, fresh from reading the Zines or the Safwndey 
‘their rash thoughts and their rasher words, were still 
Ng causes of = wish to verify statements and to weigh, 











to the occasion, which ruffled the face. 

composed of Gallios ; which made « 

prices or changes in the weather, and 

which often ended in the soci! “ boycotting” of the open’ and 

spoken friends of Ireland. Indecd, Saxon a 

contempt for the Celt, during the period of 

Stephen's for at least two years past, have 

since most of the disputants were infants. This: 

and want of selfcommand, from men and women 

suicidal. It naturally ahd irresistibly produced wide an 

and even bitter reaction. And this reaction is still et 

‘on the inerexsc, with minds sufficiently ingenuous not to be fast” 

closed to conviction, I landed in Ireland, conscious indeed of my 

own Inck of specific knowledge, but prepared to receive 

impressions, local information, and national theories, 

impartiality as I could command, Yor, on/my part, I was inspired 

with a prejudice in favour of Ireland and the Erich, rather than against 

them. And as my ignorance of Irish facts wax lessened, and as my 

arquaintance with the people of Ireland increased, that feeling of 
Tifa hous nro eae 

on behalf of the sister kingdom, 

Tt may not be amiss to make this eae svoual wt eaee 
the outset, if only because the truth cannot be concealed in the 
future. The reader ought not, if it can be avoided, to meet 
with disappointment by hopes being unrealised that 
anti-Hibernian view of the case will be here offered to him. There 


time, it is convenient to state that I possessed 


exceptionally good, for feeling the pulse of typical 
Tenaniipoinleat wcileed Welter 











‘of whoun I will only say that his rents were 
Ge paces fiat Aeyslécd ot madday win a revolver in his 
pocket, With these and others, fairly representative of their class, 
most of whom were far sharper and more intelligent than my own 
like conditions, I conversed at length and without 
restraint, Indeed, the amount of political knowledge of undoubted 
oo peace lea the power of expressing their con- 
Yictions, displayed by persons who seemed otherwise but litle 
1. After centuries of struggle with the 
are bom politicians politics form a portion 
‘of their being to an extent to which those in the enjoyment of here- 
ditary and assured liberty afford no counterpart. Hence, recent 
(to it, what it would lead to, how it would be 
received and in what spirit, whether, and to what extent, it would 
meet the wrongs which ir sought to right—and other kindred topics 

‘were earnestly and often warmly discussed, 

“As an instance of the intense interest felt by peasantry of the 
Jowest type in the Land Bill of two years ago, even when presuinably 
powerless 10 understand all its intricate provisions for their own 
‘benefit, ¥ will mention an incident which I witnessed. [ was talking 
‘in the fields to the father of a family occupying a mud hovel in one 
of 3 nest of villages scattered over the west coast of county Cork, on 
the shores of one of the many bays and crecks of that deeply 
indentated sea-board. “Than these hoycls, I was assured by trust- 
Worthy persons, none can be found worse, or more atrocious, as 
Jhuman aberdes the whole of Irland through—Galvay or Mayo not 

‘One who has visited many parts of the world, including 

Islands, affirmed that he had never seem the equals of 
ee of God's earth, civilised or savage, 
Surrounding an irregular plot of ground on the bare mountain-side, 
bape ieee ‘and setting sun, had been built some ten ora 
eee ate Sosy penition tn rognrd [oo\t0'sny) 

bo ps of honest manure. Even in summer time 
pocdaitivided. or joined the several cottage doors, 

chimney-less, floored only by rough mother earth, 

¢ the comforts or even the decencies of life, 


a; the dog was in the field, and the 





in the House of Lords on the © 

to be the bearer of the good news to th 
interests were keenly excited. “ Has it passed?” 
me. “It has passed," I replied. “It has passed! i 
he shouted to other labourers, working in ad 7 


meh ae @ hint of whatit was of which the pews fast 
had passed. 

At the cost of digression, I will mention two uther 
nection with this village, which bore the wild-so 
Esnawhelna. After leaving this man in the fields, 
cabin, to which T was directed by one of his sons, and sq is 
wife, the good woman of the hovel above described. Hn P| 


have welcomed myself and one who went with me 
courtesy and truer breeding, whilst dusting for us thi 
stools of which the habitation boasted, and pressing us to 
humble hospitality it afforded in the shape of a cup of mi 
only after an entrance of some minutes that 1 disco 
sitting close ta a small domesticated Kerry cow, who 
the cud undisturbed by the entrance of the stranger; 
crouching over the fire I perceived the inmate of the cab 
mentioned last, the aged and infirm mother-in-law of tl 
the house, who was—unhappily or happily, who shall 
idiotic. ‘The smoke was too dense for sight, at the 
wife 1 received the same account and the like detail 
and belongings that T had heard fram her husband when 
the fields ; thus in a typical case giving the He to th 
freely uttered in England, that one should believe no 
in Treland, unless, indeed, both husband and 
combined to deceive any unexpected and rarel, 
doubt the good wife furnished me with more 
of existence, Of course, the rent was higher than G 
Pacliraitenerasaass a3} by the landlord upo 
Rep eee Of course, the rights of grazing 




















Thoughts about Ireland, 185 


sh. Of course, debts at the “ shop" at the 
for meal and what not, were heavy, and were 

i; Of course, the dues to landlord and tradesman 

, could not be paid ; and eviction, more than once 

threatened, was hanging over the household, and would fall, as it did 
of their neighbours, at last and shortly after, After 

fea te cae ‘the condition of which, to English ideas, was 
than words can deseribe, 1 met, 


erat enc fore vais had ever entered the village. OF 
‘course, again, the children were bare-legged and bare-footed and 
antily clothed. But they were bright, healthy, joyous, cheery- 
vin dna beings, a picture of neat patehing and tattered clean- 

‘How such comely and tidily dressed children—and the 
ea schoolhiouses were full of them—could possibly be sent forth 
of  morming from the very hovels of smoke, dirt, poverty, and 


wretchedness which we had just visited, was a puzzle that could not 
be unraveled. Why these young lives—which grow old all too soon 
in Treland—shovld be sacrificed in the future to the insatiable greed 
‘of the landlord, or to the even less excusable indifference of the 
State, was a harder problem to solve. I confess to thinking that it 
‘not be solved. ‘The hopes of Ireland are rightly centred in the 
‘youth which is now being sedulously educated by England. When 
the rosy.cheeked children of Esnawhelna become adult men and 
‘wouen, and parents in their turn, I belicve they will not allow them- 
Seema ile chides to be sacrificed after the fathion of their 
forefathers. 


ene this digression. In ‘addition to some persons 
d, Twas the bearer of credentials to certain of the 

clergy ; to those—members at once of a class and order— 

Il others best know the actual state of the Irish nation, 

do an integral part of it, As a rule, it is needless to 

clergy are sprung from the body of the people. With- 

p, it is well to remind the English reader, they are 

feelings, wishes, prejudices, fears, and hopes of their 

—and never were they more thoroughly than now 

people, and share their inmost aspirations. Con: 








Tt must be admitted that, at the cent 
industry, in the large towns, the differences are 
sameness is supreme. Commerce, manufacture, 
that side of moncy-making which succeeds by the 
and reaction of human sharpness and activity, man 
tends towards reducing to the dead level of dull 
come under such influence. But when you pass to 


works to live—though the Irish peasunt is somewhat of 
here—differences are found largely in excess of 

For instance : You travel through agricultural or pastoral 
of Ireland—not to speak of bog-land, bare 
wastes as wild and bleak and rocky as any Alpine 
you could not mistake for outlying portions of any Engl 
even if you tried to mistake them. Of course, the 
speech, of costume, of building, of scenery in nature, ¥ 
tenance, feature, or expression in man, are not 50 marked: 
steamed from London to Rotterdam, or from § i 
Malo, But you could not enter an Irish cabin, 
witted and intelligent Irish herd, walk aver an untidy 
stead, drive through the wide empty street of a gaun 
looking Irish village, witness that indescribable 
‘man and beast, which constitutes an Irish cattle: 
morning in an Irish Catholic town, and see the 
men stolidly going to early mass, without realising in e1 
‘sensation and every power of the mind that you 
in England, and that you were a traveller in a 
the Saxon who invades the abode of the Celt 














Stray Thoughts about Ireland. 189 


countries esteemed more foreign than Ireland, he will fail to see 
Treland as she really is. He will succeed only in seeing the people 
‘as theyate described but too often by compatriots who have deserted 
her, or by co-religionists whose faith in the race has failed. He will 
only witness their weaknesses, faults, and vices depicted by the 
same angenerous and impolitic lines in which they are hideously 
‘caricatured—in spite of all explanations to the contrary—in the pages 
‘of Punch. But, by the aid of this intellectual preparation, he may 
aspire to take of the Sister Island, as he might be competent to take 
of any Continental country, enlightened, if not profound, views of 
three great national questions which absorb the attention of all true 
Trishmen, and of many a sympathiser with Ireland—namely : 1, Of the 
femure of land as held in the past and as on the point of being held 
fn the fature, when tilled and owned by a native population; 2, Of 
‘the development of the industrial resources of the kingdom, and the 
of its home manufactures; 3. Of the government of 
the country by an alicn and for long crac! centuries by a hostile race, 
‘and the prospects of the system which is known, though undescribed, 
by the title of Home Rule, If to these three topics be added a 
\fourth—of supreme importance, indeed, to all Roman Catholics, but 
of less interest to the majority of Englishmen—the chief subjects 
of inquiry to the average visitor in Ireland will be exhaysted. I mean 
the working and growth of the Church of the people, since Catholic 
Emancipation and since Protestant Discstablishment, in a country 
in spite of the crimes of a few and the sympathy of more, is 
still one of the most Catholic nations of Europe—educationally, 
morally and religiously, in the building of churches, convents, and 
schools, and in the foundation of endless works of mercy. 





Ii. In the next Place, the traveller must be neither surprised 
annoyed at the sentiments felt, nor at the expressions used, by 
against England. It is impossible to speak to any one who 

Recocin of ‘the story of his country, or who is inspired with the 


against her abnormal cruelty and legalised tyranny in the 

| past, which are written in letters and pages of blood; against her 
‘self-satisfied indifference, if not positive antagonism, as the majority 
ofthe nation conceives, at the present time towards Ircland—the 
‘of the hot Celt instinctively rebels. Here, however, a 

deep distinction must be drawn. Between England in the 

“its centuries of sad failure in well governing Ireland— 





Darwin's theories are in any degree true. Fo 
ants of those who were far advanced in religion, 


representative of all they abhor, the more 
hatred for the nationality which he represents. 


h intense, bitter, u 

‘Take some examples of Celtic hate. ‘They hate 
acy of the Saxon, and his rule over them, and 
for them at Westminster, and the traditional « 
laws by the Dublin Castle permanent official, and the 
those laws by « Protestant magistracy, resident or unpa 
the country. They hate the Saxon appropriation 
of the Celt, whether it be in the long past by m 
and legislative “plunder,” or in the recent 
‘ment, and the legal purchase of tenants’ rights and 
were morally incapable of being bought and sold 
‘They hate the legitimate results of these measures 


Since these Fines were written the Protestant Bishop of 




















192 


highly spiritual-minded race ; his efforts at 
by legislation, by education, by 


which is required to counteract past 
sufficient to keep together body and soul in times: 
this hatred makes the Irishman desire, beyond words 
wish, to be freed so far as possible from England; to 
of the supremacy, tyranny, patronage of the oppressor 5 
allowed to live knowing nothing more of England, it 
more, hearing nothing more, caring nothing more. 
indifferent to everything English which does not 
himself; and, even in secondary matters in which tee 
might be benefited, he prefers being have by Daas 
he prefers being simply let alone, 

‘Two points, in conclusion, may be observed. In the 
IT have purposely omitted from the just causes of Hibernian 
of England’s rule what may be called historical causcs, a | 
be political or religious. ‘These causes practically kept the 
the position of slavery ; they killed or exiled millions of ogee iS 
they created the national character of the residue which the Sason 
affects to deplore, and many of its evils which he actually despises 
they suppressed liberty and freedom by legislation more odious and 
shameful than disgraced any other known code of laws; they 
attempted, but fruitlessly, to suppress, corrupt, or exterminate the 
old national faith, These causee and their results arc present 
realities to the Irish mind, not the past shadows of an ugly, half 
forgotten dream, as they appear to the English memory. ‘Their 
image is stamped on the sentiments of the people, on the 
of the land, on the present state of religion, on their political 
temperaments, on the very ruins of their country. The Irishman 
cannot forget the past ; he will not forgive it. I am not sure that, 
a5 a Catholic and as a patriot, he ought to do either. God was 
insulted by the one; the Irish nation was outraged by the other, 
We are not bound by claims of personal chatity to forget, arto 
forgive, the insults and wrongs which are done not to ourselyes. It 
would be wanting in reverence to Another, and mean-spirited to our 
forefathers, to accept in payment of a national and religions debt 
any amount short of the uttermost farthing. England, at the last, 
it may be allowed, is honestly striving to pay her dues to 
When she has thoroughly completed the twofold reparation, the | 


respective countries may become united in the bonds 
affection by something less impotent than an Act of 














not defend this feeling of hatred of England in 
One is not bound to defend every human feeling 
h there is a sulicient reason, ‘My business is not to lecture 
bat, if possible, to teach the Englishman, by lessening 
his prejudice and by increasing his knowledge. That this hatred 
‘exists rooted in the heart of every typical Irishman 1 am as convinced 
‘as Tans sure of the reason of the hatred and the justice of the reason. 
Tr does not lie on the surface of every Celtic heart—at least, it is not 
obvious to every beholder, But touch the right chord, and the true 
‘pote will respond. Gain the man’s confidence, assure him of your 
‘sympathy, and his heart will open, and you will be surprised, and 
perhaps shocked, to hear the bitterness of his hatred, and the extent 
of it. It enters into every conceivable relation of life, and tinges 
every possible connecting link In half an hour’s talk with a 
thorough: going patriot, hatred of English role will exhibit itself in all 
‘the several turns the conversation may take, each one lest expected 
and more intense than the last. Even in pious people—that is, in 
‘Catholics, who are pious in spite of this fault, if it be one—the feeling 
haunts and distracts their devoutest moments A fine, manly fellow, 
physically a magnificent specimen of the Celt, an able man with his 
pen, and withal a good Catholic, said to me : “ Nothing disturbs my 
de ‘in church so much as to heer the priest ina mission tell 
mus to say ‘an div for the conversion of England.’ We don’t care 
boat England's conversion, We want nothing in common with 
you "of course, he added, by-and-by, “you, as a Saxon, not as a 
Catholic.” Neither, on the other hand, isa personal sense of the 
tational guilt of England towards Ireland, in almost every condition 
of national life, religious and political, in which she could sin against 
‘her, far from the hearts of the cold, dispassionate Saxon who for the 
‘Brat time fearns the truth, Ihave known undemonstrative, mattor- 
‘of-fact English persons, with by no means the gift of tears, visibly 
‘moved over Father Burke's touching and faithful account of Irish 
wrongs at English hands—not to speak of the pathetic and powerful 
| description of recent Irish history in the pages of Mr.-A. M. Sullivan's 
dely known and most attractive work on “ New Ireland 
rong prayers go upwards, that England might, even at the 
h hour, become both willing and able to act rightly, and to do 
rds her stepsister Treland.! 
well to mention the name of the great Dominican’s work, and to 
pees with it to real the book. ‘This ix the title = 
sith and Fatherland: and Refatation of Froude." Since the above 
livan's book has been issued in « new edition of one yolume, 
fers, bringing down his graphic story almost to the yresent 
published by Cameron & Vergason, Glasgow and Lanicn. 


€) 





posed, as a defensible opinion, Tint dar cree 
Jand for the island and its people to whom we are. 
somewhat leas than one of positive hatred. Of cour 


natural tendency in mankind, whether as a national , 
4m individual unit, to hate those whom we have most. 
and irremediably injured, But, short of this | the 


Saxon feeling for the Celt is one, not unmixed 

weariness, of distrust, of suspicion, of 

‘of national pettishness and incompatibility of temper 

however, interprets the Saxon sentiment towards him 

‘otherwise. And he is not incapable of affording 

seem to him sufficient, to support his erroneous judgment. 
‘To one of these reasons, as it reached me from 

the cottier upwards, and from the landed | 

feel specially induced to draw attention, even at the 

sumption. Tt is one for which, whatever may be said. 


Sa 
been reasonably urged in the past, There is no . bY 
you may, justify it if you can, that English royalty in our. 

set purpose neglected Ireland and the Irish people. 

no doubt that both the people and the counts 

neglect. ‘High and low, wealth and’ poverty, 


to make any individual of exalted position 
patentneglect. Welive under the benign rule of 
and the monarch, until he commits the unpard 








i 


¢ and suspicion with which England views the 

Is ‘There are none mote sensitive, generously minded, 

and affectionately disposed than the Irish people. In the past, a 
attractive, with husband at her side and royal 

around her knees, beloved'as she is wherever she appears, 
celia simply worshipped in Ireland. She would have 
a8 was once said, of which.she “need not to 

roca ‘The enthusiasm which is generated in Treland 
for any one, peer or peasant born, Protestant or Cutholic, who ix 
known or is thought to have at heart the welfare of Ireland, is genuine 
and intense. To have seen, year by year, even for a week at a time, 
the youthfal Queen anc her little ones, would have been enough. 
‘She would have appealed to the social and family instincts of a 
‘most domestic and gregarious people with irresistible force. They 
would have loved her and she would have made them loyal,‘ How 
‘can we be loyal to one we never have scen?” was said again, asa 
rough expression of delicate principle. But it was not so to be. 
‘Daring a long reign—and may it be still longer!—her Majesty has 
plied bat a few bright days on Trish soil, many a 
‘The savereign’s successive advisers, from that time 

‘including the present Prime Minister, have failed to place 

je Crown reasons sufficient to induce the Crown to deal with 

“as England and Scotland are lavishly dealt with. 

Teer sch ae duty on the part of the advisers of the 


nd ‘criminally wrong. ‘Those who know Ireland 

1 do are of decided opinion, that a large amount of 

ontent has been crested by this failure in duty on the 
ible Ministers. 

scope of this paper to suggest any remedial 

for this unfortunate mistake in policy, Iamtold 

00 late to revive the latent love and the innate 





196 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


loyalty of Irishmen and Irishwomen for all that commands their 
esteem, appeals to their sentiments, or excites their affections. But 
it is abundantly clear that no immediate change in policy is intended 
to be made in this direction. For, in the very recent past, the 
meeting of the Social Science Association, held in the autumn of 
1881, in Dublin, was no unfit occasion, it might be thought, for the 
presence of even a junior prince of the blood to grace the second 
capital of the empire. The Prince was courteously invited by the 
chief magistrate of the country. But he declined, on the ground, if I 
remember rightly, that he had received the royal commands to 
present himself at court in the north. Not long afterwards, 
according to the newspapers, the same Prince received the royal 
permission to absent himself from court, on the receipt of another 
anda similar invitation: but it was not an invitation to any city in, 
much less to the capital of, Ireland. 





197 


SCIENCE NOTES. 


Retrospective. 

‘TYPOGRAPHICAL. error in one of my last month's notes 
may have led those readers who have not detected it to 
erroncous conclusions. On page 97, line 2, 1890 is printed for 1980, 
‘the latter date—sc. a century after the census of 1880—being about 
the time when the negro population will have doubled that of the 
whites in the Southem States at the present relative rate of increase. 
A misunderstanding of a part of the previous note has occurred 
to a very friendly reader who complains that he cannot see the joke 
in the paragraph on page 96 which discusses the possible proceedings 

of the monkeys during the Handel Festival. 
Neither can I, as the question is serious and purely philosophical. 
It has been asserted that man is the only mammal endowed with a 
love of music ; others maintain that a germ of this faculty is displayed 
by certain performing monkeys If a dozen or two of our poor 
relations were free within the limits of the Crystal Palace, their 
Movements during musical performances would probably settle this 

question. 


nish FisHERIES. 

HE Fisheries Exhibition has brought out a marvellous display 
Of unanimity. As regards the necessity for reform of our fish 
supplies, the whole of the English nation has become one united 
ody of uncompromising Radicals, Beyond the bumarees and 
fehmongers, there are no Conservatives to block this movement. 
Physical and biological science have jained their forces with political 

economy in furthering the great object. 

A small experience of my own bearing upon the economic ques- 
tion of distribution is, I think, practically suggestive, 

‘Twas stopping for a day or two at the Leenane Hotel, on the 
‘banks of that beautiful Irish fjord the Killary. ‘The other visitors 
‘were sportsmen chiefly, bent on salmon fishing in the Erriff, the 
terminal river of the estuary, But rain was deficient, the river low, 





‘and the fishers were grumbling loudly, 


plenty of the cod and whiting tribe in the 


suggested that the despondent sportsmen 
sea-fishing. Two of them assented to this, 

of a boat and two rowers, my object being the 
Little Killary, best reached by water. 

‘We found that the boatmen were ail geil wien aes eet 
and that they knew the business pierce 
them as bait. I was accordingly rowed to my! 
while crossing the hills, the other two devoted 1 
hooks When I returned to the boat two hours: Js, T found, 
them exulting in their splendid sport, in which I then joined. We 
returned, and on the way back strung one Se 
large whitings and a few gumets, 
small fish in the boat. hs ih wo ie re oa and 
lines for an hour more! A Bac 

‘The fish reve cookedand-eaten by the od pease era 
unanimous in denouncing the idleness and stupidity of the boatmen, 
who, with all these fish at hand, had failed to s 
had been fishless for more than a week before. Having 
many of these flippant verdicts against poor Paddy, which, on 
evidence, proved to be unjust, I determined to 
accordingly asked the boatmen why they did not fish on. 
account instead of waiting to be hired, TI de 
arithmetic that 100 whitings, easily to be taken in a short day and 
sold at only three-halfpence each, would give the two men 6s, 5a, cach; 
that during the season, while the hotel was full of guests clamouring: 
forfish, there was demand on the spot. ‘Themen smiled but would 
not discuss the subject. I saw that they were afraid to do so. " 

‘The car boy who drove me to Cong the i 
communicative. He said that if vin oe ig 
them to the hotel for sale they would have an offer of 
the lot instead of ras, 6¢., and if they refused they 
themselves or leave them to stink ; that the boatmen t 
this, lest I should charge the hotelkeeper with unfairmess a 
them into trouble. 

‘This little incident fairly represents the crucial po 


actions, is supposed to do the rest—ée. to find 
‘of rapid transport for a most perishable 
remunerative prices. He fails to do thi 


rae 








and upon imitative sounds for : 


emotion, 
ing objects, and Sse Fons ene ee the modern 
of material for exercising his Sevrarte Ingenio 
languages back to a theoretical 
pet nee sk agioal is case 
As all human action occurs in accordance with 


would be had some grown up from their 
and others in North America, with no com 
speakers of the resembling languages, from the epoch 
jabbering to that of definite speech, 


‘Tue Cymaical Exercres or Wan 

















Science Noles. 201 


forming Lakes, behind which in like manner it would solidify from 
bottom upwards, and as water is almost an absolute non-conductor 
of heat and effects no convection downwards, a mere film on the 
surface would protect these ice rocks from the summer heat, and 
thus they would accumulate year after ycar until all the valleys were 
filled with ice up to the level of their boundary ridges. 

The exceptionally great specific heat of water and its unparalleled 
demand for latent heat of fusion or evaporation, make it the great 
equaliser of temperature, and, as ‘Tyndall has shown, it wraps the 
world in a mantle of vapour which holds back its own heat that 
would otherwise radiate away at night and moderates the otherwise 
intolerable heat of solar radiation during the day. 

Butthis is not all In its chemical relations it is similarly excep- 
tional and anomalous Tt is the most bland, neutral, and passive of 
all chemical substances, and also the most active and vigorous. We 
are all familiar with its chemical gentleness, its tastelessness as a 
beverage, and its neutrality as a solvent, and yet the most powerful 
and acrid of all chemical agents owe their energy to water; they 
are chemically impotent without it 

‘When oxygen was first discovered it was supposed to be the 
acidifying: Principle, and was named accordingly. Now this great 
chemical function is ascribed to water. The compound of sulphur 
and oxygen which eth water becomes sulphuric acid or oil of vitriol, 
is neither acid nor vitriolic when anhydrous. It is then curiously 
inert. So also with that oxide of nitrogen which p/us water is nitric 
acid ; without waterit is not an acid and buta poor, feeble compound. 
‘The old snd abandoned name of agua fortis is really justifiable, and 
‘only objectionable on account of its limited application. If revived in 
accordance with modern chemical theory every acid would be an 
agua fortis, or water made chemically powerful by combination with 
something else. 

‘The chemical energy of chlorine supplies the chemical lecturer 
with some charming experiments. One of my pets was that of 
making a little firegrate of copper wire and charging it with incan- 
escent charcoal fuel. In oxygen the charcoal burned most bril- 
liantly, while the copper remained passive. Then I heated another 
charge of charcoal to redness as before and immersed the grate and 
roles a jar of chlorine ; there the charcoal fire died out, and 

t bars of the grate became red hot and melted with green 
Other metals do the like, burn furiously 

even cold into this gas; therefore, if we exchanged 
‘atmosphere, eee for oxygen, we should make out 


= q 









202 The 


fireplaces and furnace bars of coal or 
copper or other metal as fucl, 
‘These reflections are 





bias freed from aqueous vapour by means 
calcium. If when the copper leaf was ir 
a drop of water came in contact with it, a flash. 
taneous disappearance of the metal occurred, 
Other metals behaved similarly, but tit 


Chlorine, as everybody knows, is a powerful bleaching ap 
infecting agent, but it only acts when in the presence of wat 
red rose, if dry, retains its colour in chlorine, fait stened, it 


well known since the time of Sir Humphry Davy, 
special study of the properties of this gas, 


Sonpnvr as A Disixerctant. 
N my notes of last January I advocated a revi) 
sulphurous acid as a disinfectant, 1 have since 
account of a striking illustration of its value, In 
marine manufactory, the director has obseryed that 
forty-four years none of his workmen have suffered from: 
and he attributes their immunity to the fumes of su 
which are given off from the sulphur which is largely 





Ifat our vitriol works and other manufactories where 
burned and the fumes freely inhaled by workmen sit itr 
were made, the results might prove very interesting 
valuable, especially as it now appears that consun 


inhale without serious inconvenience. 


As every little is a help,” the use of matches | 





Science Notes. 203 


is advantageous in a household. Servant-galism, which displays itself 
most distinctly in an affectation of super-delicate susceptibility, has 
loudly objected to the *' heffluvia” of these things, and thus led to 
the introduction of paraffin as a substitute for the brimstone. 

Something i: necessary between the phosphorus or chlorate tip 
and the wood, and nothing has yet been invented equal in efficiency 
and safety to the old-fishioned brimstone in which the wood match 
was dipped to a depth of about half-an-inch before the phosphorus 
compound, or the mixture of sugar and chlorate of potash, was added 
to the end. A substitute for this is now obtained by dipping the 
mateh in fused paraffin, which saturates the wood and causes it to 
burn with a large bright flame, far more easily communicated to sur- 
rounding combustibles than that of the sulphur. Besides this, the 
sulphur, being very easily lighted, demands but a mere film of the 

composition on the top of the match, instead of the 
Jump that is necessary on the paraffin matches. This lumpis danger- 
ous, as it often flies off explosively while blazing, while the thin film 
burns silently and safely. 

The education of the human nose has hitherto been sadly 
neglected. It should be trained to distinguish intelligently between 
evil and beneficent odours. As it always acts in more or less int 
mate alliance with the imagination, an odour which is disgusting, 
when known to be emitted by disgusting materials, assumes quite a 
different character when understood to be otherwise produced. To 
the student of practical chemistry who uses sulphuretted hydrogen 
gas £0 freely in his first lessons on the analysis of bases, its odour as 
produced in the laboratory merely acts as a stimulant to appetite, but 
the same emanating from a sewer js avoided with loathing. In this 
tase the nose acts intelligently under the guidance of science, and if 
it did so always, all harmless odours would ccase to be repugnant, 
and thors of disinfectants would be welcomed as perfumes. 





Henbat Disinrecrants. 


NN one of Dickens's vivid pictures of a Criminal Court House 
{in “A Tale of Two Cities”), he describes the aromatic herbs 
spread between the victims and their judges in order to prevent the 
contamination of gxol fever. Was the use of these a mere delusion, 
‘of was it based on expericace ? 
‘All we know on the subject points to the conclusion that they 
were to someextent effectual. The aroma of plants is duets the 
ra 


a , 


al 


208 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


vapour of volatile essential oils, and these oils generally are dis 
infeciants of varying degrees of potency. 

Whence came the popular name “ feverfeu"? and why was it 
applied to the pyrethrum? Tite the leaf or root of this plant if you 
are sceptical concerning its active properties. I say “ bite,” not 
“'masticate," lest my advice should bring curses on my head. Its 
botanical name is derived from the Greek root for fire, on account of 
the fiery flavour of its root. An old writer says, “ When the root of 
pyrethrum is chewed it makes a sensible impression on the lips, 
which continues like the flame of a coal betwixt in and out for nine 
or ten minutes.” 

The aroma of its flowers is repulsive to bees and other smaller 
creatures. Iam told that certain “ insect powders” in present use 
are made from its flowers, If destructive to these it may act 
similarly on the microbia to which contagious discases are now 
generally ascribed. It was once a popular remedy for ague, and is 
still administered by Indian doctors in typhus fever. 

T name this herb because it is now so common, A yellow-leared 
varicty is much uscd in flower borders, and was absolutely fashion- 
able a few years ago. It grows wherever any sort of vegetation is 
possible, becomes, i in fact, a rather troublesome weed when fairly 
established in a garden. It may be cultivated in the most 
backyards of town houses, will propagate itself there when once 
planted and allowed to mature its pretty white and yellow flowers. 

If, then, it really is a febrifuge, as its popular name indicates, why 
not cultivate it in our city slums, in boxes and otherwise? House- 
to-house presentation of plants worth twopence per hundred, in po 
costing twopence per dozen, would presently bring forth fusuria 
increase that would charge the stagnant atmosphere with ever-rising 
Deneficent emanations, 

I say “4” it has these properties, and this of course is the 
primary question well worthy of careful investigation. Not being a 
botanist Iam unable to catalogue the multitude of other aromatic 
plants that might be similarly used. 

‘The enterprise of disseminating such natural and beautiful dis- 
infectants has no dividends in it, or « joint-stock syndicate would ; 
‘once be organised to take it up ; but asa philanthropic object 
thing might be done, ‘There are many “home missions" afloat that 
are less useful than this might be if intelligently carried out. 


Ww, MATTIEG ‘WILLIAMS, 


me 
2% = 


TABLE TALK. 


Soctery AND ‘THE Acror. 


OTHING could be more brilliant or more successful than the 
complimentary banquet to Mr. Irving on the occasion of his 
forthcoming trip to America. ‘The day chosen for the {ete—the 
anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence—and the 
presence of the American Minister, Mr. J. R. Lowell, gave the event 
@ species of international character. Around the Lord Chief Justice 
meanwhile, who occupied the chair, were grouped a number of men 
representative of what is best in literature, law, science, and art. 
Mr. Gladstone was only prevented by medical orders from being 
among the guests. Nothing, in short, was wanting to the homage 
that was rendered, nor has any similar occasion, whatever the object 
‘of the demonstration, been more honouring to the recipient. ‘To 
this I will add that no one has ever been better entitled to the com- 
pliment awarded. 1 am, indeed, in common with most observers 
of the stage, prepared to see the dignity of knighthood, modestly 
deprecated by Mr. Irving in his speech, come as a crown of recog 
ition to his career. While, however, 1 do not grudge the honours 
paid to Mr. Irving, I sce with regret the kind of personal homage it 
1s now the custom to award to actors in general. To no other class 
‘of workers docs the recognition of merit take ordinarily so flattering 
a form, and in none accordingly is the temptation to vainglory so 
dangerous. When, at the present moment, as in the days satirised 
by Juyenal, and in those described by Colley Cibber, the actor is 
scen established in the boudoir and exhibiied in society, we may 
expect both art and society to suffer. Signs are not wanting even 
now that the kind of left-handed recognition extended by society to 
the actor is to the detriment of art That it will be still more pre- 
judicial to society is doubted only by those who hiold that the future 
of 4 country is independent of that of its aristocracy. 


‘Tue Disrexsat or Private Liwraxtes. 


NE huge library follows another to the hammer with such 
rapidity, it seems probable that the great private Wbwsies oh 





206 The Gentleman's Magazine. 

England will soon be things of the past, Tn one senac this is a gain, 
Scholarship, as I have pointed out, reaps nothing while the rarest 
works are in the hands of great families by whom they are allowed to 
rot in their bindings, or to become a nest for worms. ‘With some 
circulation, however temporary, of a book, there is a chance that 
something more than previously was known will be learned about it. 
Still, the very nature of book-collecting requires that the volumes 
when assembled shall be regarded as heirlooms, and this is not 
easily possible except in the caseein which a certain amount of state 

is regarded as the natural and proper accompaniment of wealth. 
average collection of books is dispersed as soon as the collector is 
dead. ‘The desire to possess it is not seldom what is called a mania. 
‘Those who regard books as graceful luxuries, and caleulate what 
proportion of them forms a part of well-ordered purchases of all 
kinds, are the exceptions among book-buyers. To the truc bibliophile 
the opportunity to acquire an exceptionally rare-yolume, or 

up a collection, is simply irresistible. When accordingly the book- 
lover dies, his library represents a large portion of his effects No 
other means then of distributing his wealth among his descendants 
or heirs than selling his books ean generally be found. Auetioneers 
such as Messrs, Sotheby & Wilkinson could supply some curious 
statistics as to the average number of years that elapse before the 
rarities they sell reappear upon their shelves Most large collec- 
tions of books that have lasted more than one lifetime have been 
found in the houses of the territorial nobility, ia monasteries, or in 
public or quasi-public wutions, “ Claustrum sine armaria quasi 
castrum sine armentario,” says a medieval proverb—a monastery 
without a place for books is like a camp without a place for arms. 1 
am disposed to adapt this proverb to modem requirements, and, 
altering slightly its import, say a house without books is like a face 
without expression. 














Ortors or Puptic Lipranies, 


T is not gencrally known to what extent our great public libraries 
sprang out of private collections, nor how late they are 

date of their origin. The library of the British Museum dates < 
cally from 1753, when the library of Sir Hans Sloane was: 
Cottonian and the Harleian MSS, ‘The Bodleian, which in the reign 
of Edward IV, had been entirely despoiled of the treasures 
Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, was restored by Sir 
in 1597, The Lambeth Archiepiscopal library, after 


js 7 













Table Talk. 207 


‘was re-established in the period of the Restoration, The Cambridge 
University library dates back to the close of the fifteenth century. The 
National Library of Paris was opened to the public in 1737. Ninety- 
four years previously, however, the splendid collection of Cardinal 
Mazarin, which forms a chief glory of the library, had been rendered 
accessible to scholars by the great Cardinal. A similar privilege was 
accorded to students in 1652 in the library of the Abbaye de Saint- 
Victor, immortalised by Rabelais. After its dispersal at the sacking of 
Rome bythe Duc de Bourbon in 1527, the library of the Vatican was 
re-formed in s8& The Laurentinian Library at Florence, founded 
by the Medici, underwent many vicissitudes, and was not perman- 
ently established until the sixteenth century. Enriched with the 
collection of Petrarch, the public library of St. Mark in Venice can 
aim an origin more ancient than that of any collection of equal 
importance, its date being 1360. What is the origin of the Library 
of the Escurial I cannot say, One speciality about it deserves 
mention. The books are all placed on the shelves the reverse way, 
and the titles are printed on the front of the leaves. Copenhagen has 
a library which was of small importance until 1712, but took its rise in 
the sixteenth century, ‘The Imperial Library in Vienna dates from 
1498, There are few large libraries at home or abroad that have 
not suffered grievously from myage or persecution of some kind 
from barbarian love of destruction or priestly indignation against 
heterodoxy. The monks, however, let it be said in mitigation of the 
condemnation they have justly incurred, did their best in many cases 
to preserve and propagate books, and the famous sneer is unjust— 
A:sccond deluge learning then o'erran, 
And the monks finished what the Goths began. 


Gomxpotas on THe THanes. 


HAVE always regarded Henley Regatta as, in its class, the 
prettiest and most captivating spectacle that England can 
show to a foreigner. Granted a fine day, the beauty of the en. 
yironings of the pretty Oxford town, with its magnificent reach of 
river alive with every speciés of craft, from the steam-launch to the 
canoe, is indescribable, Perfectly good-humoured is, moreover, the 
Drilliant crowd that is attracted, and there is an entire absence of the 
rough element by which suburban festivities are marred. Of late 
built on the Venetian model, and furnished, in one instance 

at least, with veritable gondolicrs, have formed a feature on the river, 
and I see no reason why, in time, a race between gondolas should not 


= — 


fining the colour to black, was passed. 
‘exist in England. ‘The gondola, the shape 
Deauty, might well be brightly and. artistically . AV 
in our rather dingy climate, and with erence fo Vk 
hues in masculine attire, alt the colour we can get into. our ‘We. ny 
A few brightly coloured gondolas on the river would. ; 
very pleasing addition to its picturesque attractions, In 
Tam, of course, dealing with the Thames as a. 
roust be, during the summer months, more or less 
‘Those who seek a true Arcadia, with no intrusion of p 
crowds, must go elsewhere than to the "Thames. 


HUMAN SACRIFICES STM, ATERAPTED, 


HAT the notion of human sacrifices which is found in t 
teaching of most teligions dies hard is proved by a 

which obtained publicity in America. According to i 
plied in a Roman Catholic periodical, John Smith, of 
persuaded himself from the perusal of the Bible that it was 
offer up his son in sacrifice, What was most curious | 
that he brought over the son himself, aged thirteen, the se! 
and the mother of the child to share his views. After 
fasts, which approached starvation, he called the boy out, 
he had to die. The little fellow acquiesced, and knelt 
ground. ‘The mother knelt beside him. ‘The se! Y 
then raised the knife and, looking steadily into die fi 





such eases is difficult to say. 

difference, however, between this active murder and 
murder committed by those who, for motives of ca 
their sick all aid of medicine ? 














THE 


GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE 


Serrempen 1883. 


MY MUSICAL LIFE. 
Vv. 


HAVE been a martyr to bad accompanyists. All young ladies 
think they can accompany themselves—so why not you or any 
other man? The truth is that very few ladies can accompany at all. 
¥f they sing they will probably try, in the absence of any musical 
friend, to make shift with a few chords in order that the assembly 
tay not be deprived of a song. But also if they sing they will 
probably have forgotten the little they once knew about pianoforte 
playing. ‘To accompany yourself properly you must do it with 
ease and accuracy: nothing is so charming and nothing is so 
rare. 

Singing ladies, especially amateurs, are pitiably unscrupulous, and 
moderately unconscious of the wild effect produced by that fitful and 
imaccurate dabbling with the keyboard which they palm off upon 
‘their listeners as. an accompaniment. Now and then a Scotch ballad 
may survive such treatment—a Scotch ballad seems always grateful 
for any accompaniment at all—but to attempt Gounod or Schubert 
in this style is conduct indicative of a weak intellect and a feeble 
conscience, 

To accompany well you must not only be a good musician but 
You must be mesmeric, sympathetic, intuitive. You must know what 
I want before I tell you, you must feel which way my spirit sets, for 
the motions of the soul are swift as an angel's flight 1 cannot 
pause in those quick and subtle transitions of emotion, fancy, passion, 
to tell you a secret; if it is not yours already, you are unworthy of it. 
What! when I had played three bars thus, you could not guess that I 
should hurry the fourth and droop with a melodious sigh upon the 
fifth ! You dared to strike in at the end of a note which my inten- 
tion would haye stretched out into at least another semibreve\ You 

Vor. cery, #2 1833 Q 





————— 


My Musical Lsfe. amr 


ieaavenar in = neighbouthood, and died nine months 
alterwards, 
ve Mise Flariett Young, the authot of ‘several popular songs, was a 
‘eilliant amateur pianists. Hersinging—she had a light high soprano 
was’ even more esteemed ; people were not musical enough to 
understand the merit) of ber playing. I remember hearing her in 
the Mendelssohn D minor trio at Professor D’Alquen's onc night, 
and being much overcome by my feelings at the wildand magni- 
ficent close, I turned to a musician who was standing close to me 
and exclaimed, “Tis like going up to heaven bya whirlwind!” He 
merely stared. 

D'Alquen used to play at Captain Newberry’s, He got one 
of-his violins when the Captain died. He did a great deal for 
masic in Brighton. He was an admirable musician, an excellent 
teacher, and a German artist of the solid old type. I was one night 
athis house when a telegram arrived to say that Sebastopol had 
at last falle, and D’Alquen sat down to the piano and executed a 
rather disjointed but murderous improvisation inspired by the siege 
and ultimate surrender of that redoubtable fortress; the great guns 
in. the bass were continuous and the firing was most heavy. Before 
midnight another telegram atrived to say that it was all a mistake, and 
Sebastopol had not fallen. Of course we took no notice, and indeed 
‘were mither anxious to conceal} the awkward and malaprop intelligence 
from the worthy Professor, Weal felt it was high time Sebastopol 
did fall, and some time afterwards it fell, and D’Alquen’s piano, which 
had suffered considerably from thecannonade by anticipation, had at 
last something to show for it, 

In those days the musical culture of Brighton was chiefly managed 
by Herr Kiihe, still an ornament of the Brighton scason, Mons. de 
Paris, and Signor Li Calsi, sometime conductor of the Italian Opera, 
and, fet me say, an admirable musician, pianist, and, above all, 
accompanyist. He accompanied me occasionally on the piano, and 
also in another capacity, for we travelled together as far as Genoa. I 
‘was on my way to Naples, Ti Calsi had started with rifle and sword 
to join Garibaldi, like all other Italian patriots. He got to Sicily, 
and got’ no farther, He-was a Sicilian by birth, He revisited his 
oa ee parted with his rifle, 

| Garibaldi’s capture of Naples there was really little more 
ee es at the siege of Capua, but it was 
mere dabbling in war, andi Calsi probably felt that the work was 
otaepengs him, and he might as well rest and be 
ae of southern cities. 
a2 


a 


| 


212 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


But I am not writing my life abroad, or the st ny Gari: 
baldian campaign at Naples, and I make haste to return 

‘The musical parties at Brighton were a source of very mixed | 
satisfaction to me, I believe I always had the instinct of a evrtwa, | 
and I certainly had the irritability and impatience of one, Tt was 
not de rigueur at Brighton to listen to anyone, but I never could bear 
playing to people who did not listen. In mixed companies I resorted 
to every conceivable trick and device to ensnare attention; and I am 
quite aware—as Sterndale Bennett, who accompanied the first solo T 
ever played in a public concert-room, told me some years afterwards 
—that I injured my style by a partiality for crude and sensational 
effect, which my better judgment even then revolted from, 

T had the deepest contempt for mixed audiences. On more 
‘than one occasion, when I had been unable with my utmost efforts 
to silence the roar of conversation, I have simply Jaid down my 
violin in the middle of a bar and received the thanks of my hostess— 
who thought it was all right and quite “ too-too"—with a smile and 
a bow far more satirieal than polite, But Iam bound to say that 
the violin, being in those days somewhat of a novelty in private 
society, and I having won a sort of reputation, I usually got the ear 
of the room, and I may perhaps, without undue vanity, say I usually 
kept it. 

Being naturally short of stature, T have suffered much from 
having often to play behind a crowd, a few only of whom could 
cither hear or see me. The soloist or singer ought always to be 
raised, if possible. He has to magnetlse his audience as well as 
play to them. He cannot do this unless he can see and be seen. 
When I got more knowing, I always chose a vantage-ground and 
cleared a space in front of me. The next best thing to being radat 
for a speaker or a player is to be ¢rofated. Public performers often 
neglect this, I have scen a singer in a dark dress against a dark 
‘background, and half-way down the room she has been undistin= 
guishable from the chorus behind her. T have seen a lecturer in @ 
black coat, with a black board for his backgrotnd est aS 
off it has been “Vox ct precterea nihil.” 

As from the age of ‘seveti bape always pleat the violin more 
or less publicly, I entered upon my amateur career at 
without the smallest nervousness, My facility was always very great, 
but my execution, although showy (and I lech to pergbelf 
never as finished as I could have desired. My tone, a8 
considered by Oury remarkable, and except when mgm a | 

purpose he would never interfere with my reading of a solo. 


= a 





My Musical Life. 213 


the only point in which he gave in to me. “I never taught you 
that," he would say sharply. “Shall I alter it?” I wouldask. “No, 
no, let it alone ; follow your own inspiration; you must do as you 
‘will, the effect is good." Indeed, no one ever taught me the art of 
drawing tears from the eyes of my listeners, Moments came to me 
when I was playing—I seemed far away from the world. I was not 
scheming for effect—there was no trick about it. I could give no 
reason for the ral/, the , the ff, the { Something in my soul 
ordered it so, and my fingers followed, communicating every inner 
vibration through their tips to the vibrating string until the mighty 
heart of the Cremona pealed out like a clarion, or whispered trem- 
blingly in response. 

But those moments did not come to me in mixed, buzzing 

audiences; then I merely waged impatient war with a mob, 

‘They came in still rooms where a few were met, and the lights 
were low, and the windows open toward the sca. 

‘They came in brilliantly lighted halls, when I had full command 
from some platform of an attentive crowd gathered to listen, not to 
chatter, 

‘They came when some one or other sat and played with me, 
‘whose spirit’s pulzes rose and fell with mine—in a world of sound 
where the morning stars seem always singing together. 

Twas such a thorn in the side of my accompanyists that at last 
they got to have a wholesome dread of me. In this way I often got 
off playing at houses where people asked me to bring my violin 
impromplu, because 1 happened to be the fashion. 

I remember one such house—the young lady who was to 
accompany me had just come home from school with all the accom- 

Her music was so superfine that she had even learned 
to play Mendelssohin’s Song without Words,” No, I., Book I., vilely, 
8 I am afraid I told her in language more true than polite. 1 was 

seventeen. She was very good-looking, with a considerable 
‘opinion of my musical faculties, and apparently not unwilling to be 
‘taught, so I went through No. I. Book I, I was sanguine cnough to 
hope that I might impart to her a right feeling for it. All in vain, 
She played it like a bit of wood—mechanically correct and 
mechanically stupid. I gave it up, and took out my violin— 
it was the morning, and we had met to rehearse quictly for 
the evening Rode’s air in G. Of course, the accompaniment to 
this agp very simple, but all depended upon the sympa. 
hair’s-breadth ovt, and the whole would be 

ae ei aetvibianie econ ae the’ prospect after No. I. Book I. 





| 


214 The Gentleman's Magasine. 


She glanced at the music—It’s not very difficult, is it?” “Oh 
thw on, He aw cn aro 
must follow me. It's not in strict time, you know. it vate 
the time according to expression, and you niust watch and wait for | 
me." So we began, I stopped her at the second bar. We began 
again. I stopped her at the fourth bar. I was: 
determined. She was very good and ee eee 
Jessly incompetent. I stopped her at the sixth bat—I was losing my 
temper alittle, I did not notice her growing distress. I wenton 
saying rather hardly, “ You came in too soon," “You don’t wait for 

ime,” “ Begin again,” and soon. Not until turned round torebuke 
the unfortunate girl for a new blunder, and saw a great tear roll on to 
the ivory keys, accompanied by a little suppressed sob, was 1 fully 
alive to the situation. My angry complaint died upon my lips. I 
muttered some clumsy apology, but she rose from the piano scarlet 
with humiliation and rushed out of the room. 1 felt like a brute, but 
Iwas profoundly thankful to think that I bad escaped the ordeal of 
haying to go through Rode's air in G with a ve eines 
just given me such a taste of her quality. 

Tam glad to say that, although her mother: thought it sil, this 
was the first and last time she ever played in my 
posed to accompany me. ‘This ie only a ppecinies of ibe Sosa 
to go through when 1 was a violin-playing youth about Brighton and 
elsewhere. > ren 

Some of the best rooms for music which I haye played injat 
Brighton are the drawing-rooms in Adelaide Crescent, anc among 
the worst are to be found in Lansdowne Place. - 

I suppose I had my unknown admirers, as one day I 
invitation to a ball given by the officers then quartered at Brighton, 
whom I used to meet in society, but only knew by sight. This, on 
account of my youth, f was very properly advised to decline, as 
well as many other invitations to #/ay at the houses of strangers who 
got introductions to me through those occasionally doubtful blessings 


called “mutual friends.” ieee 
From what Ihave said iil appeal mal tea 


about 1556 was not high. Ican hardly recollect salient point to | 
relieve the dull dead level of amateur dabbling. , 





# Virginia Gabriel," &, who have at Jast. been crowded out, X am 
tha Milt sy, by Auhur Suva, Chay, and Tost 


aan = 


My Musical Life. 215 


‘Twas always very open to new musical impressions, and very 
ready to hail the least symptoms of musical ability. Amateurs sup- 
pose that persons who haye studied music, especially professionals, 
are hard to please. This isa mistake, A real musician gives you 
the utmost credit for what you do, and even for what you iry to do. 
He can put up with almost anything but stupid insensibility and 
conceit. He discerns quickly the least spark of talent, and makes 
Tittle account of deficiencies which time and industry will correct. 

When T hear anyone, 1 instinctively gauge their first-rate musical 
organisation, second-rate ditto, third-rate ditto, fourth organic incom- 
petence. Of course there is every degrec, and anything below 
second-rate quality is in my opinion not worth cultivating. ‘The 
curse of English professional music is the plethora of second-rate 
quality, The glory of English amateur music is that sprinkling of 
first-rate quality which towers above the dead level of amateur 
imeompetence. The dullest thing I know is to listen to highly 
cultivated second-class quality, amateur or professional. It is not bad 
enough to condemn, nor good enough to praise, norinteresting enough 
to listen to. ‘Tis the pretentious curse of drawing-rooms, the bane 
of concert-rooms, and the despair of helpless creatures who struggle 
about in the whirlpool of London music and subside into nursery 
governesses, milliners, or marriage. 

‘There are some people whose musica) organisation is so fine, and 
‘whose instinct by mcthod is so truc, that without that stern discipline 
usually essential to the production of the voice, they have managed 
to teach themselves how to sing modestly but faultlessly, as far as 
they go, without romctimes knowing even their notes, Those people 
will sing you a national ballad with truce pathos, and even a certain 
echnical finish, which many a skilled professional might envy. 

I remember delighting in Lord Headley's singing, which was 
of this kind. He lived close to me, in Brunswick Square, and I 
often beard him after dinner sing his Irish ballads—not invariably 
‘Moore, but some wilder still, and some quite unfamiliar to me, He 
‘used to throw back his rather large head, and display a very broad 
white waistcoat ; and standing with his two thumbs thrust into the 
armholes of his waistcoat, and his fingers spread out and twitching 
nervously with emotion, he would pour out his ditty with the truest 
‘instinct and often finest pathos. In this, without knowing a note of 
music, he evidently took exceeding delight himself, and so did we. 
abil the sound of his own voice is not always so fortunate. 

Lord Headley’s voice was swall, flexible, and exquisitely sympa~ 
Gee sed made me always think of ‘Tom Moore's graceful musical 


= 4 


216 "The Gentleman's Magazine. 


declamation of the Irish melodies, which of course I had only read 
about. 

I do not think, on the whole, the sea-coast street music, especially 
at Brighton, has improved during the last thirty years—the German. 
bands, niggers, and itinerant troubadours. I can recollect fine part- 
singing out of doors in the old days, and I know of no small band— 
violin, tenor, flute, and harp—at all comparable to that of Signor 
Beneventuno, who used to play on the beach at Brighton, with a 
power of expression that drew crowds, and half-crowns too. 

I was so much fascinated by this Italian, that I took him home 
with me and bade him try my violin, Well, it was simply horrible. 
He scraped, and rasped, and powdered the rosin all over the finger- 
board, till I was glad to get the instrument out of his hands. The 
fact is, the coarse playing, so effective on the Parade, was intolerable 
indoors. He was essentially a street player—a genius—but his 
music was, like coarse and effective scene painting, better a little 
way off. 

Once after that I gave him a lunch at “ Mutton’s ;” but I found 
him dull, servile, uneducated, and stupid to a degree, even about 
music. I discovered that he could not write down his own arrange- 
ments, which were so effective ; the modest harper, content to efface 
himself, did it all, and Beneventano only provided the general 
idea, and stamped the performance with his strongly-flavoured and 
dramatic genius, which drew the half-crowns. 

Ah, Signor Beneventano! your qualities are too rare. There are 
plenty who can play the violin better than you, but would never 
arrest the passer-by. You were a child of Nature more than of Art, 
but you had just that one touch which makes the whole world kin ; 
and the hundreds that nightly listened to you with rapt and breath- 
less attention, did not know and did not care what school you 
belonged to, for you held the golden key of passion that unlocks all 
hearts. 

H, R, HAWEIS. 


(Zo be continued.) 


217 


THE INNER LIFE OF PLANTS. 


HERE can exist no doubt that the popular idea of a plant in 
respect of its living powers is that of an organism which 
merely hovers, 60 to speak, on the verge of existence. ‘Ihe notions 
that plants may possess sympathies and feelings—or, to speak more 
physiologically, “sensations"—and that they are by no means the 
inert beings which everyday-philosophy supposes, have not yet 
dawned upon the popular intelligence, Yet the last decade of 
science has certainly tended to raise the plant as a living, and 
moreover as a sympathetic and active being, in the botanist's 
estimation. The Linnaan maxim that “stones grow," that “ plants 
grow and live,” and that “animals grow, and live, and feel,” no longer 
expresses the gist of botanical ideas concerning plant-life and its 
yaried interests. For one thing, we certainly know of many plants 
that not only “feel” as accurately and as sensitively as many animals, 
but exhibit a far higher range of sensation than animals of by no 
means the lowest grade. And, as the sequel may show, we arc 
acquainted with many instances among plants of the selection and 
pursuit of a particular way of life, as intelligent indeed as the 
corresponding choice and pursuit of habit amongst many of their 
snimal neighbours. It is true that we can hardly criticise the 
popular idea of the inertness of plant-life too severely, when we 
consider that to the uninitiated eye the world of plants does not 
present any signs or symptoms of ordinary, not to say marked, 
activity. Although Wordsworth long ayo declared his belief that 
the flower was not insensible to the enjoyment of the air it breathed, 
the idea thus mooted of the active personality of plants was far 
too vague and poetic to influence the popular mind in its estimate 
of the physiological ways of the vegetable kingdom. Furthermore, 
itmight be asked, does not the evidence of the senses—constituting, 
a8 everyone knows, the sole but inefficient criterion of what is and 
of what is not—convince us that the plant-world is simply a huge 
tepository of unfecling organisms, whose right and title to the idea 
of life is best expressed by the secondary meaning which has come 
to be attached to the word “vyegetate’? Does the flower feck the 











218 The Ge 
masszcre of its petals as it is slowly vi 


real ‘Each plant is thes, at the very outsct of | 
eH mans ciocrretr a Wh BA RR 
complex order. It is throngh these pr 

life of the plaat is taaatained, and itis by 


mysterious 1 
and seed ag the final terms in the “ ages” of the p 
all wrought ont by means of the activities 0 
Erasmus Darwin, writing in his day ofthe if o la 











a 





The Inner Life of Plants. 219 


of the living matter which, as we have seen, makes each plant, appa 
rently inert and) stable, the repository of ceascless action, On the, 
‘vety threshold of botanical science, then, we discover that it is neces- 
sary to [prepare ourselves for a sweeping change of ideas regarding 
the inner life of plants It may, in fact, be laid down as a rule, desti- 
‘tute of the proverbial exceptions, that cvery phase of recent research 
in botany has but served to show us that the world of plant-life is 
not merely a universe of nctivity, but thavit has even its own analogies, 
in the way of likes and dislikes and of mental phenomena, to the 
phases we sce in the animal world, and, indeed, in ourselves. 
~ One of the most interesting of those aspects of plants, in which 
they may be regarded as approaching the animal world in their con- 
stitution, relates to the marked influence of what may Icgitimately be 
named Aabit, ‘That the animal frame should present itself as the seat 
of definite actions which become perpetuated and repeated in the indi- 
‘vidual history, until they become part and parcel of the constitution of 
the race, is, of course, tacitly ndmitted to be a common and familiar 
feature of the animal constitution. It may in the same way be 
shown that in plants the influence of “habit” is as powerfully exhi- 
Dited as in the neighbour-kingdom. For instance, in the carliest 
phases of plant-growth, the influence of habit as affecting that growth 
and development may be plainly observed. When the structure of 
an ordinary seed, such as that of a pea or bean, is investigated, it 
is found to consist of certain coverings, of two bodies called cxty/e- 
dons or“ scod-leaves;” of 2 young root or radide, and of a youthful 
stem, the plamuée of the botanist, The two latter parts, in fact, 
form the young plant. ‘Through their development, the plant will 
ultimately appear in all the fulness of growth and perfection. Now, 
when such a seed genminates, the radicle, or young root, is the first 
“Stnacture to break through the coverings of the sced, being followed 
in due course by the youthful stem. It constitutes a remarkable and 
at thesame time interesting feature of plant-habit, to discover that 
whatever the position of the seed, the young root invariably secks 
the ground, whilst the stem as invariably avoids the ground and secks 
the light. If, for example, the root on emerging from the seed should 
point upwards, it will gradually curve as it grows, so as to enter the 
ground; whilst the young stem in such a case, placed at first in the 
position of the root, will, in its turn, adjust itself to the exigency 
ofits, position and curve itself so as to grow upwards, Associated 
with the tendency or habit on the part of the young root and stem 
of growing cach in its proper direction, we discover certain peculiar 
‘Structural conditions. That the growing parts of the plant are in- 


©] 


220 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


fluenced by gravitation is, of course, unquestionable It has been | 
ascertained that if a growing stem and root are laid horizontally, the 
stem will bend so as to render its upper side concave and its under 
surface convex. Thus its extremity comes to grow upwards; but in 
the root the reverse action takes place, and the under side becoming 
concave whilst the upper surface is convex, causes the root-tip to 
seek the ground. The influence thus exerted by gravity on the 
growing parts of plants is termed “Geotropism ;" and it may readily 
be understood how rigidly plant-habits must mould the life of the 
vegetable world, with the stable force of gravitation serving as an all- 
important condition in the formation and continuance of these habits. 
We shall presently observe that the influence of light on the growing 
plant is to be regarded as a second factor of importance in the form- 
ation of the habits of the plant-universe, 

But it might be urged that the fixation and rigidity of the habits 
in question should preclude the plant from participating in those 
modifying circumstances to which the worlds of life are now uniyer- 
sally regarded as subject. If variation and change, as factors in pro- 
ducing new species, are to be regarded as operating influentially 
within the plant-domain, it must be shown that the instincts of the 
plant should be capable of being affected by alterations of its envi- 
ronment and surroundings. Such an expectation is amply fulfilled by 
the result of botanical research. We know that it is the babit 
of the plant-root to grow downwards in obedience to gravity, as, con- 
trariwise, by the greater growth of the under side of the, at first, hori- 
zontal stem, its point is forced upwards and from the earth towards 
the light. But these natural habits may be interfered with and altered, 
asalready remarked, If seeds be placed amongst damp sawdust in 
a perforated and suspended zinc frame, they at first obey the law 
of habit which compels them to grow downwards into the air, as if 
seeking their native earth, But the dry air presents less attraction 
for the young roots than the moist sawdust. Starvation awaits them 
below, whilst they have just grown through a land of plenty, as re- 
presented by the moist sawdust of the frame, Hence, an instinct 
which may appropriately enough be termed that of self-preservation 
influences the rootlets ; and instead of continuing their profitless 
downward increase, they return to the moist sawdust above The 
mere structural explanation of these movements, as connected with 
Greater growth above or below on root and stem, does not in the least 
degree affect the question of the habit and instinct involved in plant~ 
life, The habit is merely manifested through such growth ; behind and 
above the structural modification and growth, are the forces or cone 


The Inner Life of Plants. 221 


ditions of which that growth is the result. Through similar habits, 
plants are enabled to overcome the difficulties and disadvantages of 
their lives, Just as the animal may adapt itself to the exigencies of 
‘any unwonted condition. Thus, when the field of wheat or corn is 
laid by the storm, the habits of the plants may aid in recovering their 
lost position. Resting horizontally on the ground, the under side of 
‘the wheat-stalk grows more quickly than the upper side, and in this 
fashion, adjusting itself to its difficulty, the recumbent stalk is forced 
‘upwards to its erect posture. 

‘More subtle, because the conditions are more difficult of inves- 
tigation, are the relations between plants and light. That light plays 
an all-important part in the economy of plants cvery school-boy 
knows. ‘The bleached, or, as it is technically named, “etiolated,” 
appearance of the potato-leaves which have grown in a damp and 
darkened cellar, is familiar to all. Instead of presenting their nor- 
mally green appearance, the potato-leaves are yellow ; and instances 
‘of the blanching of esculent plants by the gardener, through the 
influence of daskness, are too familiar to require mention, It is 
Rot too much to say that light is absolutely necessary under 
‘ordinary circumstances for the growth of plants. Only in the 
presence of light can the green-colouring matter, or “chlorophyll,” 
of plants be developed ; and, as this substance plays an important 
part in the nutrition of plants, the absence of light simply means 
starvation or death to all normally green plants, Curiously enough, 
however, light is known to retard plant-growth, even whilst it is 
‘essential for the performance of the chemical actions through which 
ordinary plant-life is maintained. Potato-stems grown in a dark 
cellar, for instance, are much longer than the ordinary stems grown 
in the light, When a plant is subjected to light from a window, the 
side of the stem farthest from the light grows longer than the oppo- 
site side, and as 2 result the plant curves towards the light, Such a 
feature is paralleled in the animal world by the habit of sea-anemones, 
which, when confined in a clear glass-vessel, shift their position 
towards the light when they have been deprived of the light-rays by 
‘changing the situation of the vessel ; and the little hydra of the pools 
‘and ditches similarly congregate invariably on the side of their glass 
which is next the light. Most parts of plants, in their natural growth, 
possess this habit of curving towards the light; and such a habit has 
‘been appropriately named “positive heliotropism" by the scientific 
Dotanist, The well-known legend of the sunflower (Heléanthus), that 

‘Mad Clytie, whose head is turned by the sus, 
‘Will naturally be brought to remembrance by the recital of the whoer 


=. _ 


mys z 
several inte 
remark, 

which d 


E es 
a 


fintepens 








The Inner Life of Plants, 223 


‘next in order; whilst the blue and violet rays rank as the least 
powerful in the scale. But if the yellow rays are the most powerful 
in aiding the plant to obtain its carbon-food from the air, these rays 
fre least effective in producing mechanical alterations in plant- 
structure, Foritis the refrangible violet rays which in the formation 
of plant-habit have operated most powerfully in the production of 
Plant-movements, whilst the red rays have no effect. When stems 
and branches are influenced by and drawn towards the light, the 
bine and yiolet light-rays are paramount. On sensitive plants, these 
rays also exert a stimulating action, but the red and orange rays 
cause such plants to assume the position and attitude customary to 
thern in darkness. 

When a plant, such as the Mimosa (Fig. 1), or sensitive plant, 
whose leaves droop when they are touched, is placed for some time 





Poh see Oxatiny ox Woot Somant, wir Cropp Learns, 


in darkness, the movements disappear completely ; and when such 
‘a plant is placed in the light, the powcr of movement is not restored 
for some hours, or it may be days. A sensitive plant, which is very 


i 


a 


224 The Gentleman's Magazine. | 
pede hainies ans ee 





No geDesstoowM, YE Movinc PLaxt oF ISDH; often named the “Tele 


graph 
movements when the temperature is below 22° Cent. Desmodium 
appears, therefore, to have overcome that dependence on light to 
which othor plants are subject, and exhibits a tendency to regard 
temperature as the ruling condition of its life. 

‘There exists « striking analogy between the health and growth of 
man or other animal and that of a plant, in respect of the influence 
exerted upon either by light and darkness. As the child grows 
stunted, pale, and weak when bred in the close, dark city court or 
alley, and appears in’ striking contrast to the healthy, ruddy-com- 
plexioned country urchin, so the plant, grown in the darkness, 
contrasts unfavourably with the normal organism grown in the day- 
light. Habit and instinct in the ordinary plant have apparently 
moulded its normal constitution in accordance with the same laws 
which regulate the well-being of theanimal. Experimentally treated, 
the topic of the influence of light on plant-growth is best illustrated 
by an experiment in which twelve seeds of Indian cress were placed 
in three pots—four sceds in each pot. ‘The first pot was placed in 
complete darkness, with the result that the seeds germinated only toan 
extent compatible with the usige of the nourishing matter originally 
inherent in their substance, Like a man living on capital, and deriving 
‘no income from active work, these first seeds perished as soon aa 
that capital came to an end, In he absence: of leh 


=> 


The Inner Life of Plants. 225 


‘of the plants could not be exercised. Surrounded by soil and food, 
they were unable in the absence of light to avail themselves of the 
‘nutriment at hand. ‘The second pot was, however, daily placed for 
seven hours in daylight. At the end of three months, the plants had 
gained in weight by five grammes. The third pot had continual 
exposure to light, with an afternoon share of sunlight, and, in the 
fame space of time as that accorded to pot number two, the plants 
had gained twenty grammes of dry weight. 

All parts of a plant, however, do not appear to require light ag 2 
vital necessity, and this declaration may be extended to include 
those plants cach of which as a whole docs not contain green-colouring 
matter. A seed itself germinates in the dark; and the work of 
bulbs and tubers in producing their characteristic plants takes 
place, as everyone knows, independently of light. Even the annual 
layers of new wood that increase the growth of a tree, are produced 
beneath the bark, and necessarily in darkness. Again, the habits of 
plants, like the habits of the highest life, may exhibit strange 
contradictions in the matter of the necessity or demand for light. 
‘Thus, the seed-leaves of many members of the pine order become 

‘notwithstanding the darkness, and the same remark holds good 

‘of the fronds of fems But a far wider generalisation may still be 
made regarding the question of light and no light in the habits of 
plants. Any plant which in its natural state does not develop 
colour is, of course, practically independent of light as a 
condition of successful vitality, A mushroom, toadstool, or other 
fungus, for example, does not require light for the performance of 
its vital functions Many fungi grow in the dark. ‘The familiar 
“ tmiffles " are underground livers, and “moulds " certainly love the 
darkness rather than the light, These plants, curiously enough, and 
low as they are regarded in the botanical scale, exhibit a ‘nearer 
relationship with the animal world than do their green and higher 
plant-neighbours. For instance, a non-green fungus inhales oxygen 
gas and exhales carbonic acid like an animal ; whereas, as we have 
seen, its green neighbour absorbs the latter gas for food, and exhales 
‘oxygen under the combined influence of light and its green-colouring 
matter, and only at night, or in darkness, imitates the animal 
jration. And, whilst the green plant lives on water, minerals, 
ammonia, and other lifeless material, the fungus, or non-green plant, 
demands “ organic” matter—that is, matter which has been elabo- 
rated by a living being—for its support. As a matter of funiliar 
‘observation, fungi and their neighbours possess the habit of locating 
themselves near decaying organic material, and in this respect rave 

‘FOR, CCLY, NO. 4333. Rx 


the largest share of its nutritive m 
parasite is the Cicuta, or dodder, 


existence in a perfectly regu: 

the ground, But sooner or later the parasitic 
front. Above ground, the sucking roots 
dodder comes in contact with its vi 

ground, this malignant growth fastens 

and ultimately kills it by the strength and 


distinctive a series of habits as the n 
respect of the so-called “instincts” 


the plant with a far more sweeping 
dictary than is usually the case with the an 
or boarder on a neighbour form, 














The Iuner Life of Plants, 227 


many curious exatnples of the “selective ” habit already alluded to ; 
whereby the plant appears to exhibit veritable “tastes,” as 


capri- 

ntly as undeterminable as those of higher life, 

of the ordinary plant naturally includes those 

| which constitute, and which therefore go to make, the living 

on the presence of which the vitality of the animal and 

alike depends. Thus it may be said that all plants absorb 

hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulphur, and to these 

ses denna ie a further instalment of “chemical 
Seip which iron plays an important part. Now, in this state- 

‘ment of plantdietary, there is nothing more remarkable than is 

iz in the nutrition of the animal, But the animal is usually 

with its Jikes and dislikes, and is believed frequently to 

preference for a special diet, or for one article of diet over 

at feature constitutes a perfectly normal phase of the 

st existences, but it may prove somewhat remarkable if we 

o that certain plants have likewise developed tastes and 
Predilections for special kinds of food. For example, itis interesting 
find that some plants will not flourish unless zinc is included in the 

st of substances constituting their dietary. ‘This metal is ordinarily 

in the list of food-stuffs demanded by plants; yet Viva 
ealaminaria and Thiapsi Thlapsi calamcinaris present us with examples of plants 
h zinc is a necessity in s0 far as healthy growth is concerned, 

minute quantity of iron is necessary, as already noted, for 

at large, certain plants appear to demand much larger 

‘of this metal than are ordinarily supplied by the soil, 

is an example of those plants, for the healthy growth of which 

F to be an absolute necessity ; and buckwheat will not 
the elements potassium and chlorine are supplied. The 

cls in the way of choice of unusual fond- 

: by plants might be well-nigh indefinitely Prolonged, 

has been. said, however, to show that there operate in the 
‘of plantlife habits and conditions determining food-supply 
analogous to those which cause the animal to prefer one food 
and to reject another, ‘That this selective power in plants 
‘be familiarly named constitutional peculiarities” 

ly cyident from the results of experiments upon the 
power of different plants when tested by the offer of a 

of material. Certain plants (eg. Méreurialis annua) 

$9, exhibit a striking preference for nitre when 

d with common salt ; whilst, on the other 

of Satureia sbebed salt, but rejected the nitre. 






a 
228 The Gentleman's Magazine, : 


Arsenic, a3 a rule, is fatal to vegetable life ; yet some fungi have been 
known to grow in solutions of this substance, exhibiting thus an 
adaptation to circumstances as typical as that afforded by any living 
form. This sclective power, which forms such a marked feature in. 
the inner life of plants, possesses naturally an economic and practical 
interest for the agriculturist. The “ rotation of crops” practised by 
the farmer, is the result of a knowledge of the fact that one species of 
plants prefers what another species rejects ; and it is the absence of 
the knowledge or the lack of attention to its teachings which has 
made the once fertile fields of Sicily and Spain utterly unproductive 
in the present epoch, 

Far exceeding in interest the foregoing details respecting the 
development in plants of a predilection for special kinds of food, 
are facts (which the patient industry of Mr, Darwin was mainly 
incidental in bringing to light) respecting the extraordinary habits of 
certain species of higher plants which feed upon organic matter, and 
which appear to prefer such material when drawn and captured from 
the world of animal life. No more typical instances of the develop- 
ment of a special “habit” in plants could well be cited than the 
case of these carnivorous plants. There can exist no doubt in the 
mind of the scientist that the habit in question has been developed ; 
that, in short, it is acquired, and not original in its nature, Varied 
circumstances fayour such an opinion, which is in perfect harmony, 
it need hardly be added, with the general doctrine of evolution, 
maintaining the production of new forms of life through the modi- 
fication of the old. The carnivorous plants are thus discovered to 
unite singularities of structure to peculiarities in the way of diet. 
‘The modifications of habit which have made them animal-feeders 
have been accomplished fari pass, and through the development of 
structural changes in the leaf and in other features of their material 
organisation, ‘The deviation from the usual and ordinary course of 
plant-life, here as elsewhere, betokens the beginnings of new and 
altered phases of existence, The variation from the old species, in 
a word, is but the prelude to the establishment of new species and of 
new ways of life, 

One of the most powerfully convincing facts connected with the 
altered “habits” of the carnivorous plants and their allies, and 
demonstrative of the gradual modification through which their 
existent condition has been attained, consists in the observation that 
between their animal-like habits and the ordinary life of common and 
normal-living plants there are to be found many connecting links and 


stages, The assumption of a parasitic life by the mistletoe and other 


& = | 


The Inner Life of Plants. 229 


plants serves to show how an ordinary plant may acquire an abnormal 
‘or unusual habit without sacrifice of the essential characters of its plant- 
nature. It will be remembered that the mystic parasite of the oak 
and apple has green leaves of its own, and that it elaborates certain 
food-materials by aid of these organs, Although the mistletoe is by 
mo means the first term in the series of links whereby the unusual 
isconnected with the normal in plant-life, yet it serves physiologically 
as an interesting half-way house between its common neighbours and 
its carnivorous fellows. Mistletoe has developed the parasitic habit 
of dependence upon another living being, and that a plant, for the 
Targest part of its dietary ; but its relations do not extend outside 
the bounds of its own kingdom after all. Before, however, the 
‘mistletoe stage can be reached, certain preliminary conditions must 
have been represented and effaced in the development of the altered 
phases of life we now behold. Probably the first step in the develop. 
‘ment of a parasitic life in the higher plant began with mere attach- 
ment to a neighbour-plant. A weakly stem to-day climbs upon, or 
twines around, a support. The ivy, hop, French bean, honeysuckle 
and the like, illustrate not merely the stage of attachment by way 
‘of mere support—each plant having its own root in the ground—but 
‘we may also discover that in their ways and methods of climbing or 
twining, as the case may be, there are represented fixed and defined 
habits which prove how closely the modification of their lives has 
affected their race and species, If we sclect the case of the ivy, for 
example, we note a weak-stemmed plant, developing on that stem 
clusters of small root-like processes, which, like the “hold-fasts” of 
the gardener, serve to attach it to the wall over which it may extend 
its growth, or to the tree on which it climbs. But the nourishment of 
the ivy, like that of ordinary plants, is a matter of ordinary root and 
leaf function. With leaves of its own, it can inhaleand decompose its 
acrial food, and by means of its root it can absorb from the ground 
the food-materials which the soil supplies. 

‘Let us now imagine the case of a plant in the ivy shape, with 
its false “roots” adhering to another plant, and which becomes 
accustomed to utilise these “roots” for nourishment. It is not 
diffienlt to conceive of such roots, at first used for fixation alone, 
becoming adapted for nutrition also. If we suppose that these 
“roots,” penetrating the tissues of a tree, acquired a habit of 
absorbing nourishment in the shape of the tree’s sap, we should thus 
outline the preliminary stage in the development of a more typical 
parasitic habit. As time progressed, that habit would assert itself 
with greater force. The absorption of ready-made tap on the yo. 


t 


oe 





‘The Inner Life of Plants. 23r 


Example of this condition ‘can be found than the Uériavarias, or 
bladderworts, which, ax a mile, inhabit foul ditches, amidst the decay 


pd been which these plants flourish and grow. Here the 
of such a fabit/is again easy of determination. It is 
no wousual occurrence for insects and other yarictics of animal life 
to come to grief in the neighbourhood of water, nor is it an unlikely 
Greamstance that aquatic plants should present a convenient mor- 
tuary forsuch victims, ‘The bladderworts of to-day, it is truc, capture 
théir insects or waterfleas,'on which they subsist, by means of the 
“Dialiders” borne on the plants, and from which they derive their 
familiar name. A peculiar valve closes the entrance to the bladder 
and opens inwards, Hence, on the principle of the cel-trap, or 
tatb-tmp, entrance to the bladder is easy, but escape impossible. The 
wietims which enter the fatal cavern are confined therein ; but it is 
buble has ensued, and when their bodies have undergone 
the putrefuctive process, that the absorptive powers of the plant come 
into play, It is necessary to insist on the recognition of this latter 
fact—namely, that the bladderwort lives upon the fruits of decay, and 
Hot upon fresh meat, e0 to speak; because this feature reveals the 
development and existence of a special habit in these plants, and one 
which goes to support the idea that the ways of plant-life are as 
remarkable for the adoption of favourable conditions as is the 
‘ahitpal constitution. Mr, Darwin, speaking of his expectation that the 
bladders of Utriculeria digested their prey, remarks that “to test 
their power of digestion, minute fragments of roust meat, three small 
‘cubes of albumen, and three of cartilage, were pushed through the 
‘otifice into the bladders of vigorous plants. ‘They were left from 
‘one day to three days and a half within, and the bladders were then 
‘ut open; but none of the above substances exhibited the least 
‘signs of digestion or dissolution, the angles of the cubes being a8 
asever.” As the result of this experiment, Mr. Darwin adds: 
“We may therefore conclude that Ufricwarfa cannot digest the 
Gtimals which it habitually captures.” It was further noted that in 
‘most of the bladders examined, the imprisoned victims existed in 
the form of a pulpy, decayed mass, although whether the process of 
decay is simply a natural one, or whether, as some botanists suspect, 
‘St it hastened by the influence of a special secretion from the bladder 
‘itself, appears as yet to be undetermined. 
Beyond | the stage of the bladderworts, however, the inner life of 
a still more wonderful modification of plant: 
goodly collection of plants which not merely 
y, and that in ® manner far more elaborove 


= cs 


a 
232 The Gentleman's Magasine. 


than is witnessed in the bladderworts, but which also literally digest 
and absorb their insect-food as perfectly as does the spider or other of 
itsanimal and insect-eating neighbours, The list of true carnivorous 
plants is long and varied, It includes the Venus’ fy-trap or Diemea 
(Figs. Gand 7) ; the sundews (Drosera) ; the butterworts ( Pingwiculie), 
and other species of plants ; and it further contains within its limits 
the most varied contrivances for effecting the capture of the prey. 
Perhaps the most convenient starting-point for the brief examination 
of the effects of plant-habit on the life of the organisms may be found 
in the case of the butterwort itself. Here we discover a plant, found 
asa tule in mountainous and marshy districts, and possessing short- 
stalked leaves of oblong shape. The edges of the leaves are curved 
inwards, and on their upper surfaces they bear numerous hairs, which 
arc named “ glandular hairs,” for the reason that “glands,” or bodies, 
adapted to secrete a fluid are associated with and included within their 
structure. These hairs, it should be noted, are mere modifications 
of the hairs so familiar on the leaves of most plants, The edges of 
the leaves arc destitute of these hairs. Upon these leaves captured 
insects are commonly discovered ; but, as Mr. Darwin aptly remarks, 
the mere’ fact of a leaf ‘being. capable in one fashion oc enollan or 
arresting insects, is itself no proof of the carnivorous nature of a 
plant. At the same time, on the principle that it is le premier Aas gui 
eofte in the modification of plant-life as in the course of human affairs 
themselves, it may be well to note that the beginning of the insect« 
cating habit may have lain in the mere accidental capture of the 
prey. We shall note that the simplest insect-eating plants lend us 
towards the more complex forms ; and it is probable that ia their 
turn such simple insect-caters as Zingwitwa represent mere 

ments of extremely common conditions in plants. ‘Thus in a plant 
(Afirabilis) sticky hairs occur both on the leaves and stem. Furthers 
more, this plant continually captures insects by means of these 
viscid hairs, but it exerts not the slightest power of digestion or 
absorption of the rich food thus captured—in a word, it can makeno 
use whatever of the insect-prey, any more than the horse-chestnut 
can utilise the flies which adhere to the gummy surface of the scales. 
which protect its leaf-buds. 

But there are other plants, not ranked amongst the insect-eaters, 
and which nevertheless appear to possess potential qualifications for 
such a life, There are some species of the familiar Saxifrages, for 
instance, the glands of whose Icaves possess powers of | 
certain matters brought into contact with them ; and a: es 
Primula iss been experimentally proved by Mr. Darwin tobe capable 


=n 





The Inner Life of Plants. 233 


of exercising 3 like action. So that, as Mr, Darwin remarks, it is 
probable that the glands of some of the above-named plants obtain 
animal matter from the insects which are occasionally entangled by 
the viscid secretion.” ‘Thus we are presented with a tolerably close 
series of links leading us from ordinary plants towards their insect- 
eating neighbours. Beginning with the plant which, like Afiraddss, 
Preserves merely the power of capturing insects, but which makes no 
‘use of the food thus laid at its door, we pass to the saxifrage-stage, 
fm which. the insect-material adhering to the leaves is probably 
absorbed by the glands thereof, and this without any special modi- 
fication of the plant-stracture. Thence we arrive at the butterwort 
itself, a true insect-eater, but one of simple type, and such as may be 
held to represent merely a slight advance upon the saxifrage form, 

ive modification, then, cannot be doubted to have occurred 
in the development of these curious habits of plant-life ; and although 
the exact lines and pathways of the modification are still hidden or 
‘obscure, the possibilities seen in the life and structure of the common 
plants around us testify plainly enough to the evolution of new structure 
and habit through the variation of familiar types. 

‘The butterwort's method of insect-capture is in itself simple, and 
readily understood. When any object is placed near the incarved 
edge of the leaf, the leaf margin curls inwards, and then after a 
varying interval cxpands, This movement may be excited by 
various causes, Thus, pieces of glass, insects, drops of beef-infusion, 
and of carbonate of ammonia solution, produced the incurvation of 
the leaves; but drops of water, as well as drops of sugar or gum 
solution, had no such effect. The leaf will not incurve upon pieces 
‘of glass to the same extent as upon nutritive matters; nor does 
scratching the leaf produce any movement ; such an observation 
appearing to indicate the existence of some amount of co-ordinated 
habit. But an important observation regarding this plant is found 
im the fact, that the period during which the leaf is incurved is 
Femarkably short, as compared with that during which the leaves of 
other carnivorous plants remain closed. ‘Thus twenty-four hours may 
be taken as the average period of closure ; but Mr. Darwin points 
out that very small objects which may presumably be quickly 
absorbed, can thus be utilised in a short space of time, whilst insects 
are liable to be frequently washed under the incurved edges by rain, . 
and are thus utilised more frequently for food on account of the 
comparatively short period of closure, Again, in the butterwort, if a 

3 excites the movement of the edge of the leaf, that object 

is pushed by the movemient towards the middie of the \ea. \Xi9 
no { | 
——_ J 


ae 


234 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


‘thas brought in contact * with a far ‘oumber of glands, inducing 
much Hest eeridon and pete < would otherwise have 


of plant- 
tissues and pollen-grains are also found on the leaves of the butter- 
wort, and that, cannibal-like, the Pingwitwa may therefore devour 
parts of its neighbour-plants. ‘Relatively petit ayare the expedients 
of the butterwort, it nevertheless appears to exemplify thoroughly the 
animal-habit of feeding on organic matter. Its roots are 
ately small, and it must therefore benefit largely from the nourishing 
dietary captured by its leaves, and absorbed by the glands borne on 
their surface, And as a further proof of the development of special 
habits in the race, we may bear in mind that its glands do not secrete 


{is at once and profusely excited. 
Such an section, 


its own testimony to the singu- 
lar likeness between the acts of 
animal-life and those of thé 

specialised plant. 

A word or two 
well-known Pitcher ‘plants and 
Side-saddle plants’ is permis. 
sible here, ‘The latter, Sarne 
cenias (Big. 4), are well known in 
the New World as fly-catchers. 
hae tanyes Tos Sap At ateave ee 
sont Pave, one Fee Pr leads the fly to its fate} @ lower 
and glassy surface prevents its 
exit, once it has entered the leaf; and still lower down, is a 
surface studded with recurved hairs, which detains the captured 
animals. The pitcher-like leaves of the "' side-saddle” plants contain 
fluid, but it seems pretty certain that the liquid in question does not 
‘exercise any digestive functions, A sugary secretion attracts the insect 
at the upper part of the pitcher, whilat below the tue fluid of the leaf 


3 8 





The Trnor Life of Plants. 235 


is found, and this latter possesses undoubtedly an intoxicating effect on 
insects. Experiment, indeed, has sown thar this fluid intoxicates and 
finally Kills insects ; hence it is highly probable that the “side-saddles" 

feed om the putrescent and decayed organic matter, into which the 
bodies of the captured insects are finally resolved. “The Nepenthes, or 
true“ pitcher plants” (Fig. 5), inhabit the Old World. In these latter 
plants it would scem that truc digestion of the insect-food occurs. 
‘The “ pitehers” aré cértainly contrived and adapted for the capture 





Vig. 5 Lear oF Navestues, om Precise PLAKT, 


Of insects, whilst the glands with which they are provided secrete a 
digestive fluid, by means of which the prey is dissolved and finally 
absorbed as food. The pitcher-plant’s leaf is thus a veritable 
stomach,” and we must therefore rank these plants with the Venus’ 

and the sundew, as truly camivorous in habit, and as 
evincing a high and specialised development of that habit, through 
which they become related to the animal world at large. 

‘The Drosere, or sundew of our own bogs, and the Dionaa, or 
‘Venus’ fly-trap (Figs. 6 and 7) of the North American marshes, in- 
troduce us to plants wherein the highest stage of carnivorous habit has 
been attained, and wherein special powers of sensibility and of reflex 
action have been developed to fulfil the purposes which produced 
and developed them. We are less concerned with the structure of 
these plants than with the effects on their habits which that structure 

x 18 OF producing. But it will be permissible very shortly to 
ate the modifieations which distinguish each species. In 
be seat of the modifications is the leaf, “Thar of the samen 


i 





236 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


shaped like a battledore, and bears on its surfacenumerousctabbed hairs 
or“ tentacles,” numbering from rs0 to2soanasingleleaf Atthetip 
of each hair is the “gland,” and the glistening secretion of these 
glands has given to the plant its popular name. When such an object 
as an insect touches the tentacles, these latter close over it, 80 as to 
pin it down upon the leaf surface, this process being really a 
preliminary to the death and digestion of the animal, Moreover, a5 
if strictly imitative of the action of the animal in digestion, the 
tentacles of the sundew pour forth upon the insect a secretion which 
not merely, like the gastric juice of the animal, is antiseptic and 
preservative, but has digestive and solvent properties. In due time, 
therefore, the nutritive matters contained in the body of the prey 
are absorbed by the glands, and the organic matter of the animal is duly 
intussuscepted by the plant, which thus literally reverses the ordinary 
tule that the plant feeds the animal, ‘That the life of the sundew has 
become permanently dependent upon this carnivorous habit, is clear 
from the fact that when insects are excluded from these plants they 
do not flower so perfectly, nor do they produce the number of seeds 
found in natural, that is, insect-fed specimens. In the Venus’ fly- 
trap, the broad leaf blade (Figs. 6 and 7) is divided into two halves, 





Pic, 6.—Lear oF Vesus! FLetwar. 


which close after the fashion of a rat-trap, and whose toothed edges fit 
‘one intoanother. The sensitive surfaces consist of three hairs (Fig. 7, 
a, 6) on each half of the leaf, and upon these being irritated in any 
way, the leaf closes, and, in the ease of an insect, imprisons it, When 
the prey has been captured, the leaf-glands perform their digestive and 
absorptive function ; its body is disintegrated, and its nutritive parts 
absorbed ; such an operation requiring varying periods of time, ex- 
tending from fifteen days to thirty-five days or more, be 

Tt remains now to show that the babits of these plants include 
certain remarkable features which certainly resemble those phases of 
the animal character that are commonly included under the term 
intelligent choice and selection. The observation of the sundew's 
life demonstrates that its tentacles will moye and contract much 
amore quickly when a picce of animal-matter is placed on the leaf 


i = | 





The Inner Life of Plants. 237 


than when any inorganic or mincral substance is offered to the plant. 
Nor is this all, for, as Mr, Darwin has shown, the tentacles of this plant 
‘will remain bent for an infinitely longer period over matters from 
which nutriment of any kind is to be extracted, than over particles 
which can afford no nourishment. So also the return of the ten. 
tacles to what may be named their state of rest is quicker when an 
inorganic particle has been the exciting cause, than when they have 





Fae n—Vewus! Purerear, 
(Lest open at a | partially elena at #; and ailment eloved at c.) 

heen stimulated by the presence of something eatable. ‘This observa: 
tion sccms strikingly analogous to that whereby the animal form, 
after disappointment in the capture of prey, returns quickly to 
its lair. Such results, verified repeatedly, appear to suggest that in 
these plants there exists a discriminative power of by no means a 
lowly type, and which loses none of its curious nature by the reflec- 
tion that it is exercised through the living protoplasm of the plant. 
‘The sensitivencss of the sundew’s tentacles is also worthy of remark, 
Tfa tentacle is touched once or twice only, it will not bend ; yet even 
the slightest pressure, if prolonged, will cause their inflection, This 
feature has the valuable result of rendering the sundew insensible to 
the effect of raindrops ; whilst the observation that even light and 
continued pressure affects the leaf, shows an adaptation admirably 
adapted for the capture of the lightest insect. 

‘The result of experimentation upon the Venus’ fly-trap presents 
us with equally instructive glimpses of the inner life of plants, 
Here we mect with 2 plant, the leafhairs of which are endowed 
with exquisite sensibility, even to the slightest and most momentary 
touch, Darwin tells us, for example, that a human hair, fixed into 
a handle, so that only an inch of its length projected, and wed vo 








‘| 


= — 
238 The Gentleman's Magasine, 


touch the tip of a fly-trap's tentacle, produced instantaneous closure of 
theleaé But it is equally interesting to discover that the hairs of 
ito. rn as 





sensibility are not difficult to discover. The sundew depends for 
the capture of its prey, as we have seen, upoo its ability to glue the 
insect firmly to the surface of the leaf. Continuous pressure, how- 
ever slight, is therefore the best indication of the probability of 
a successful capture. But the fly-trap, depending upon sudden 
closure of its whole leaf for the replenishment of its commissariat, 
necessarily possesses an advantage over the sundew, but at the same 
time demands a sensitiveness equal to the task of acting at once 
and energetically upon the most momentary contact. Furthermore, 
as if demonstrating a still closer adaptation to the cnvironments of 
its life, the fly-trap reftses to close its leaf on the mere stimulation of 
drops of fluid allowed to impinge on the sensitive hairs from a height. 
‘The raindrops in this case can therefore posscss no effecton the 
plant ; itis saved much useless contraction; and the observation 
likewise teaches us emphatically the highly specialised nature of the 
sensitiveness of this plant. The analogy between its sensibility to 
‘one sct of impressions, and its indifference to others, reminds one 
forcibly enough of the specialisation of the sense-organs in the 
animal form. As the ear is excited only by sound-waves, or the eye 
by waves of light alone, so the fly-trap and sundew in their tum 
appear to possess special sensitiveness to those stimuli which are 
calculated to benefit their species. 

Enough has now been said, perhaps, to show that within the 
plant economy there aré included acts and habits 
analogous to many of those phases which we are too much 
tomed to regard as the exclusive property, of the animal, © 
ceptions of the plant, in truth, require to be considerably 
in the light of recent research ; and certainly the pes ian 
inertness of the vegetable Singin, as conrad ie nal 
world, can no longer on any ground be 
‘The origin of these peculiar phases of plant-life remains 
but the biologist legitimately enough may be led towards. 
tions connected with community of development, in his al 
explain the likenesses which exist between the two greal 
living beings. Despite the divergent lines along which the 
course of plant-life preceeds, when compared with the 
animal existence, the analogies of the two kingdoms are writ. rge 
enough in the by-ways of plant-development. roe: 

ANDREW wruson. a 









esl _" 


aT 
240 The Gentleman's Magazine. 
and a little stack of firewood grected us, and though the man we 
brought, who was a soldier servant, had not the experience in wood- 
craft of the hal-breed, he could use an axe fairly well. The encamp- 
ment was on a small island, not two hundred yards from the shore, 
and though the corduroy road, over which an occasional waggon or 
cart passed, can scarcely have been more than three quarters of a 
nile off, if even that, through the wood, we were completely isolated 
and cut of from any possible communication with the outer world, 
as the event but too clearly showed. We congratulated ourselves 
upon the prosperous commencement we had made, and sitting down 
‘on camp stools, we undid a wine casc, and had a little refreshment 
after our drive. My companion noticed a slight whistling of the 
wind, and, being mther weather-wise, went outside the tent to 
take a general survey of the skies. He had just filled his pipe, and 
in an ill-starred moment deferred lighting his fusee till he had left 
the shelter, He then went up a rising bank at the back of the camp, 
and after, as our American neighbours would say, “ 
the heavens, he returned with the news that he thought it would 
come on to blow soon from the west. I remembered that his pre- 
dictions were not always correct, and certainly it seemed of little 
importance whether in this instance they were or were not, but oh, 
what an error to think so! We sat down for some short time 
to discuss what was left of the flask of wine, with a little Tunch, 
before departing to our shooting stations, and decided to go up the 
creck and shoot the upper marshes for a couple of days before we 
went down the lake, “There must be a fire in the woods,” one of 
us remarked, and the smell af smoke was very pronounced indeed, 
when the servant rushed into the tent and called out, “It's away we 
must be at ones, or we shall be burned entoirely, powder and whiskey 
and all.” ‘The sudden emergency had brought back a slight Hibernian 
accent and method of expression, But his caution was not a 
moment too soon. ‘The fusee my companion had taken to the back of 
the tent had fallen on some dry grass and smouldered, and then the 
breeze from the west, which he truly enough said was 
sent the smouldering fire up into a blaze, and quite a 
was to the windward of us, and this was advancing straight upon ms, | 
with no slow strides Not often have tents been struck so. 
and the contents removed; but though the Indians have a slow 
ing way with them, they lose no Jabour, and in an emergei 
almost appear active ; the man we brought was, of course, quite 
customed to rapid removals of tents, it formed, indeed, 
drill, and with our united exertions cverything was removed to 


L | 


















On a Canadian Lake, 24 


ward of the fire within five minutes, and within two minutes more 
the fir branches and sprays that had been collected to lay our buffalo 
robes for beds on, were crackling and blazing up fiercely in the now 
‘intense heat, but, fortunately, it was near the water's edge, and a 
few more yards exhausted the fuel, 

Tt was now about two o'clock, and, seeing that the danger was 
‘over, we left the island where we proposed to pass ten days in charge 
‘of the sorvant and the Indian, telling them to pitch their camp in a 
‘convenient place, and this place was indeed rather an improvemens 
‘upon the first location. Qur plan was this. At the end of the lake 
where we were encamped a sort of sluggish, oozy creek found an 
‘ontlet through some very large marshes, and these marshes were filled 
‘with wild rice and wild celery, and were in fact a perfect paradise of 
‘some miles in area for teal and mallard, and almost every variety of 
wild fowl. As the October day was well spent, and there was plenty 
‘of work in camp to make everything pleasant again, we decided to 
take only one canoe, and leave the Indian and our own man to do 
what in that part of her Majesty’s dominions would be called “ fix up 
generally.” The canoe we took was the larger of the two, and it 
was what ix termed a “dug-out,” or a log of wood with the inside 
burned out and hollowed, and shaped by skilful axes into its proper 
form. Much native science seems to be unconsciously brought into 
play here, and the uprising ends of a canoe many feet in length 
enable it to tide over the chopping seas of the great St. Lawrence 
and the western Jakes, with much ease, provided that all the passen- 
gers are both cool and expert, These canoes are not more than 

inches in width, and unless the balance is perfectly kept the 
results might, to a beginner, be serious. The vessel we went away 
with was an excellent one for two, but just a little on the small 
side for three. Still the distance was short; we left the lake and 
its upper islands, and went above the small island we were on, 
through some crecks on the marsh, to where we knew there was an 
abundance of game ; but as it happened, we had not very excellent 
sport Game, indeed, we saw, but the birds lay very close or els 
rose out of range. Sometimes we saw a couple of ducks rise behind 
as from some tuft of reeds we must have passed by within ten yards, 
and sometimes we saw flights rise from the rice-beds a hundred 
yards away. But one thing was clear: all the birds flew with the 
wind to the eastern or lower end of the pool. So we decided to 
‘move in that direction ourselves, and in so doing we passed the 
island we had selected for our encampment, but unfortunately we 
did not call at it on our road, ‘There was, as is common Wh some 

70h CCE, NO, 1933. 8 


(a | 





a 


242 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


canoes, a light spar inthe bottom of the boat, round which, was 
wrapped a thin sail for running before the wind. This was stepped 


through a seat a little before midships, ancl th 
Indian who sat at the farthest end and steered in the old-fashioned 
way with a paddle, The canoe bounded along before the fast 
increasing gale, and I told the man to keep nearer the land, but the 
little vessel was beyond his control, and all he could do was to keep 
her before the wind. | This, unluckily, was driving us into the middle 
of the lake, though it was in the direction of the shooting ground, 
‘The pool itself was hardly more than a mile in width, and; if the 
extensive marshes are deducted from it, the water itself is not more 
than three or four miles long, but the tempests that occasionally rise 
here on such small sheets of water are wonderful, In about two or 
three minutes from the time we set our canvas we were approaching 
the middle of the lake,and were literally at the mercy of the waves. 
‘These had a light green appearance, such ms we see sometimes in the 
Atlantic, and the canoe was entirely in their power. ‘To return was 
of course impossible, and to turn the frail cockle-shell to the margin 
of the lake (there was nothing that could be called shore, as it was 
sunk in vastmarshes) was impossible, for the running waves would 
strike her sides, which were not more than three inches from the 
water when in a state of quiescence, and the only abaya 
‘two ends, which turned up and accommodated. 

waves,“ Best safety Hes in flight,” as we remarked, and the 

with the paddle and main.sheet in his hand, saw the danger we were 
in, and fairly laid himself out to reach a somewhat distant island 
which was visible right before the wind. The paddle, if well under 
stood, is an excellent rudder, and in some respects pee 
powerful than a tiller, and it was clear that our Indian’ 
i eBcant da knowledge fat ha ached tse sven ao cee 
the canoe cleverly to them, Sometimes they ran by us at a nearly 
equal speed fora long distance ; and, as we kept low in the canoe, 
they seemed to be really higher than we were. 

We would have divested ourselves of our overcoats, if posible for 
swimming, but anything of the kind would have upset our frail bark ; 
s0 we kept perfectly still, leaving everything to the Indian. We 
must have been going at the rate of about nine miles an hour, and 
the island we were making for cannot have been more tha 
away, but there were some shockingly white waves in the 
cand, as-it was essential that we should pass through them, we 
zesigned ourselves to circumstances, The danger, I 


more iat.rel ince b\oun,S Leeo are 
| ney 









_ On a Canadian Lake, 243 


extremities afterwards ; and if you have a really good man, the way 
in.which you can best assist him is by keeping low in the canoe and. 
not interfering. This 1 found out abundantly in running rapids many 
times. The half-breed Indians are probably the best canoe men in the 
world, and if you have a skilfal pilot, the only thing required is to 
crouch pericetly still in the middie of the craft, and to take care that 
your limbs are always balanced equally, ‘The roaring of the water 
and the frailness of the nut-shell you are in, in a wide rapid, seem 
tather appalling, but with 2 good man and a steady passenger there 
ig really very little danger. ‘The white waves were approached and 
passed as we sit in the bottom of the canoe, facing each other, 
with our hands round our knees for steadiness, and it was a delight 
to hear shortly after the sound of a reed against the side of the 
small vessel. This and a few others were the pioncers of a reed-bed 
that betokened the nearness of the island. Neither the wind nor 
our speed were diminished, but we were evidently near tera firma, 
and on cautiously raising myself to look past my companion, 1 saw 
the island quite close by. ‘The reeds had cut down the waves, and 
we supposed ourselves out of the reach of troubles and fairly sat up 
im the canoe as the imperturbable Indian ran down the shore of the 
Selet for a point that jutted out, under the lee of which he brought 
us to. Tt was only a low spit of land, but there it was, and we 
rejoiced greatly when we jumped out and felt really safe at last. The 
guns and what little necessaries we had brought were goon landed, 
and we made for a small cliff some twelve or fourteen feet high that 
was sheltered from the storm, In our journey from the canoe the 
wind increased almost to a hurricane, and we had aetually to stoop 
to it, and congratulated ourselves that we were on dry land; for, 
indeed, : almost @ minute after, progress even on that was cele 
It was with real gratefulness that we reached the shelter and found 
seats as we could extemporise, and lita pipe. Shooting was 
out of “the question ; the wild fowl were snug in the marsh; and, 
Sheltered in their retreats, they cared absolutely nothing for the 
Tt-was now about half-past three, and we made sure that 
> would. abate by five o'clock; the ducks would fly to 
other feeding grounds, and many flights must pass the end of the 
island. Tt would be easy here to adopt the Canterbury Pilgrim 
style and narrate the tales we told, or, perhaps, finish such as we 
rere beginning to to tell ; but a sudden exclamation from our Indian, 
of . nimation as he sprang up that was quite unusual 
.” stopped our recitals, as he strode rapidly to the 
A. moment showed us me position we were in, She oxer- 


il i 








7 





244 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


whelming gale that had met us after leaving the canoe must have 
carried a wave over the low land where it was pulled up and driven 
it from the shore. It was now dancing in fifteen fect of water about 
200 yards from the shore, the mast still standing, but the boat 
evidently nearly full of water. Of course, that decided our fate. No 
swimming in the world would have ayailed ; for, though sbe might 
have been reached, it would have been impossible to bring her to 
land. It was, we knew, impossible for the other canoe, which was 
a bark one, to help us, and we could only trust to some casual 
traveller passing along the lake and finding us; though, hadwe known 
‘more, we should have known how unlikely such a contingency was. 
Tt was now evident that we must pass the night on the 
island, and the question was how to do so most comfortably. 
Fortunately everything was taken out of the canoe when we landed, 
and an axe, without which no voyageur in Canada travels, proved 
our most trusty friend. he rock, under the lee of which we were 
sheltering, at once suggested a proper place to make a shanty ; and, 
though we were all accustomed to an axe, our Indian was the most 
expert. He felled a number of larch saplings, not more than three 
inches in diameter, and cut them to a given length of about nine 
fect, ‘These we sloped against the rock some two inches apart, and 
covered the top with several thicknesses of pine branches ; and, for 
want of better protection to the ends, we gathered bushes and 
heaped them up, leaying a narrow entrance by the rock, The 
ground was covered with pine branches, and as the weather was not 
cold by any means, we were justified in hoping that we might sleep 
without much discomfort through the night. It was six o'clock when 
we had finished building our lair, ‘The wind had not gone down, 
though it was more moderate, and a few black ducks and mallards 
were on the move. We went to the end of the island, and in the 
short daylight that was left us, we succeeded in getting five very fine 
ducks, which, with three we had shot in the creek above the island, 
made eight for our commissariat ; and now we began to make an 
estimate of our effects, Darkness had come on when we reached 
our lair, and the Indian had a good fire of hard wood. The 
Irishman we left on the island had put in our game bags two bottles 
supposed to be beer, but really Jamaica rum (30° over proof for 
economy in packing), a sib, tin of biscuits, and a tin not of butter as 
supposed, but much better—salt The three ducks we had shot in 
the early part of the day the thoughtful Indian had dressed and spitted, 
and one was half roasted. It was seven hours since we had tasted 
anything, and most certainly our occupation in that time bad made us 


—_ "| 


On a@ Canadian Lake. 245 


ready for supper. We told him to put another duck to roast as 
quickly as possible, and soon discovered that the supposed Bass'sale 
‘was powerful Jamaica spirits. ‘The ducks and biscuit made an excellent 
supper, and, after a tin cup of rum and water and a very enjoyable 
pipe, we all of us nestled down in our resting-place. During our 
absence the man had yery much increased the thickness of the fir- 
‘branch coverings, and we actually slept in tolerable comfort until 
sunrise. The morming was lovely, and the lake that had been 
lashed to such fury on the previous day was as calm asa mirror; 
a slight mist was dispersing, and every water plant looked as though 
it was bound to enjoy what little term of existence was left before 
the five months’ covering of ice and snow had obliterated it. We 
felt well assured that our stay at the island was nearly over, and in 
order to advise the men where we were stationed, we did not begin 
to shoot till after eight, when our guns would be more certain to 
attract notice, and we knew that after such a long tempest, when 
‘wild fowl always lie close in the marsh, the ducks would fly much 
Tater. Of cartridges we had abundance, and it was only a question 
how far we should use them, as a last remnant of summer heat had 
tetumed, and we did not want to kill too many ; so we limited our- 
selves to six cartridges cach, and got four ducks and two teal, This 
was at the west end of the island in the direction of our camp, sa that 
the shots might the more certainly be heard. In returning to the 
place where we had left our native, we could not help regretting that 
‘our only breakfast beverage was cold water—for rum was most 
distasteful at that hour—when my comrade reminded me with great 
glee that I had purchased’ a box of French chocolate at Kingston 
station as we passed through at night, and it would be in the 
topcoat pocket. This was tre, and the purchase was made to 
supply us with a very portable and cheap sustenance as a 
fort of lunch on the marshes. It was a shilling box, or the 
Sargest size they had, but I feared I had taken it out at the Camp, 
and the suspense was great. There it was, however, and we soon 
‘emptied the biscuit tin, and boiled two cups of chocolate. Great 
was our delight at this; though we knew the packet must in time 
‘come to an end, we could calculate on at least a week's full rations ; 
and we knew that our shots must be heard, and relief be near, The 
canbe at the island we had left was somewhat less than the one we 
had come down the lake in, but that was nothing; it would hold two, 
and that was enough. ‘The morning, however, wore away, and at 
about two o'clock we decided to fire a signal which the man, a 
toldier-servant for fourteen years, would understands we Wok Sypr 


- 
rs 






fats ov only Cine eb canes was Se a ; 


was then very similar to our own. ~ iv po 
‘Anoatoas dirk clood thar wall had hrioadeas AES 
above the horizon, and the sultriness of | 


wecoming storm. ‘The temperature was unusually high for the 'sexson) 
and a very slight wound my friend had received at Inkermann, which 
he always used to say gave signs of a change of weather, but which for 
Accurate atmospheric indications T had proved 2 small favouritecomto 
excel, showed that some storm was mear. A truce was struck upibe: 
tween the corn and the Crimean wound, and atthree o'clock we decided 
that it was quite time to make a more substantial lair, and devised 
several schemes ; but the best was to copy the old one, and-cut down 
nore saplings to rear againat the rock, nd cover these with bireh bat 
‘This bark is a perfect storehduse of materials for the Indian; he makes 
his canoes out of it ; and on the second day that we were prisoners, our 
quiet/half-tireed Iroquois had actually made’a wash-bdeia for general 
use; T possess it now, and it will hold water perfectly. His plan 
‘was very simple; he cut as large a square as he could get from the 
‘bark, and then pinched up the four corners as we should do toa 
piece of paper if we wished to give it a tray shape, and simply drove 
a hard-wood peg through each corner, and plastered the apertures of 
the pegs with tree-gum, This holds 2 gallon and a half of water But the 
day had seen its best when we decided to erect a 
‘weather became more lowering and threatening every hour, and we 
cut down about a dozen larch saplings, all quite straight, and 
them against the wall of rock. A fallen tree had 
by our Indian into two very rude shovels, but they 
In order to roof in our ‘shanty’ wey compel ep Oa 
off the three birches on the island, and that, of course, se 
these useful trees to a premature death; bat the bark was 
offin a most workmanlike way, and cut into lange oblong pieces 5 
were easily fastened together with osiers, and then we 6 
abode after the manner of the tiled/roofs we see in the: 
buildings. ‘The ends of this triangular refuge we had no 








- Ona Canadian Lake. 247 


aptor! Of birch bark pinned and bound’ by osiers. We cut large 
Wantities of meadow grass, which grows to a great height, and as it 
was very dry ‘it made fine “stalling” for us, none the less so from 
its slightly musky scent; and when complete, we really looked at the 
‘Inbour of our hands witli sithsfaction,; and that the more especially 
a8some distant rumbling foretold a coming storm. We made the old 
‘hit over to the man on moving into our more commodions residence, 
and did what we could to make it comfortable for him; and then, 
‘efter'a moderate refresher from one of the bottles, we lit our pipes, 
‘and sat down to watch the coming storm, ‘he horizon towards 
the south was of a deep indigo colour, against which the marsh 
will6ws and alders looked Juridly pale. The wild fowl were still, 
and hardly “ wing was in motion. Ifa duck flew at all, it was 
‘only for a slight rise and a drop again in the marsh, and this is a 
very good sign of some great atmospheric convulsion. The surface 
Of the lake bad suddenly become quite placid and still, with the 
exception of a few risings of very large fish that nearly threw them- 
Selves out of the water; this again is a curious indication of an 
Spproaching tempest. ‘These fish arc inhabitants of the lake we 
ihever, or very rarely, catch, and they only seem to rise’ sullenly, 
when other fish are in the deeps, 

"Phe indigo bank was enlivened by threads of light that showed 
he shape of the clouds which slowly were rising above the horizon, 
and the Jow mutierings of the thunder warned us that the snug retreat 
we had made might be wanted very urgently before the morning: 
We retired in reasonably good time, aud immediately after, a most 
vivid fash of lightning and a louder peal of thunder told us the 
storm was near; a few heavy drops were succeeded by a rainfall 
which seemed to pour down our steep roof like a mill-race, and the 
thunder and lightning were incessant for an hour. When the storm 
had subsided we congratulated ourselves om the performance” of 
our dwelling, and were soon in forgetfulness of our isolation; but at 
aliout one o'lock in the morning, it recommenced with double 
fary, and we ‘were awakened by an awful crash of thunder over- 

| Shorty after was a magnificent spectacle that I had 

aly Onte seen before, and that was in Montreal; there was 
an incessant flash of lightning for some minutes, or rather a 
Brilliant “and ‘the thunder was ‘continuous during the 
preity ft ceased there was a momentary lull, and then came 
) to be the climax of the storm An absolutely 


woo h of light filled the apartment for a second, or 
‘a little more, and at the same Moment was a feaxtol 


oe i] 








find traces of it in the morning. One thing occurred 
Set eee 


were just on the point of investigy 


‘hightened ; esas ples at me 
moadow grass, and after a half glass of ram that we gave him, he 
Went intoa sound sleep. The original cabin had withstood the first 
wiorm well, but had leaked dreadfully when the second one came, so 
he said, but scare had quite as much to do with his removal as wet ; 
will, though we were not prepared to find our first exsy at sylvan 
architecture so perfect as we did on the following morning, we 
abundantly approved his change of quarters ‘The storm ended 
much more suddenly than it commenced, and after the last explosion 
of thunder quict soon prevailed. ‘The morning again was very calm, 
fv the sky ethereally blue, and for the st thee ths beara 


our situation struck us both, and we immoderately. Here 
were two peaceful loyal subjects of her Majesty, quite within the 


teach of acttlement and civilisation, cut off indefinitely from help or 
gommunication with the outer world, yet waggons might then be 
passing along the plank road within two miles. My friend was 
rather more exercised than I was, because there was to be a review 
at Logan’s Farm in about eight days, and as the Governor was to be 
there (Lord Monck, J think), he feared that absence might interfere 
with his leave for going home to England, for it was to be a 
qwylew before the Commander-in-Chief, and if any irregularity had 
deourred in his company he feared that if it were owing to his 
‘alenee no possible excuse would be adequate, though it seemed to 
We With fewer sources of information on such a subject, 
yuovent crisis would have secured an indemnity from any: 
soul Bh ava ot Logan's Far, bem ip ee a 
fox Canada and the Governor-General, was a serious t 

Wnorning, with one exception, there was no trace of 

was ealin and quiet, and the lake reflected the 
{here were no clouds, or else they too would have been 
sel ‘The single trace of the storm was on a 

ee principal one on the island, 
ern fay above the others ‘This was shivered | 
we concluded) that it was steuck by the East vivid 





On a@ Canadian Lake. 249 


evtnt of the day was the discovery that our Indian had brought with 
him a paper of fish-hooks and a ball of string, which he purchased at 
Coburg for some few cents, These were equally divided, and in our 
delight we gave the man many times more than the value of the lot 
for our share. He had also a ball of thread, and with tree gum for 
‘wax we soon ticd on our hooks, and had two cach in reserve ; bait 
‘as s00n got, and fishing rods cut, and we dispersed to try oursuccess 
fin mending the commissariat. I was rather proud of two eels. that 
mast have measured about two feet in length each, and returned to 
the camp at about half-past nine to breakfast ; but what a sight met 
my eye! On the south side of the island is a spring under water, and 
the channel is deep for a considerable distance, and to this the other 
two had repaired. It was here it seemed that the Indian had always 
gone for water ; his quick eye discovered it soon after we made our 
landing, when he went round the island to look for the best place to 
getour supply. They had certainly got among the fisl: when they 
‘were on the feed, and in the same time that it occupied to capture 
my two eels they had taken some twenty perch, running to about a 
pound in weight, and five black bass that scaled by pocket steelyards 
7 ib. This was a windfall indeed, and the way in which the Indian 
cooked them is worth relating, The fish is wrapped up in the large 
water-lily leaves, a rush is put through his gills, and brought to the tail, 
and then it is wrapped round the body till it approaches the head 
again, when the remainder of the rush is passed through the other 
gill, and the fish is put on whitened ashes. With a very slight 
practice, however, the rushes may be dispensed with. The broad 
Keaf adheres to the scales of the fish and peels off in flakes when 
done with, if the slightest skill is used. ‘Ihe fish loses none of its 
Juices and flavour, and is simply delicious when cooked in this way. 
There was another discovery we made that day, which should 
certainly be termed a red-letter one, At the farthest end of theisland, 
which had scarcely been explored, were a great number of blackberry 
bushes. The blackberries here grow to a much larger size than we 
are in the habit of seeing in England, and indeed in America they 
are cultivated as a garden fruit, Some of these bushes were literally 
black with fruit, and we gathered a gallon in a very short time 
Now there was the prospect of a very abundant dinner indeed, and 
‘we postponed it till six o'clock. We still went to the points of the 
idland to get a few ducks, though we limited our destruction to what 
could be compassed by ten cartridges, for our larder was well stocked 

procurable. ‘The fish-hooks and lines of coyrse held 
outan unlimited prospect of supply; no powder was wasted, and teen 


a 


250 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


in the deeply indented channe! that had | 


been formed: by the spring 
must have swarmed by the ton. It was indeed evidently a rendezvous 
for the larger fish of the lake, and if we had possessed better tackle 


we should doubtless have captured some very fine 


specimens 5 still, we 
could have made a respectable show at any time on a London fish 
stall, The dinner was a great success; perch ate excellent’ fish, 
especially when cooked in the way indicated ; and we made'a daring 
experiment of stuffing a duck with blackberries and pinning it up with 


hard-wood skewers, then roasting as usual, 


the experiment was eminently successful. We spoke afterwards over 
our pipes of the real necessities of humanity, and how truly a Roman 
philosopher had said that the wants of nature were few and easily 
satisfied. Of course in a primitive state we should not have had 
breechloaders, or even wire fish-hooks, but on the other hand, we 
should have become perfected in snares and nets, and there would 
have been many wild fowl where now there is hardly a single one on 
the marsh, and these, unseared by powder, would | resid ‘been: com: 

atively easy prey; and as for fish, has it not beet exptured for 
peate fore Historie times? and nets and bone fish-hodks and 
grass lines would have been plentiful. We employed our eaptivity in 


recounting these things, and remembered the philosophical reflections 


of the banished duke in “ As You Like Tt"— 


Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
‘Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
‘Wears yet a precious jewel in his head ; 
And this owr life, exempt from pablic haunt, 


ld gis tm a ng 


Sermons in stones, and good in everything, 


4a 


* Ow 


he tee 


19" wily 


But one thing we thought was to be deplored: we oe 
admirable position for learning by induction many of the problems of 
the habits of the early residents of our planet, and indeed of solving 
some of the mysteries of lake-dwellers of remote antiquity, and could 
not help regretting that such opportunities were lostupon us instead 
of, say, being enjoyed by Sir John Lubbock, or some other ethno- 
logist' who could have appreciated them better, But we indulged in 


a curious speculation of what would be the most useful: 


thing we 
could possess over and above what we had. Our axe that had been 


sucha blessing to us was clearly an anachronism, and 


tions and ages before its time, though all the rest. va otra 


tothe lake-dwellers as to us ; but even here they had. 
and congidering that they only had to live from day to. d 
Printers’ prools to amend, and no Lills payable to me 


a 


= 
al 


On @ Canadian Lake. 251 


probable that the hacking and hacking were part of the pleasant daily 
‘work of the remote ancestry of the globe; and though there were no 
Business br bank hours, it is most likely that under a system they set 
to work to hack away with their flint hatchets. The few vigorous blows 
of an axe of the present day that lays lowa trunk, if we only consider 
ity requires coal mines, blast furnaces, and all the many devices that 
convert ifon-ore into a usefal instrament. But our ancient ancestors 
had instead flint axes. “These would seem to have been ground into a 
form not quite unlike that of an American axe, and let into a slit for 
a handle, and then secured as far as it was possible with withes, Of 
course the most Obdurate trunk must fall in tine before repeated 
Diows even of such a weapon as this, and it is most probable that 
this simple woodcraft proved the daily work of primaval man, 
between the hours of trapping ond fishing, and in this he was assisted 
by all members of his family, who would become expert almost from 
childhood. We speculated upon the most useful addition that lake- 
‘Gwellers could have to their wants, and next to tools which would 
‘be impossible, we thought that sheep would be the most precious 
acquisitions to the primitive inhabitants. ‘They would tend very much 
to alter their way of life, and would save hours in hunting for wild 

‘and in addition they would afford the most abundant coverings, 
and mugs, and leather. While we were indulging in the harmless 
‘speculations, our Indian gave what for him was rather an animated 
exclamation, He was looking intently at some distant object, and 
Said in answer to our inquiries, “The other man ;" and indeed we 
were soon able to discover a distant speck, which proyed to be a 
canoe driven by the other Indian, and coming straight towards our 
island. Though of course our relief was great, we could not contem- 
plate the end of our cuptivity without some little regret. It was not 
‘only the feeling of independence, and the pleasures of a primitive life : 

> Here feck we laut the penalty of Adar, 
‘The seasons’ difference 5 

Dut we felt that we had made “good weather” out of our sojourn; 
and though we knew we should be the victims of a torrent of 
chaff, “Crasoe and) Friday,” “The babes in the wood," “Their 
fitdle lips with blackberries,” &e., &e, we could fairly say that 
owe should like to sce any of é/em under similar circumstances. 
‘Where was an interest in developing the resources of the island, and 
we found a fine Led of mushrooms of the finest quality (Agartews 
campestris) the worming the canoe ame. But within halfan hour from 
the time we first say the speck on the waker the Irogusie ‘en 


= 4 


a 
252 The Gentleman's Magazine. | 


paddling his canoe through the reed bed that first cut down the waves 
of the lake. He was very taciturn when we pressed him as to where 
he could have been when first he heard the firing, and we could get 

nothing out of him, pompano ie 
quite well, but to all further questions he turned an impenetrable 
countenance, and only answered in guttural ; and knowing how hard 
itis to deal with these wild men, we waited till we could question our 
own man. Our Indian in the meantime had taken his canoe, and 
Imply paddled to a bed of seedy and seahananl a ere 
this he found his own, capsized of course, and quite invisible from 
our island; her mast and sail still there. He towed it ashore and 
the was soon righted, to the great satisfaction of all of us. Then we 
decided to go back to the camp, leaving our huts as they stood, and 
return probably for a day and night when we had shot the upper end 
of the lake, It was a little singular, we noticed, that from going over 
the island so often without guns, and seeing ducks fly past, there was 
certainly an increasing tameness, and if we had spent a few days 
there without shooting at allwe should have son discovered a differ- 
ence in the habits of the most naturally sociable bird in the world 
We had now each our own canoe and aboriginal, and after putting in 
quite a nice basket of perch and black bass and some eight or 
ten ducks, we took a temporary leave of our island. Great was 
the joy of the Irishman to see us again ; and we felt an intense 
curiosity to know how it was we had been so neglected, for the 
Indian either could or would tell us nothing, and the simple tale 
was this:—When we left the island where the fire occurred on the 
day of our arrival, we went up the creek which ran through the 
great marshes, and the Indian had detailed our plans to his comrade, 
who saw us depart clearly enough, and naturally supposed we were 
above the island. They passed a night of intense anxiety when we 
did not return, and when they heard the tempest rising in such 
fury; but the history of our neglect was this. On our first morning 
the Indian went up the creek, and he met some one paddling 
down, that had actually met us, and accordingly he followed on ; and 
here a tale of delinquency begins which it is to be hoped may point 
out, at any rate in one instance, the evil of sclling spirits (firewater) to 
the Red men, even to those who have passed the confines of the 
‘Hudson's Bay Territory, and reached the lands of civilisation. Our 
delinquent Indian pursued his way up the creck, and seeing smoke 
rising from «hovel on a dry spit of land in the marshy he madehia 
way there through the reeds and water-lilies and bulrushes, Thisspit 
ofland was connected with the highway some mile and a half off. 


(a. - | 


On a Canadian Lake. 253 


lasky friends he met with, and whom he said he had known all 

his life—which nobody believed—had the day before taken two red- 
deer to Coburg, and sold them to an American hotel-keeper who had 
business in Canada, and they had purchased a large jar of Canadian 
A most pernicious beverage, though it is said to be very 

‘He had the only remaining boat, and adopting the con- 

solatory assurance that we were drowned, and the Irish servant com- 
fortable, he proceeded to make himself comfortable also, and they set 
in for a three days’ dissipation, which might have been prolonged, had 
‘not the whisky come to a timely end. We had some excellent shooting 
along the bays and creeks of the upper part of the lake, and occa- 
Janded and waded through the marshes. This marsh-wading 

is almost peculiar to Canada. In English or Irish bogs it is possible 
‘to use pattens or long boots, buthere it isnot. No long boots would 
‘be sufficient to protect us from the holes we come across, and then 
they soon fill with water and impede us, while pattens get hopelessly 
entangled in the water wecds, and the branches that settle on the 
marsh lands during the spring floods. The only plan is to push the 
tanoe into the edge of the marsh and jump in with a belt of cartridges 
round the shoulder and under the right arm. The wading is gene- 
tally about knee-deep, and if care is taken to lift up the feet cleanly, 
and take as long strides as circumstances will permit, the locomotion 
is attended with less difficulty than might be expected. We occa- 
sionally come across some part deeper than the others, but it is 
always easy to turn back, and the excitement and novelty of the 
chase is very great. We get actually into the haunts of wild fowl 
—not in the breeding season, when there is no difficulty about it, 
but when the birds are at their best, and they rise up almost on a 
Jevel with our eyes. At first we may raise our gun at a water hen or 
2 bittern, but in a few hours or even less we shall make no 
‘such mistakes, and know the splash of a duck that we do not sce, from 
‘any other, as it rises. It is not very easy shooting for an inexperienced 
hand. You must kill your bird dead, and note exactly where he falls, 
or else the chances of seeing him again are small. You are without 
gsand men. The former could not work, and the latter would 
‘useless, and indeed only disturb the game that you dosire to ap- 
presi Bet. ‘The best way is to send the canoe up a creek 
point a mile off, and then to work round the marsh to meet 
ducks are in the creek the man strikes the side of his 
a paddle, which in the stillness is heard easily for half-a- 
$ sufficient to warn the marsh-walker to look out, and 
| generally circle round before settling, it is more than 

an occasional couple will pass by ; but (hey pass Kaa 














ee 










Bea col tones Derthy and 
donned a red nightcap, ‘This colour is be 0 be ve 
but 1 strongly suspect ‘that SBN ES Sais ra 
enough, it was simply because colour was strange 

apprehensions. Our bag was a good one, and it 
bours in Montreal with a fow respectable presents 
various kinds, The bag in eight days was 196 ducks, 
ail 


24 wood ducks. ~ _— 
49 whistle wings. 7 - 
3° green-winged teal. 
3 bluc-winged teal. 
‘This was rather a singular reversal in the order of teal, ‘m 
blue-winged are always the most numerous, I have 
are found in England occasionally, and called “ * summer teal,” bu 
it has been out of my opportunity to investigate. They at ae 
the same size as the common teal, and marked ina somewhat similar 
manner, but the wing feathers are clear blue instead of 
No account was taken of snipe or woodcock, but we killed i 
20 to 30 snipe, and about 19 to 12 woodcock. One ‘more d 
night we had at the dwelling down the lake, which may be st 
yet in some form, and we much regretted that we had to | 
quarters when the time came round; though we we 
console ourselves with Touchstone’s reflections; # ‘Truly, 
in respect of itself, itis a good life, but in respect thatit isas 
Tite, i itis naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very 
in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life.” Grad 
that something in the nature of sour grapes suggested 
and the quotation, for our short stay was delightful. 'e d 
excepting the two storms—and these were a feature in the ¢ 
ment rather than a drawback—delightful weather, a good 
literature, abundant sport-—without having too much 
course complacently said, the best of company, In: 
must be told, we not only stayed to the end of my frien 
but ran that rather close, and fells beped fa 
Aope that was never destined to be fulfilled, 














255 


THE ENGLISH STAPLE, 
L-CALAIS. 


7 E of this country and in this century, who use only to accept 
with a bad grace our present post in the march of civi- 
[isation, without caring, because not needing, to cast a backward 
glance along the chequered path of time, have almost willingly 
learned to forget the carly interests which are associated with the 
mame of Calais Later ones there are, familiar to the proud 
iminority that has crossed the silver streak ; while to the untravelled 
of to the historically curious, the once English seaport, with its 
flanking fortresses and intersecting sand-banks, may chance to awaken 
other memories. ‘The illustrated chronicles of their boyhood and 
the metaphysical romances which now pass for histories of the Eng. 
lish people alike open themselves at the page where the intercession 
of Philippa the Good, or the remorseful shame of Bloody Mary, arc 
depicted in an eloquent gloss upon the ancient fabulist. ‘But, 
assuredly, this & far from ail that we may learn upon the subject. 

Calais was during two centurics the chief staple for English pro- 
duce, the wholesale mart for that produce in Western Europe when 
‘Western Europe comprised the civilisation of the world. 

Tt is by no means difficult to realise the possibility of the exist- 
ence of a staple, when we consider the compromise by means of 
which alone individual interests could exist side by side with the 
*eutonic theory of kingship. The king only in those early times 
might hold a market, or levy a toll, though it was to his in- 
terest to concede such a right to any who could pay for it, It 
(was at once a more convenient and a surer plan to assess such 
@ payment upon an aggregate of individual interests, and, by en- 
dowing a trade-community with an adequate status, place it in a 
position both to discharge its obligations to the revenue, and even 
to redeem its Iverative privileges by the payment of an arbitrary 
fine whenever the wants of the Crown should sanction such an extor- 
tion for the well-being of its subjects. 

* The anxiety thus shown by the Government forthe prosperity of 
‘Commerce was owing undoubtedly to the fact hat an evernceas 


a 


256 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


ing part of the revenue of the kingdom was derived from personal 
property. It was, therefore, the present object of 
wise king to identify himself with the mercantile 


ject capital 
of its strength and dignity. But nevertheless one fatal ‘mlatae was 
committed; for the Government, whetted by the temporary success 
of a short-sighted policy, kept the direction of trade entirely in its 
own hands, and suffered it to flow only through channels | 
not one drop should fail to reach its rescrvoirs ‘From that diy 
this, the blood and treasure of its subjects have been 
one selfish object—to secure a market at home or abroad for 
produce in which a forced price could be realised by 
forcign competition, to the injury of the consumer in 
‘The later Plantagenet kings, who saw with envious eyes 
influence accrue to the Flemish cities in which 4 
were maintained, were soon determined to follow the example of 
neighbouring princes and create staples also for English com- 
merce. It seemed, of course, highly desirable that foreign : 
should resort to English shores ; that bayers should make prompt 
and accurate payments, and that cellers should be compelled to lay 
out half their purchase-money in staple commodities. 
however, for this country, timely experience averted the 
min which such a course would have entailed upon an insular 
people. Neither were their rulers of one mind for sae 
together, as the following chronology will show. 
Edward TIT. ‘put an end to all staples foe. English prodlace” Bot 
in England and abroad, and permitted freedom of trade according 
to the provisions of Magna Charta, In the 
established staples for the four chief commodities in ten : 
English towns. In the thirty-eighth oe 
firmed. In the twelfth year of Richard IL, the staple was rem 
to Calais; in the fourteenth year, from Calais to England, 
stringent protective clause to strengthen the earlier statutes 
the next year, the latter were once more confirmed. In 





The English Stapte. 257 


privilege. A petiti no doubt, of very many—to that effect, 

addressed to Edward 111. by three Flemish cities, still exists, and a 

grant by that king, probably in answer to the above, is preserved 

amongst our printed Firdera, But at an early period in the history 

of Calais as an English possession, that town was designated, by 

matare and policy alike, as the recipient of commercial privileges 
other, 


any other, 

From the middle of the reign of Edward III. to the beginning 
of that of Edward IV.—a period little exceeding 100 years, but 
which included seven eventful reigns—the position and privileges of 
Calais as the English staple were defined in the following terms, and 
Tmaintained by successive Governments with as much consistency a8 
‘could have been expected of them. ‘The merchants of the staple of 
the town of Calais were to proceed yearly to the election of a mayor 
and two constables, together, at a later date, with minor officers 5 
and these were to exercise an unlimited jurisdiction in matters con- 
cerning the well-being of their community. The monopoly enjoyed 
by the society was established by this clause; “‘That all men, both 
great and small, stranger and native, of what state or condition soever 
they may be, who would be exporting from our realm of England, 
&e., wool, hides, and wool-fells, or else lead, cloth known as worsted, 
and cheese, butter, &c,, &c., or any other merchandise more or less 
to the parts beyond sea, [shall carry] all of them, paying first for them 
‘the subsidies and customs due to the said staple of Calais, there 
under the control of the said mayor and constables, according to 
the manner of the staple to be exposed for sale, and not elsewhere, 
ander pain of the forfeiture of the same." 

Tn a full court of all the merchants, the mayor was also to 
‘gssign to each merchant his lodging, suitable for his entertainment, 
‘which he must frequent, unless good cause were shown to the con- 
tary. The court itself of the staple was a tribunal analogous in 
‘tany respects to the local councils of the north and west of England 
under Tudor sovereigns. Its main object was to draw all civil 
actions in which staplers were in any wise concerned within its 
jurisdiction, both in order to expedite the course of justice and to 
lessen the expenses incident thereto, At a later period, the con- 
‘venience as well as the equity of this plan were acknowledged by the 
mass of the outside public, and a recognisance, “in the nature of a 
‘statute staple” upon real property, became a security in transactions 
‘between the producer and the merchant, never evaded by the mere 
act of a fraudulent debtor.’ The long-suffering and self-exiled 

* 23 Hen, VIIL  Extents hercupon took precedeuce of any Wat cacowions ol 


eee Coutt of Recoed, 
NO, 1833. . 


ee | 
258 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


merchant of Calais, as tenant by statute staple of many a broad 
ere, was often the ancestor of country gentlemen whose remote 
descendants are now of the greatest in the land. The court of 
the staple had no cognisance of criminal offences, unless when the 
avenger of blood chose to prosecute at his own perils but the mer 
chants of this, as of other societies, were amenable to no foreign 
‘tribunal, and it was well for both that they were not so, 

One of the conditions attached to the above grants was that a 
standard scale of weight for wool should be observed by the com: 
munity. As a minor point, the convenience of the merchants was 
consulted by the grant of a site for a meeting-house or exchange, as 
it would now be called, and not long afterwards this building received 
apparently considerable additions, 

Tn external matters the greatest indulgence was shown to the 
Calais merchant. He had, as we have scen, a monopoly of 
exporting staple commodities and provisions, a monopoly, however, 
frequently avoided by royal licence. He paid no toll between 
Dover and Calais, and no wreck of his might be seized between 
“Whitesand and Graveling."* But, after all, the troubles and ¢m- 
barrassments of the society were neither few nor light, In 1393 we 
find the magistrates of Calais remonstrating with Richard TI. upon 
the non-observance of their privileges. Tinmediately after this 
remonstrance the king, issued his charter establishing and confirm- 
ing the staple at Calais, Three years later, however, the staplers 
were again constrained to approach the Crown with a plain state- 
ments of their grievances, 

These were, mainly, that their monopoly, especially in the matter 
of exporting provisions, was infringed ; that the jurisdiction of their 
officers was set at nought, and that the “outrageous” customs levied 
from foreign buyers by the King’s officers deterred the former 
from visiting their market. Again, not long afterwards, the Calais 
merchants petition for the punctual execution of their charter 
and of their former privileges, and perhaps with more satisfactory 
results. _s 

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, negotiations were in 

for a commercial treaty between England and the Low 
Countries. ‘The magistrates and merchants of the staple write to 
ony IV,, requesting that he will instruct the English ambassadors 

an abatement of the claims of the Duchess of Burgundy 
Pe egtiate ondenaee ‘There is also evidence to show that the 
+ Ad communieandam et habendum congregationes suas ibidem,” 
* “Jare prioris Sex Martini (Dover) sntiquo semper salvo."” 











a 
260 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


of commerce between the two countries, and the negotiations on this 
point may be said to have culminated twenty years later in the 
“ Great Intercourse " of 1495. Ye init ene ee 
for two generations following, the mercantile condition of England, 
as represented by the privileged interests, would appear to have drifted 
from bad to worse, and this without a corresponding change in the 
social or political relations of the nation at large. 

Tt was during the reign of the above King, and of his cardinal- 
minister, that the merchants of the staple presented their humble 
petition to the Government, in which the following grievances were 
set forth, Commencing with the somewhat bold assertion that their 
body has from time immemorial enjoyed a monopoly of traffic in the 
great commoditics of England—namely, wool and wool-fells, they 
remind the minister that their employment of this privilege has been 
in every way satisfactory and profitable to a paternal Government. 
Despite, however, this praiseworthy attitude on their part, they have 
for a long time past experienced the neglect of Providence and the 
unkindness of men. For during the civil wars of the end of the 
Jast century the garrison of Calais, finding themselves in arrears for 
eight years!’ pay from the Crown, in “a great fury” rose against the 
civil magistrates, and shut the leading merchants closely up in 2 
house until they had satisfied the uttermost of their claims; that 
upon the news of this émeute, the Home Government, careful only 
for their own interests, ordained that from thenceforth the garrison 
of that city should be paid out of the revenue arising from the wool 
custom ; and that in order to carry out this scheme, that tax has been 
raised from 6s, 8d, to 40s. on the sack, being the greatest that any 
prince ever took from his merchant subjects, since it amounted to 
‘one-fourth of the nett value of the wool, whereby the profit of the 
stapler was reduced toa minimum. Moreover, in later times—and 
‘especially in the last seven years—there has been a succession of 
unprecedentedly bad seasons, A terrible murrain has raged amongst 
the flocks, and wool has been scarce, and production on a large scale 
limited to wealthy grazers, who hold back for advanced prices. 
"The war has hindered foreign bayers from approaching their town, 
‘and has rendered long credit impossible ; so that the 
formerly bought 2,000 sacks yearly, now accept 4c only. 
these calamities, they have suffered a continual loss on the 
for “there has not been so little loste as £100,000.” bonis 
complain, no “ fellowed" was ever so hard pressed as 
a fact which their diminished numbers alone will prove. | 








The English Staple, 261 


‘ight score ; the “poorer and middle sorte” having been the first to 
fall away. Bnt the sore which rankled deepest was this: that 
Spanish wools were continually increasing both in bulk and quality, 
and were fast taking the place of English produce in the Flemish 
workshops. It is probable, indeed, that the decline of the staple 
trade was to be attributed mainly to an unsound economy at home, 
Foreign buyers were loud in their complaints of the inferior quality 
of English wool and the unmethodical transactions of English 
merchants. 

‘The following replication on the side of the latter to certain 

of this nature will give a good idea of the state of the case. 
‘Having first alluded to the special treaties entered into on their be- 
half by the English and Flemish Governments, and dated 1449 and 
1522 respectively, the English merchants proceed to deal with the 
charges brought against them in order. ‘The subjects of the Emperor, 
they say, can buy freely in the open market—for there is no compul- 
sion as to whether they buy or no, ‘Therefore, if the staplers decline 
to sell new wool without mixing a certain proportion of old with it, 
the buyer must consult his own interests in the matter. They deny 
that the standard of currency is tampered with, in reply to a com- 
plaint of vast significance to the student of the post-Reformation 
period. If the bales of goods, too, consigned to buyers are light In 
weight, or of inferior quality compared with the price exacted, then 
indeed not the merchants but the packers are greatly to blame, and 
itis strongly advised that the sufferers should obtain their punith- 
ment—if they can; but that such complaints are neither very 
generous nor very wise. That when prices tule low, buyers must not 
expect to take advantage of the fact by buying largely, for of course 
under these circumstances staplers will hold on for a rise ; that they 
adhere to the scale of prices fixed by the treaties above mentioned ; 
and even if those prices are occasionally exceeded, it should be remem- 
bered that they have themselves now to buy dearer. But to the 
insinuation that their very measure is not above suspicion, they 
el reply that it is notorious that a public scale is maintained 

the provisions of their charter, so that herein, at least, their 
integrity is not to be questioned. 

Now, the men of Calais had also wrongs of their own which called 
for redress, arising from their dealings with the perfidious foreigner. 
‘They complain that subjects of the Emperor who have large accounts 

them wait for a favourable moment to reduce 
their debts by the rate of exchange being in their favour; that 
though by the treaties of 5449 and 1g22 it was stipulated Man wagers 


Ue _ 


by the! Imperial Lconareriataniad 


of financial calculation 
plain folk. “This hardship is all the more 
sort of rubbish pretending to the name of go 


skilled scrutiny, and inferior samples: which he 

rous, are promptly returned, That suchin 

payment act very wrongly, and deserve 

Calais packers, with the same prospect of und 

is proverbial how Indifferent (supind) the English are 
interests. All the remaining counts are but fresh 
habitual mendacity of merchant staplers, especially it 
cular, respecting which they have ordered an in 

result of this inquiry was subjoined, and 

Deen expected, the customers were only fulfilling 
they overhauled such notorious receptacles 
wallets of merchant staplers, That the c 

tion had been purposely allowed.to that class, 
shown, without avail; and therefore, on this point 
probabit.” Besides, all the world knows how | ‘ 


grasping monopoliste. : 

seston penne er. sneer 

1 Loerie fonee ee ot c 
pended to the MS, controversy of those times, th 











| The English Staple. 263 


staple exported yearly to Calais 1,300 “serplers” of divers countries’ 
wools, at varying prices, weighing in the whole 3,600 sacks. Each 
of these being estimated at 52 cloves, at 7lbs, of s60z, and the 
king receiving yor, cach sack a5 custom, the total revenue from this 
source alone amounted to £7,200. Besides this, 400,000 fells were 
exported, on which £3,333: Gs. 8a. were paid for custom, making a 
grand total of £10,533. 6s. 8d, ‘The cost of packing this wool was 
47,495. 6. 8d. more, or nearly a fourth of the whole tax, to be de- 
dueted from the producer's and merchant's gross profit. Indeed, but 
for the lust of conquest which made English kings persistently 
regard Calais as the key of France rather than ag the head-quarters of 
the English wholesale trade, the receipts from the staple would have 
formed a welcome addition to a much-straitened revenue, As it 
was, the pomp and circumstance of the territorial garrison absorbed 
not only this revenue, but often an equal sum drawn from the 
Home Exchequer. “What that revenue was, and what that expen- 
diture, we have now,” the popular historian would wisely tell us, “no 
means of ascertaining.” Let us, however, for once disregard the 
dogmas of the Master, and be content to gather a few stray crumbs 
of knowledge for ourselves, 

‘The revenue for which Calais was answerable to the Crown 
was drawn from two quarters: from the great custom on staple 
commodities shipped from England, and from the excise and feudal 
dues of the town and territory, Thus, in the year ending October 
1543, there was received by the Treasurer of Calais “from the 
Mayor, Constables, and Company of Merchants of the town of 
Calais,” for moncys arising from the custom and subsidy of wools 
and wool-fells shipped from divers ports of England to the 
aforesaid staple: in May, £3,301. ros, 4@, and in December, 
42,120, 105. 6@ Inthe next year, £3,056. rrs. 10}d, in May, and 
£2729. 165, 4d. in December. In the year 1544-5, 42,025. 25. 94a 
Sapell snd 6234 28. §]. in December, 

These figures exhibit a falling off from the perhaps conjectural 
estionate. of £7,200 mentioned above, and that sum again may have 
becn computed from returns of a later date and erroneously inserted 
amongst some earlier proceedings. ‘The second shipping, however, 
of 1552 produced a sum of £4,877. 164, od; and in the next year 
more than $12,000 was realised—the dates of shipment in this 
paren Apa and August. In 1554, one shipment produced 


cin these returns for this period is highly significant 
changes which were taking place in England, especially 


i 4 





The English Stapie. 265 


Supremacy, of an annuity of twenty marks, “ pro pencione nuper 
fratribus Carmelitibus, et modo per mandatum Domini Regis cuidam 
capeliano, AMissam ibidem celebranti, solutt." ‘There exists a de- 
‘spatch from Howard and other officers to Edward VI.'s Council 
informing the Lords that the majority of merchants refuse any longer 
to land their goods at Calais, or offer them there for sale, “onles 
they may gayne as moche here by the sale as they gett at strangers’ 
hands." Such proceedings are, they remind the Council, directly 
opposed to the ancient charters whereby this nest of licensed pirates 
‘were permitted to plunder the unwary merchants who sought their 
hayen, on condition of handing over a large share of the plunder to 
the Crown. Therefore they have assumed the responsibility of com- 
polling all who land merchandise at the port to convey the same 
direct to the local market, by which means, they flatter themselves, 
the following beneficial results will arise, In the first place, the 
citizens, and indirectly the Crown, will be enriched ; and secondly, 
work will be ready made for the “poorer sort," such as porters, &c, 
Tt can scarcely be imagined that such an expedient as this, whereby 
English Calais was made to figure as a rampart of barbarism extended 
‘between continental peoples and the common blessings of civilisation, 
was calculated to promote greatly the amenities of either commerce 
or diplomacy ! 

Itis possible, indeed, that the ever-conflicting interests of the 
English and foreign trader may have contributed more than has yet 
Deen thought of towards the stmined political relations which 
rendered an outbreak of war possible at any time between 1540 and 
1565. Differences of creed and government may have been only the 

for a well-timed championship of more material interests. 
A war then, to be successful, needed to be popular, and the popular 
party both in England and on the Continent was really that of 
religious purity and commercial progress. In either country, that 
party was the other’s rival. The onc had enriched himself with the 
Spoils of the idolatrous; the patient labour of the other had amassed 
in his coffers the capital of the world. The intelligence of both had 
benefited by their contact with the hitherto unknown world of art 
and letters. With both, religion was no longer the mask of pleasure, 
but the cloak of avarice ; therefore it was that, as rival producers, 
manufacturers, shippers, as capitalists and as usurers, but most of all 
as Christians and as subjects, they hated one another with a perfect 
hatred. With the accomplishment of the social revolution of the 
16th century the fate of Calais had been sealed. Agriculture was no 
Jonger profitable. Grazing on a large scale was universally practises. 


—— = 


ual 
266 The Gentleman's Magastne, 


by the crowd of State-made capitalists. ‘The mass of | 

out further means of ealniog xn | Cou A VSREE 

desperate attempt, It was then that the Government boldly threw 
down their last card. “You are now,” they sxid to the malcontents, 
“a nation of evicted peasints and disbanded freebooters. We will 

make of you prosperous artisans, even as your brother-Calvinists of 
the States, Lo here are the means for this great work, Newer was 
more wool than now grown in England, and there is yet more Inxury 


turning weavers, dyers, drapers, and we will direct all things accord~ 
ingly. We will suffer no woo! to be shipped from England, and no 
fine cloth to be imported except under a penalty which alone 
shall enrich the State. And this will be your opportunity, thus pro- 
tected, to, become presently monopolists, and in time capitalists as 
wealthy as those of Ghent or Amsterdam. Qne thing only we 
require at your hands, that you be prepared to fight for your privi- 


petition in England, will advance their arms against us in the holy 
cause of religion and order, But you are men, and you can fight ; 
nay more, Englishmen, and you can conquer! Fear nothing! We 
will arm you, train you, and feed you for the wars. Then shal} the 
Lord give you the necks of your enemies, and the ends of the earth 


for an inheritance.” a 


civilisation, of asimpler faith, and of a purer life. ye 


- 
LONDON. _—~ 
THE, stranger who passes eastward along pase 


Ha a formerly Holborn Bars blocked the main 
thoroughfare of London, will find himself face to, a es 





overshadowing in their centre a low-browed Ain 
wicket-gate. This is Staple Inn ; once, as the 


the Strand together will serve to show, the Hospitium of 
chants of the Staple, the head-quarters of that _ 











The English Staple. 267 


London." But this was s00 years ago, and few have cared to 
inform ‘themselves further about the once most famous mercantile 
society of the world? 

‘Tt has been attempted here to throw some light upon the inner 
life of the merchant stapler, and for this purpose two chapters of 

history have been opened: one dated in the reigns of Edward 
TV. Richard TIE, and Henry VII. ; the other in those of Henry 
VHI. and Edward VI. 

About the year 1477, there lived a family of the name of Cely 
—a father, William, and three sons, Robert, George, and Richard, 
all merchants of the staple carrying on their business in Calais and 
London. 


Th the former town the history of individual merchants was 
merged in that of the society at large ; but in the mother-counuy 
their career ‘has an interest of its own, There exist two letters, 
written in the above and following year, from Robert Cely in London 
to his brother George at Calais, both of which are admirable 
specimens of the keen and somewhat sententious expression of 
thought which characterised a rude but vigorous age, 


ANNO IXSYI). 
Ryght wel belouyd brother. 1 recomaunde me hertelly to youe. Farther+ 
ara nen yow to wotte that I heve ressayved from yow a lettae wrette at 
Galles the xxx day of Octobar, In the weche letter wore clossyd ilij letteres of 
paymenttes, werof ij ben dyrect to Rychard Twenge, Mercer of London ; both 
Jettars contayninge lijti Tiem, allsso jj fettars of paymentte dyrecte to John 
mercer, contaynynge bothe xixti, ‘The days ben longe. [care for 
nethynge save butt for my fellmen of Rarncalay Strette,* for thay wyll be nedy 
er) call faste on nie for money cr Marche be pasie. Brother George, I pray yow 
speke scharply to John Kaunse of gynys {Culsnes} for the ferme of Sentereasse, for 
‘Wylim. the parson yx man ys.att London, and eawlethe fasts on me formoney ; 
‘alsso.1 honderstonde that ree haue lentte to the plasse for me xsi, I most 
presto here at London xti & hour father axti, Yt ys a scherewde werke—God 
amende yt. Ttem brother as apon the Sonday afore the daite of thys letter my 
Torother Kicharde Cely & I wer at Pollys Crosse to here the sarmon ; and ther we 
herde forste worde that hows uncull the Dene of Yorke ys passyd to God : and 
the precher prayyd for hym by nome, And thee eate that tyme ¥ bochoppys ot 
Pollys Cross, 


_ Nomote to yow at thys tyne; bot hows londe kepe yow, Wrette at London 
the:sir day of November, 
By your brother, 
Roneay Cau, 


A George Ce, mache the Staple at Calles, thys be delyvered. 











renites of London, by Sie Geo, Duy ia Stowe’s * Seve." 
“London.” * Possibly in Yorkshive, 


- | 


a, 


268 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


‘It would seem from the first part of this letter that one at least 
of the grievances of the staple merchants so often alluded to in 
their petitions to the Government was not without foundation, The 
days of payment, they are never tired of complaining, are too long. 
Even in the case of English buyers an inconvenience was felt. It 
will be remembered that hills, on the autumn shipment of wool 
probably, became due at Easter, but were not honoured by buyerstill 
the “middle of Pentecost." The result, as in this case, was that, 
“ere March be past,” the grazier or broker “calls fast” on the 
merchant for his money, and the latter is compelled to raise an 
immediate sum, no doubt at ruinous interest. It is not surprising, 
therefore, that the London partner should deem it a ‘shrewd work.” 
‘The obituary hotice of “our uncle the Dean” reflects the pride 
‘mingled with awe with which the worthy citizen received the sudden 
news, and we may gather how deeply sensible he was of the honour 
done to the family by such public obsequies in the presence of “five 
Dishops." 

‘The second letter was written in the following May, and contains 
a still stronger confirmation of the special grievance above referred 
to, The merchant in London can ship no wool to Calais till Whit- 
suntide, because he cannot even collect sufficient of his debts to pay 
the custom. The querulous invective commencing, “as for Ryeharde 
Twenge,” is naive in the highest degree, and moreover touches on 
another sore point with the stapler, the loss suffered through the 
Exchange, 

ANNO LXXVIL 


‘Ryght trosty syr and brother. I comannde me to you. Furthermore that 
houre father and mother and all hour good frendys were in good hellthe—bleesyd 
be Got—and so we hope that ze be. Brother George, the cawse of my 
wweytynge to yow at thys tyme ys tys. Forsooth ther ys grette chepynge now at 
London of Petts and Wolls to Calles-warde, God be ther spede, and 1 eannatte 
shepe no fells before the feste of Wyttsontyd ; hotte sone hnufeter {after} U hope 
to God to doo, Ihave not well intredyd, for I have se eer eile 
the xij, ijt. of the Sarpler hafter the ratte, for of the securtorys [executors] of 
Cowlaxde T have no comfortte of paymente, And as for Rychard Twenge, he ys 
not corttes in ys dellynige, for hee hathe payd me by xx’. and by xl* payment 5 
and when I wolld have xti., IT cowde notte have ytt att my nede, bot I meste 
gove hym vij’, fora galon of wyne, and yett hee hepe in hys hands xx ster. 
the weche zee shoulde have of Wyyite your man. I pray you sende me worde 
wether it be so or nott, Por moche sorow and angere have I hade with hym for 
‘reflayninge of my mony. 7 pray yow dlelywer hym no more of my mony, he 
saythe yow lettyl worchepe that yow showlde, Holde ys mansxt, and abatte 
yit of my dewtte, Siuney som pr aeeh No more to yow at thys tyme 5 bot 
all myty God have as all in ys bleayd kepynge, Wrette at London the 
of Maye, By your brother, Rowaxy Cry, 
A George Cely, &6. a 


& ‘. =| 





The English Staple. 269 


About thtce years after, probably at the close of the year 1481, 
William Cely died, and his estate was administered by his son 
Richard. The assets chiefly consisted of large sums standing to 
the credit of the deceased for wool and fells shipped from England 
to Calais. The family, therefore, were left fairly well-to-do, and their 
personal and household expenditure may be taken as an average 
instance of the social condition of their class during what was cer+ 
tainly a very trying period. The only legacy of importance contained 
in William Cely’s will was a provision for his nephew John Cely’s 
education at Oxford. In 1483 the administrator paid two sums of 
138. 4d. “for and towardys the fyndyng of hys cosyn John Cely at 
Oxford 5” in 1484 five marks and a half more, and 13s. 4d, “toward 
his exhibicon ;" in May 1845, 135. 4¢. for “‘ilij yardes of muster- 
duyllers" for the above ; also 22s, 6d for one quarter, one half, and 
his board; and from Midsummer to Michaelmas, during vacation 
that is to say, 13s. 4 The whole cost of this young man’s educa- 
tion from 1483 to 1486 would appear to have been about twelve 
marks. In 1483 Robert Cely's mother died, and he had the admi- 
nistration of her estate also, 

‘This good lady’s needs seem to have been very modest. Except 
‘a small outlay for “shone” and “ handkercheffs,” and such small 
gear, she spent nothing on herself ; but, like so many others of her 
sex, she lived on the best terms with the parson and the doctor. 
‘The surgeon, for “helyng off his moder's gore leg,” was paid 26s, 8d. 
“Surgeon Coles” sent in a bill for 6s, 8, and “ Physician Wells” 
one for 20d. On the other hand, the clerks and wardens of “theyr 
church” received 3s. 4¢.; the parson and wardens £3; and the 
former himself, as “overseer” of the will, by bequest aos. In 
addition, widow Cely (who had married again, one Richard Rawson) 
“Jegnted " to this same church (St, Olave’s) a suit of blue cloth of 
gold for vestments costing £39. 87. x14 “This last bequest could 
scarcely have been popular with the family, as £40 then meant at 
least £400 now! In September 1482, the testatrix, after burying 
Jobanne, her maid, for 6s, 84., had visited her son Richard in Essex, 
and there perhaps she died. Yet the eldest brother at least was 
punctual in his religious observances. He not only laid out con- 
siderable sums upon his father's obsequics six years after the latter's 
decease, and surprised “ Frere William,” the family confessor, with 
the present of a new russet gown, but he advanced £5 to the 
‘churchwardens, “tipped” the “bedyll” $0 at Christmas, and dis- 
tributed 64, 84, as “ offeryng mancy to bakers, bruers, and others "— 
an interesting reflection on the early use aud modem ase ot Ws 
Christuras-box. 


— — 
270 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


The household and. personal expenses of the family during the 
ten years 1481-91, are both curious in their 
instructive to those who ate interested in tracing the influence of 
diet upon the national temperament ‘The age was marked by 
indulgence amongst the few and sobriety amongst the many; with 
the result that the turbulent and restless spirit which preyed upon 
the idle and dissolute feudal chieftain and his liveried retainers, 
passed by the doors of the frugal and religious yeoman or merchant 
who mortified the flesh and lived in charity with all men that were 
not his debtors. For example, meat was rarely tasted in the Cely 
household, and then in a fresh and nutritious form A “weder” 
‘was bought for 20d, and sometimes a “‘hogg,” Jamb, or calf ata 
higher price. Moreover, a cow was kept; and, in addition, great 
quantities of cheese, and many “ dishes" of milk, curds, and butter 
were purchased. Qn one occasion a cod and a rib of beef, costing 
6d., formed the dinner; on another, greater extravagance was shown 
in honour of a guest of quality, when 12s, was laid out on wild fowl 
But the most frequent items in the household accounts are for fish 
and bread. The former consisted of “herryng’ rede,” “herryng 
whyte," “sprotts," “stook-fyshes," and “ yelys,'" then, like salmon, 
& somewhat expensive luxury. ‘This rather salt diet, however, ren- 
dered a corresponding consumption of beer necessary. ‘Thus in the 
year 1482, 60 kilderkins at a shilling were consumed at the Essex 
residence, and twice that quantity in London. Shortly after, 44 
barrels of “good” and “three-halfpenny” ale were laid inj and 
« Polle Godfrey's wyffe” received on Christmas Even, 1483,,£16. 52 
for 200 more kilderkins supplied during the past year, In June 
1484, George Cely, who had lately married, came into Essex on a 
visit to his brother, with his wife and servants, the event being 
signalised by a huge consumption of beer. Nine small payments 
occur consecutively for becr provided for the occasion, but at Sength 
it was found necessary to order two kilderkins| of strong ale, and. 
then six more, this time of sinall beer. We learn incidentally hereon 
that their host had run out of this universal beverage, for the modest 
allowance of 80 kilderkins which had been ordered from Mrs 
Godfrey, as usual, at the beginning of the year, was paid: 
exhausted, in May, and there remained but one barrel of 
dere” (costing 2s. instead of rz, that is) to goon with, Amongst 
the miscellaneous expenses of the household, besides regular entries 
for ‘*colys,” **bote-hyer,” and the like, is the following | 
1483, “the tyme that newe watches were kept in London.” 

The Celys, it appears, were compelled to arm a 


= : = 


‘The English Staple. 27t 


deputies with Normandy ‘bills, sheafs of arrows (bows they were 
supposed to possess already), and to provide various habits, a parti- 
cular portion of which would scem to have inclined towards the 
tricolour fn its effect, being composed of blue fustian, white damask, 
and red velvet. Above this, “ Jacquetts" of white woollen cloth were 
‘worm. ‘The cost of this preparation was 585. 

‘On one eventful day two of the brothers, Richard and George, 
‘must needs, cockneys as they were, go “on huntynge,” an exploit 
which costthem 1s. 40. for a“ rewarde”-and 87, for a bottle of wine, 
‘consequent upon the unwonted exertion of the chase. It is just pos- 
sible that the pair may have been guilty of a trespass—eay in Mary- 
Jebone Park—and that the “rewarde ” above was a misplaced bribe : 
for we find next 2 payment of 2os. “to Bryan, to be good solicitor 
tothe lord ¢hamberlayne for Richard and George.” There is also 
mentioned the cost of the passage to Calais and back—no doubt from 
London—namely, £3. 

~The second period which comes under our notice commences fifty 
years after the last, and carries us from the end of the reign of Henry 
WIIL. to the conclusion of his son’s protectorate, In the year 1545 
was written the first existing letter of a regular correspondence which 
passed between John Johnson, merchant of the Staple at Calais, his 
brother and partner Otwell Johnson, draper at London, and several of 
their agents, who were also for the most part members of the family. 

~ Not only would it be impossible to offer more information upon 
the life and dealings of the staple merchant than is contained in these 
letters, but we should search in vain the MS, correspondence of a 
Tater and more lauded age for anything to surpass, in simplicity, force, 
‘@nd picturesqueness, these quaint and terse productions of the Tudor 
= Soe hetleaa troati in high helth with 
Brother, {mo ely wn ing you are in ch wid 
silo Went Calle "Ties dayes paste eter Brake aad one Rest Chamber 
Jayne, Tsent you aunswer of dyvers yor late letters. Dat sins my last T have tryed 
the weight of yor angells by th’once weight, w | fynde so lyght, that the protitt 
‘of th'ole ijt of them will ‘not am", to iiij angella, w" is to lytle paines to putt yo". 
say monney into the mynte and to tarry a monneth for the rctournc of the same 
Emonges other thinges 1 have moche uede of a smale pife and 
TOF Mt, Fayrey nor Antony White her sone T have as yet rect ‘no 
smoney; it agenst yer. coming Lio Lister. (a en) wilbe made redy a6 the 
Lathe lately promised me, and olso all the moaney that you can 

of hier walles at Calli. The sale of old wull here to clothyers, 

for the yeir, by cause that moost countres do shere shepe veray yerly 

< And so T have left of yo". th’ole serpler thar come last fr Mw, 
eee ats ces todde more of M’, Darveil's loade wherunts you aki 








=—— 


ay 
272 The Gentleman's Magasine. 


all yor, middell woll, The saya Mi*, T's wull Ss honnest fayre 
‘the same Mr, Haynes hacth shott by almoost a po’, w®. this next weke as 
tourne into the Iokke, suppasing that the wourst of it 90 toured wilbe shott for 


monney. fn case Tam asked anny, I will differ the mater (yf Teas) to 
yor. owne coming. News of th'agrement at the dyett you may dayly heare better 
then can hier, Howbeit the tale therof emonges us is but homely and so 
consequently many shrode tales runne abrode uppon the continuance of quietnes 
betwext th'emperor anus. “Trusting uherfore that you withe circumspect to gyve 
‘us no great credit for long tyme of the sale of yo'. wares to the subjects of that 
countre 5 for it is wisdom to be ware of evill by other men's Geers 
‘Vous estes bon et sage. ‘To my frend 8, Warner humble 
Jespoire q' ta m‘apporteree de ces noaveille. I pray you w' like pre 
clons to young M’. Apmeredith—desive the same to pag you ft oe i ende 
he remained my debitor. By the next I shall write you the certaintye thetof. 
And thus in moche haste I commytt you to the Lardes keping, 
Yor, loving brother, 
To my veray loving and OTweLt JouxsoxR. 
beloved frend John Johnson 
me', of the Stel, at John Meliarde 
howse in Calleis, 

It will once more be evident from the above letter how gisuy 
the stapler was hampered by bad debts and a depreciated standard 
of currency, The allusion to the mint regulations will be fully 
explained by reference to such a charter as that granted by Elizabeth 
to the East India Company and confirmed by her successor. 

‘The caution of the worthy merchant who will not interview the 
messenger Grant, who, as he supposes, “ cometh for money,” and 
who writes, his creditor even then waiting without, that in ease 
he is asked for any, he will “ differ the matter; ” his glee at turning 
an honest recardo by a little sharp practice ; and his occasional lapse 
into broken French (after the manner of Langland’s Ditcher or 
Chaucer's Prioress), to show his politeness, are eminently character 
istic of the person and the times, 

‘The next letter, written two years later, contains the earliest, 
perhaps the only existing, account of a most important step 
the Company in the path of reform, Their attitude as 
‘was evidently fast becoming intolerable to the increasing class of 
producers under an altered state of society. 

In fact, amongst the manufacturers at home and abroad a species: 
of wool-famine prevailed, and the stapler, placed between 
ligent and wealthy producer and a necessitous and 
Government, was in the position of an individual who’ 


T oe contract with the State, but is nevertheless: 











The English Staple. 273 


public opinion as to his manner of executing it. Such inconsistencies 
are as rare in the early history of our commerce as their occurrence 
is significant of the temper of the age in which they are found: 

At 47- The ix daye of Maye, at London, 

Cosyn Johnson, have me recommended unto you, ‘These shall be to adver- 
tyne you, that I percesve what lambes be beowght us home and how manny be 
tout, ling moche thereat, consyderinge George Graunte delivered them 
Just taill, ashe saith. And I perceave by Ambrose that Aerdes hath lost none, wher- 
fore I thincke the dryvers worthy to pay for them 5. T percesve the clothyera 
‘will do the best that they ean fo dysannul the proclamacyon for pullinge of felles. 
‘Wherfore the Companye at an assembly kept at M’. Mayors on Satturdaye Inst, 
prevented their fatentes as follow'., that is to saye—Wheras dyvees men of x 
dirye shyers where we have not bene accustomed to geather felley, have and do 
complayne singe that they cannot tell what to do w' their felles, for that no 
man doth aake for them. We have appoynted xij of the companye to ryde ta 
thous ahyers, and to note every man that hath felles, and what nomber ond theie 
pryses, and to buy them yf they can, w*. if any of them do, they shall take the 
preferment of thele bargaynes » and they that do not bargayne, shall have their 
charges home by the generality of the Companie, Wherfore I thincke y* good y'. 
ye talke w'. soche growers to staye their felles, and also to send as farr as the 
Uttermost part of yo". shyer where we have not been accustomed to by buy (se), 
aswell to the poure growers as the riche, wherby they shall have non occasyon 
‘to complain of us. 

In hast by yo", 

‘To his right trusty Axroxy CAVE, 

and lovinge frend, Jobn Johnson, 

Tn this same year another agent writes to the Culais partner to 
inform him of the difficulty he has experienced in buying canvas in 
Normandy, “for yt ys now very dear.” It should be remembered, 
with regard to this, that the cost of packing was estimated about this 
time at 12 per cent. of the gross value of wools shipped from England. 

In 1551, Ambrose Saunders,a brother-in-law of the Johnsons, writes. 
at great Jength upon the state of the company's affairs in England as 
affecting themselves. “I have gyven," he writes, “‘lysence to buy 4 
‘or soo toddes of the best parcells of wull that ys in the husbond- 
‘men their haunds in these quarters, whose pryses be 20, 21, 22, 23 
and 24s., s0 their wull be very good, and that he can geat a yeares 
daye payment, charging him not to take rott or cumber and to caste 
as moche refuse as he maye ; knowing hym to be a very skyllful 
man in this o" trade. My oncle Darrell will not sell his wull under 
xxvilis, to be paid at Michelmas. How beyt old angells will do moche 
—hopinge at my nexte comyng w', him to conclude for Angel di. the 
todd.” 

‘This satisfactory employment of old angels leads the writer to 
propound a more extensive scheme for avoiding the loss on the 
weight of gold called into the mint in the usual way. Wie'sas been, 
ot, Coty. NO. 1853. u C 





| 
274 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


offered 100 old angels in payment of a debt of £100, and this 
seeming bad bargain he begs permission to conclude, “accomptinge 
assuredly to put them out here in thes contrey for xxs, le pece and 
better or yt be longe. And yf I could practise yt, 1 wold have none 
other monney to paye here, for the paysants are so hungrye for them 
as I never knew the lyke.”* 

‘The stocking-hoard of a modern French peasantry has too often 
excited the wonder and merriment of our own thriftless nation ; but 
were we less ignorant of the records of our past, we should know 
from many a hundred of neglected inventories and inquisitions that 
the petty trader or peasant proprietor, with his store of “old gold,” 
had the means of drawing piecemeal within his grasp the plate, 
the stock, the lands in many a case, of the dissolute gentry of the 
sixteenth century. 

So much for the worldly cares of the staple merchant as recorded) 
in his own quaint characters, The remaining portion of the corre- 
spondence before us is concluded in a lighter strain, 

‘The following letter froma poor but respectable father to his 
son in the service of a wealthy and GodLfearing merchant, might 
stand for the historical prologue to the pious legend of the Good 
and Idle Apprentice, which has run through our literature in the 
hands of Ben Jonson, Chapman, Scott, and Ainsworth ; 
others. Also it might be remarked that the “force” of 
could “no further go” than in the kakography of this epistle :— 

Wylls, Tupholine, Teomende te unto you and T sende you my Ulysyng. And 
Tee teoer aon wt Gaaribare thee DN Dave resayved ; wherby T det 

ey’ yor. Mf and Mastris warre in good helthe nt the makyng thyrof— 

tials be unto God—and wher y*. you doo wryte me that you wyll be no more 
sluggyahe nor slowthful in wrytyng unto me and that you wylbe a new man ant 
onder yor selife other ways theyn you have don in times paste. T pray God gyffe 
you grace to be his servande ; and that you may aplye yo. selffe in all 
for to plese yo". M' and Mastrys, the sabe vole be apr Sonica 
ee you doo. Welle, it yathe chelfe care that Thaveinmymynde, wherfore 
yor selffe in all yor. masters besenes, that T may once have a i set nee 
‘Mr. (in yor pace) the wiche warre = gret plecer to me to hereof, For: 
sholde wynde my harte for ever, Hawghe! What a pllecer it ys for a mn 
for to ace his chylde goo forwarde to he prawed of his master! It ya: 
geet dele of rytches, Well! lett this matter passe; and yf theyr be ann 
amysse, lett it be amended for the luife of God. And theyn dowte nott 
{ye shall fynd me a naturatie father moto yeu, Amd \t shall algo'be m gret 
for yor. MF, for to putt you in tryste w parte of his Pepa 
not here after bud y'. he wyll, upoti yor, deserving. And Rel 
‘myste me for to by you a loye of wull, the wyche 1 fatend for to 
‘wt God's grace. It costs above viljs aston. And Esende yor 
4 T have identified these angels with the “Salax" coinel of fine g 
by Hensy V.. fa bis French dominions, ‘The Enyists ange\ was 


cs 

















The English Staple. 245 


my servande a cople of young cranes, dosyryng hym for to take theym in worth 
fora pore token, And thus fare you well, 
By yor. natural! father off yor. deserwyng 
‘The v* day of Sept 


543, Joux TurtoLse. 
To Wyile. Tupholme, Serrande 
wt Mi. John Johnson. 


‘The last letter which we shali notice is from Ambrose Saunders 
to John Johnson, and is chiefly taken up with a description of the 
prevalent epidemic. Pepys or Defoe could have penned nothing 
more realistic than the doom “yf—but one Paternoster-whyle," &c. 


‘The Lord Iyvith whore mercy endureth everlastingly. 
The 15 in July, a $. 

Tmedyately after fynyshing of my last, being of the 10 of this p™., wore 
shipfoll brother, yt pleasel Govt to stryke me w’. this new sweet, w®. 1 trust £ 
have yeat agean escaped, but in as great perill of death as ever man was— 
the Lord be thancked. Tam not able to followc o”, business to x0 good purpose 
ay Twold, being faynt and ia a wonderfull drynesse as yeat, but hope yt will 
awaye. YF yt please God to vysyt you or anny of yor. frends w* this swett, 
‘observe these ilj thinges and thincke their ys manner of daunger, Kyrst lett no 
Breathe of aysecomeunto yo". bedd. Drincke veray lyttell, and at no haund 
alepe net, For yf they be suffted to slepe, hy the apace of xij houres, but one 
Patersionter-whyle, death follow’, incontynent. 

The Fyving Lond contynu yer. helthe and my syster’s wall other o*. feendes ; 
and God blesse us all. 





Skerybied by yor. loving brother, 
Avmpnosn Sauxnnns, 

In concluding this sketch of the political and social history of 
the Merchant of the Staple, it is difficult to avoid the reflection, how 
much English history has lost from the want of a true system of 
monography. Cameos and episodes we have in plenty, but, built 
‘on no foundation of facts or even of probability, they are useless 
if not positively injurious to the student, History, as it is now pre- 
sented to ns, is a deductive and not an inductive science. It would 
seem, indeed, to consist chiefly in the re-editing by clerical graduates 
of the party chronicles of bygone scholiasts, Nothing weeded 
beneath the smiling surface of falschood ; nothing gleaned that shall 
fatten the harvest of truth. Now, science is built up of monographies. 
Even in the study of English literature we have some such works : 
in English history one only, and that scarcely yet half completed, 
the “ History of Agriculture and Prices in England.” 

Better such disjointed labours than the even progress by aroyal 
toad to learning of the modern sentimental historian, “authorising him- 
self for the most part upon other histories whose greatest authorities 
are built upon the tiotable foundation Hearesay, having much ado to 
‘gccord the different writers, and to picks truth out of yartiahiie” 


WUMEEE BALL 
ua 





f THE STORY OF A SEA-BEACH. 


BOUT a dozen years ago an enterprising company, taking 
advantage of the attention which the most charming of all 
Canon Kingsley’s novels had drawn to the country of Amyas Leigh 
and Salvation Yeo, determined on founding a new watering-place 
at Northam Burrows, on the shores of Bideford Bay. They called 
‘the modest hotel with which the scheme was initiated * Westward 
Ho,” and from its doors lovers of Kingsley soon began to explore 
the bepebbled footways and quaint dwellings of Appledore, where 
the name of Yco still survives, as much respected now as when Spain 
and England gripped each other by the throat three hundred years 
ago; or the disciples of muscular Christianity journeyed to Bideford — 
that survival of a seventeenth century seaport—the seat, in the days 
of the Stuarts, of a great Mediterrancan trade—among whose old- 
world streets and quays the very spirit of Kingsley’s Elizabethan epic 
seems to linger. 

Within a decade of its foundation Westward Ho became an 
important place, with a fine church, magnificent golf links, a capital 
club, and many charming private residences. It occupies the centre 
of Bideford, or Barnstaple, Bay, into which, a few miles cast of 
the town, the Taw and Torridge pour their united streams, while, 
facing their common outfall, lies Barnstaple Bar, outside whose 
shallows a picturesque fleet of red- and white-sailed craft waits daily 
on the tide, 

Between Westward Ho and the river's mouth lies the Northam 
Pebble Ridge, a narrow bank of shingle isolated from the adjacent 
coastline throughout its whole length of three miles. One side of 
this barrier-like beach is washed by the wayes of Bideford Bay, while, 
from its other flank, the grassy flats of Nertham Burrows stretch 
to the foot of the hills nearly a mile away. A thousand acres 
of pasture land lie snug behind this natural mole, which, as we 
shall presently sce, has itself been the means of reclaiming the land 
it now protects. It is a breakwater built one knows not how, of 
materials brought one knows not whence; a problem ees! 

which no one can sce without wishing, to solve, 


, nd | =| 





The Story of a Sea-Beach, 277 


I suppose that every one has either visited, or heard of, the 
“Chesil Bank,” that famous isthmus of shingle which joins the so- 
called island Of Portland to the mainland by a pebble-ridge nearly 
eleven miles Jong, washed on one side by the waves of the Channel, 
and on the other by the lake-like estuary of the Fleet river. Few 
people, however, know how much has been said and written about 
this, the most remarkable beach in the British Islands; or how 
widely distinguished men of science have differed as to its origin 
and history. 

The Chesil Bank was first noticed by Leland and Camden in the 
sixteenth century ; mentioned by Lambarde and Holinshed in the 
seventeenth century ; described by Lilly in the early part, and by 
Smeaton and Hutchins in the latter part, of the cighteenth century, 
while the transactions of various learned societies in our own day 
abound with papers on the subject. Yet the net result of an inquiry 
which has occupied the attention of many among our most dis- 
tinguished engineers and geologists has been to leave the origin of 
the Chesil Bank in the gravest doubt. 

Iris still uncertain whence the shingle of this beach is derived or 
in what direction it moves, Sir John Coode, for many years resident 
‘on the spot as engincer to the Portland Harbour Works, was led by 
a laborious investigation to the belief that the pebbles composing 
the bank are derived! from cliffs at Beer Head and Budleigh Salter- 
ton, many miles west of Portland, whence they are driven along- 
shore, before the prevailing wind-waves, until they reach the island, 
Mr. Prestwich and Sir George Airy, on the other hand, think that 
the shingle is derived from the ruins of a“ raised" beach, fragments 
of which, identical in composition with the pebble-ridge itself, are 
found at the Bill of Portland. 

If Sir John Coode is right, the shingle must travel, as he declares 
it does, from west to east ; while, if the late President of the Geolo- 
gical Society and quondam Astronomer Royal are correct, the beach 
moves in exactly the opposite direction. The question, interesting 
in itself, becomes doubly so from the nicely balanced weight of 
‘evidence which supports the rival theories of the great adversaries I 
have named ; but a plain man may turn from this battle-ground of 
‘experts to the Northam Pebble Ridge, about which little or nothing 
has been published, to find a problem identical in many respects 
with that of the Chesil Bank, but much more easy of solution, 

the rocks about Westward Ho are of soft clay-slate, 
the pebbles of the ridge consist almost exclusively of a close, 
grained carboniferous sandstone. They are ovordal in dhage aehoy, 





a 


278 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


from a few ounces to fifty pounds in weight, while their average 
length is from six to twelve inches, Beaches of similar stones 
line the coust west of Westward He ee 
eight miles away, where the carboniferous sandstone, from which 

the pebbles in question are evidently derived, occurs, ‘The shore 
is here strewn with large rhomboidal masses, which fall from the 
cliffs under the influence of the weather, and these, as they come 
within Senet Svea) are ee 
shore by the action of the waves, 

It is well known that shingle travels to leva of ayo 
that point of the compass whence the heaviest seas proceed. The 
exposure of Bideford Bay is towards the west and north-west, 
and the prevailing winds in the English Channel blow from 
the westward. A reference to the map will show that wind waves 
proceeding from any point of the compass between west and 
north-west, strike the coast in question at such an angle as to drive 
anything exposed to them in an easterly direction ; while it is only 
from these quarters that a heavy sea can roll into Bideford Bay. 
We accordingly find that every indentation between Clovelly and 
Westward Ho is filled with pebbles of carboniferous sandstone 
which are piled up high against the eastern wall of cach cove, and 
‘are water-worn in proportion to the distance they have travelled, 

It seems, at first sight, remarkable that these recesses in the ooast~ 
line, which are hollowed in cliffs of clay-slate, should contain scarcely 
any shingle of local origin, Stones, of course, are constantly falling 
from the softer as well as from the harder rocks; but the march 
‘of pebbles along a beach is a slow process, prolonged over many 
years, it may be, in the passage of any given pebble from Clovelly 
to the Taw. Sometimes the movement stops altogether, sometimes 
it ig reversed by exceptionally heavy easterly winds, but, meanwhile, 
the struggle for existence never ceases ; the soft shales are pounded 
It mid ele encountor wih tein Wn ea 
latter survive to reach the pebble-ridge. 

nou pra snd sow ak «at of ge 
actually flows eastward, along-shore, from the carboniferous elifis at 
and west of Clovelly, and we must next inquire why these pebbles 
conse to fringe with beaches the feet of the hills eastward of West- 
ward Ho, but stretch away thence to the outfall of the’ "Taw :tn’ the: 
form of an isolated embankment. 5 alle 

Itis seen at low tide that the ridge rests, throughout its whole 


The Story of a Sea-Beach, 279 


Plants of existing species. ‘This deposit is, indeed, one of those 

forests, So common on our western shores, from whose 
existence we infer that a subsidence of the land has occurred 
during recent geological times, or, in other words, since any im- 
portant change hax taken place in the fauna and flont of the British 
Islands. Some of the clay beds in question, now lying nearly at high- 
tide level, abound in semi-fossil shells of the genus Scrobicularia, 
grecent bivalve very commonly found living on muddy shores 
between tide-marks. ‘Their presence in this position affords positive 
evidence that the subsidence of which I have spoken was followed 
by @ re-emergence ; that this was of trifling extent, and formed the 
latest movement of land in the locality in question. 

‘This circunastance, however, determined the existence of the 
Northam Pebble Ridge. As the clay beds rose again from the 
shallow sea that had once overwhelmed the forest, they presented a 
barrier which, although low, was sufficient to arrest stones travelling 
along-shore under the influence of the prevailing waves, Previously 
to the re-emergence in question, the Taw and Torridge must have 
debouched at Westward Ho, the most advanced point of the then 
‘oast-line relatively to those rivers. As soon, however, as the forest 
beds showed themselves above water, the pebble-ridge began to grow 
Outward from this point, pushing the mouth of the river corre- 
spondingly to ‘the eastward, Meanwhile, the river itself flowed in 
behind the advancing dam of pebbles, forming a backwater, and 
depositing silt over an area which grew with the growth of the 
ridge. To the surface of the mudflats thus originated, every westerly 
or north-westerly gale added layers of sand blown from the seaward 
face of the beach ; and thus, in course of time, the backwater became 
dryland. As the ridge extended eastward, the flats followed, stretch- 
‘ing laterally, at the same time, towards the hills which once formed 
the coast-line, but which are now nearly a mile from the sea. 

‘That the Northam Burrows were reclaimed by these simple but 
surprising natural opcrations is a fact which is further evidenced by the 
contour and composition of the flats themselves, The theory advanced 
requires that the made ground in question should be older at West- 
ward Ho, where the reclamation began, than on the bank of the 
‘Taw, where it ends; and we find, in effect, that not only does the 
surface of the Burrows slope gently castward, but that the soil 
passes gmdually, in the same direction, from a formed vegetable 
mould at Westward Ho to incoherent sand on the banks of the ‘Taw. 

Abouta mile beyond Westward Ho the beach begins to diminish 
sensibly in mass, and tails off toa mere thread of yebbles before 


7 


SI 
280 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


reaching the bank of the river, on the other side of which nota 
stone appears. ‘This secms at first sight opposed to the notion that 
the ridge is a stream of stones travelling along-shore under the 
influence of the prevailing wind-waves. For, unless the shingle cast- 
ward of the point in question moves much more rapidly than that 
to the westward of it, the mass of the ridge ought to remain practically 
unchanged, it being, of course, impossible that stones which weigh 
half a hundredweight, after having travelled from Clovelly to Westward 
Ho, should be ground into sand in their three-mile course thence 
to the Taw. 

It has indeed been shown by Mr, Appleton, the designer of certain 
works for the protection of Northam Burrows against encroachments 
of the sea, that the shingle does travel faster at the eastern than at 
the western end of the beach, ‘This naturally results from the fact 
that the ridge follows a curving course, and is consequently more 
exposed in some parts than in others to the action of the prevailing 
wind-waves, Something more than this, however, is needed to 
account for the rapid dwindling of so massive a beach, as well a3 to 
explain why fresh stones are being constantly thrown up near 
Westward Ho, while the sea makes scarcely any additions to the 
ridge eastward of the point where its mass begins to diminish, 

‘The explanation is not far to seek. Before the mouth of every 
river there spreads a fan-shaped “ delta," composed of the detritus 
carried out to sea by the stream, and such a delta fringes the outfall 
of the Taw and Torridge with vast sandflats, which are uncovered at 
every ebb tide, Bearing this fuct in mind, let us consider what 
would happen to shingle rolling into the bay under the influence of a 
brisk westerly or north-westerly wind. 

It is well known that the impelling power of shallow-water waves 
is very small, while seas breaking in comparatively deep water 
exercise extraordinary transporting power. Such stones, therefore, 
as come ashore on the steeper portions of the Pebble Ridge, near 
Westward Ho, are soon thrown up on the beach ; while those which 
ground on the flats of the delta never reach the beach at all. ‘They 
become embedded in the sand about low-water mark, forming 
pavement of pebbles, which nuns parallel with the ridge itself, and. 
closely resembles the old-fashioned shingle sidewalks of Appledore, 
This floor is so smooth and weed- » that it evidently suffers 
little or no disturbance even during storms, but forms a sort of high 
road along which such stones as land wpon it are trundled to the 
fiver by waves of very moderate power. 

‘The point where the beach begins to decrease in mass coincides 


os 


5 The Story of a Sea-Beach. 281 


with the westward extension of the delta, and here the stream of 
shingle, whose course we have followed from Clovelly, may be said 
to fork. ‘The delta taps its supply of pebbles and carries part of 
them, by a submarine course, to the river. What remains of the 
stone-stream is drawn out, under the combined influences of wear 
and more rapid movement, into an ever-dwindling rivulet which, 
finally, falls into the Taw ; every stone that is discharged into the 
stream helping, slowly but surely, to push its mouth still farther to 
the eastward. 


D. PIDGEON, 


282 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


THE NEW ABELARD,. 
A ROMANCE, 


By Ronxrr Bucnanan, 
AUTHOR OF ‘TITE SILADOW OF TILE SWORD,” “GOD AND THE MAN,” FIG 


Cuarran XXOL 
FROM THE POST-BAG. 
L 

Sir George Craik, Bart, to Alma Craik. 
My par Niecg,—The receipt of your letter, dated Lucerne,” 
but bearing the postmark of Geneva, has at last relieved my 
mind from the weight of anxiety which was oppressing it, Thank 
Heaven you arc safe and well, and bear your suffering with 
Christian resignation. In a little time, I trust, you will have left this 
dark passage of your experience quite behind you, and retum to us 
looking and feeling like your old self, George, who now, aa 
shares my affectionate solicitude for you, joins me in expressing that 
wish. The poor boy is still sadly troubled at the remembrance of 
your misconception, and T sometimes think that his health is affected. 
Do, if you can, try to send him a line or a message, assuring him | 
‘that your unhappy misunderstanding is over. Believe me, his one 
thought in life is to secure your good esteem. 

There is no news—none, that is to say, of any importance. We 
haye kept our promise to you, and your secret is still quite safe in 
our keeping. The man to whom you owe all this misery is still here, 
and still, 1am informed, prostituting the pulpit to his vicious heresies. 

If report is to be believed, his utterances have of late been more 
extraordinary than ever, and he is rapidly losing influence over his 
‘own congregation. Sometimes 1 can scarcely conquer my indig- 
nation, knowing as I do that with one word I could effectually silence 
his blasphemy, and drive him beyond the pale of society, But, in 
erushing him, I should disgrace you and bring contempt upon our 
name; and these considerations, as well as my pledge to keep 
silence, make any kind of publicaction impossible, 


Tas herfore 





The New Abciard. 283 


wait patiently till the inevitable action of events, accelerated by an 
indignant Providence, destroys the destroyer of your peace, 

In the mean time, my dear Alma, let me express my concern and 
regret that you should be wandering from place to plice without a 
protector. I know your strength of mind, of course ; but you are 
young and handsome, and the world is censorious. Only say the 
word, and although business of a rather important nature occupies 
me in London, I will put it aside at any cost, and join you, In the 
absence of my dear brother, I am your natural guardian. While 
legally your own mistress, you are morally under my care, and I 
would make any sacrifice to be with you, especially at this critical 
moment of your life. 

I send this letter to the address you have given me at Lucerne. 
I hope it will reach you soon and safely, and that you will, on secing 
it, fallin with my suggestion that I should come to you without 
delay. 

With warmest love and sympathy, in which your cousin joins, 
believe me as ever, 





Your affectionate uncle, 
Gronce Cran. 


i. 
From Aima Craik te Sir George Crath, Bort, 





My pear Uncrtj—I have just received your letter. ‘Thank you 
for attending to my request. With regard to your suggestion that 
you should come to me, I know it is meant in all kindness, but as I 
told you before leaving London, I prefer at present to be quite alone, 
with the exception of my maid Hortense. I will let you know of 
my movements from time to time. = 
Your affectionate niece, 
Atma Craik, 


Tt, 
Alina Craik to the Rev, Ambrose Bradley. 


Your letter, together with one from my uncle, found me at 
Lucerne, and brought me at once grief and comfort : grief, that you 
still reproach yourself over what was inevitable ; comfort, that you 
are, as you assure me, still endeavouring to pursue your religious 
work, Pray, pray, do not write to mein such a strain again. You 
have neither wrecked my life nor broken my heart, as you blame 
yourself for doing; I learned long ago from our Diving Exawghe 


284 The Gentleman's Magazine. 
that the world is one of sorrow, and I am realising the truth in my 
own experience, that is all 

You ask me how and where I have spent my days, and whether 
T have at present any fixed destination. I have been wandering, so 
to spexk, among the gravestones of the Catholic Church, visiting not 
oly the great shrines amd cathedrals, but lingering in every obscure 
roadside chapel, and halting at every Calvary, in southem and 
westem France, Thence I have come om to Switzerland, where 
religion grows drearicr, and life grows dismaller, in the shadow of 
the mountains. In a few days I shall follow in your own footsteps, 
and go on to Italy—to Rome. 

Write to me when you feel impelled to write. You shall be 
apprised of my whereabouts from time to time. 

‘Yours now as ever, 
AtMA. 

P.S—When I sat down to write the above, E thought I had so. 
much to say to you; and I have said nothing! Something numbs 
expression, though my thoughts seem full to overflowing. I am 
like one who longs to speak, yet fears to utter a syllable, lest her 
voice should be clothed with tears and sobs. God helpme! All 
the world is changed, and I can hardly realise it all, yet! 


Iv. 
Ambrose Bradley to Alma Craik. 

Deaursr Ataa,—You tell me in your letter that you have said 
nothing of the thoughts that struggle within you for utterance ; alas! 
your words are only too eloquent, less in what they say than in what 
they leave unsaid. If I required any reminder of the mischief T 

shave wrought, of the beautiful dream that I have destroyed, it would 
come to me in the pathetic reticence of the letter I have just received. 
Would to God that you had never known me! Would to God that, 
having known me, you would have despised me as I deserved! 1 
was unworthy even to touch the hem of your garment. J am like a 
wretch who has profaned the altar of a saint. Your patience and 
~ devotion are an eternal rebuke, I could bear your bitter blame ; 
T cannot bear your forgiveness. 

Tam here as you left me; a guilty, conscience-stricken creature: 
struggling in a world of nightmares. Nothing now seems substantial, 
permanent, or true, Every time that I stand up before my congre- 
tion Lam like a shadow addressing shadows; thought and language 
both fail me, and 1 know not what platitudes flow from my lips; but 


— - : 





The New Abclard. 285 


when I am left alone again, I awaken as from a dream to the horrible 
reality of my guilt and my despair. 

T have thought it all over again and again, trying to discover 
some course by which I might bring succour to myself and peace to 
her I love ; and whichever way I look, I see but one path of escape, 
the rayless descent of death, For, so long as I live, I darken your 
sunshine, My very existence is a reminder to you of what Iam, of 
what I might have been, 

Bat there, 1 will not pain you with my penitence, and I will 
hush my self-reproaches in deference to your desire. ‘Though the 
staff you placed in my hand has become a reed, and though I seem 
to have no longer any foothold on the solid ground of life, I will try to 
struggle on. 

T dare not ask you to write to me—it seems an outrage to beg for 
sacha blessing ; yet I know that you zit? pity me, and write again. 

Ever yours, 
Avprose BRADLEY. 


Char XXUI 


ALMA'S WANDERINGS, 





Seoff not at Rome, oF if thon seoff howare 
Her vengeance waiting in the heaven and ait ; 
lee love is blessing, and her hate, despair. 
Vet see! how low the hoary mother lien, 
Prone on her face beneath the lonely shics— 
Oa her hese ashes, dust pon her eyes. 
Men smile and pass, Lat many pitying, stand, 
And some stoop down to kiss her withered hand 
Whose sceptre is a reed, whore crown is sand, 
‘Think’st then no pulse beats in that Younteous breast 
Which once sent throbs of rapture east and west ? 
Nay, but she liveth, mighty tho" oppeest. 
Tlerarm cauild reach 23 tow as hell, 2a high 
‘As the white mountains and the starry sky ; 
She filled the empty heavens with her c1y. 
Wait but a space, and waich—her trance of pain 
‘Shall dry sway—her tears shall cease 28 xxin— 
‘Queen of the ations, she shall smile again! 
‘Tim Lanner of Str, Avaustrse. 


Beaprey’s letter was forwarded from Lucerne after some little 
delay, andreached Miss Craik at Brique, just as she was preparing 





286 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


proceed by private conveyance to Domo d'Ossola, She had taken the 
‘eartiage and pair for herself and her maid, 2 bie Mare 
and as the vehicle rounded its zigzag course 

speed the ie te tel ead are est 
every word by heart. 

TTueo, vis tha Teter pt ka et bas aad 
vacantly, around her on the gloomy forests and distant hills, the 
precipices spanned by acrial bridges, the quaint villages clinging like 
birds’-nests here and there, the dark vistas of mountain-side gashed by 
torrents frozen by distance to dazzling white. 

Dreary beyond measure, though the skies were blue and the air 
full of golden sunlight, seemed the wonderful scene — 


We make the world we look on, and create 


‘The summer of the winter with our seeing t 
‘ 


And cold and wintry indeed was all that Alma beheld that summer 
day. 

Not even the glorious panorama unfolded beneath her gaze on 
jwssing the Second Refuge had any charms to please her saddened 
sight. Leaving the lovely valley of the Rhone, sparkling in sunlight, 
encireled by the snow-crowned Alps, with the Jungfrau towering 
paramount, crowned with glittering icy splendour and resting against 
heaven of deep insufferable blue, she passed through avenues of 
larch and fir, over dizsy bridges, past the lovely glacier of the 
Kaltwasser, till she reached the high ascent of the Fifth Refuge, 

Here the coarse spirit of the age arose before her, in the shape of 
‘a party of Roglish and American tourists crowding the diligence and 
descending noisily for refreshment, 

A little later she passed the barrier toll, and came in sight of 
the Crossof "Vantage. She arrested the carriage, and descended for 
‘a fow minutes, standing as it were suspended in mid air, in full view 
of gl upon glacier, closed in by the mighty chain of the Bernese 
Al 

PNeest had she felt so utterly solitary. The beautiful world, the 
‘empty sky, swam before her in all the loveliness of desolation, and, 
iurolng ber face towards Aletsch, she wept bit 

As she stood thus, she was suddenly conscious of another igure 
standing near to her, as if in rapt contemplation of the solemn scene, 
It way that of a middle-aged man, rather above the middle 
‘Who earried’a small, knapsack on his (shoulders and leant 

Alpine staff, She siw only his side face, and his 
F enough, his form had an alr of | 







The New Abelard. 287 


fulness, and the moment she was conscious of his presence he turned 
and smiled, and raised his hat. She noticed then that his sunburnt 
face was clean shaver), like that of # priest, and that his eyes were 
black and piercing, though remarkably good-humoured. 

“ Pardon, Madame,” he said in French, “but I think we have 
met before.” 

She had tured away her head to hide her tears from the 
stranger's gaze. Without waiting for her answer, he proceeded. 

“Tn the hotel at Brique, I was staying there when Madame 
arrived, and T left at daybreak this morning to cross the Pass on 
foot." 

By this time she had mastered her agitation, and could regard 
the steanger with a certain self-possession. His face, though not 
handsome, was mobile and expressive ; the eyebrows were black and 
prominent. the forchead was high, the mouth large and well cut, with 
glittering white teeth. It was difficult to tell the man's age; for 
though his countenance was so fresh that it looked quite young, 
his forehead and checks, in repose, showed strongly-marked lines 
and though his form seemed strong and agile, he stooped greatly at 
the shoulders. To complete the contradiction, his hair was as white 
as snow, 

What mark is it that Rome puts upon her servants, that we seem 
to know them under almost any habit or disguise? Onc glance con- 
yinced Alma that the stranger either belonged to some of the holy 
orders, or was a lay priest of the Romish Church, 

“1 do not remember to have seen you before, Monsieur,” she 
replied, also in French, with a certain hauteur. 

‘The stranger smiled again, and bowed apologetically. 

Perhaps I was wrong to address Madame without a more formal 
introduction, 1 know that in England it is not the custom, But 
here, on the mountain, far away from the conventions of the world, 
it would be strange, would it not, to meet in silence? We are like 
two souls that encounter on pilgrimage, both looking wearily towards 
the Celestial Gate," 

* Are you 2 priest, Monsicur?” asked Alma abruptly, 

'The stranger bowed again. 

“A poor member of the Church, the Abbé Brest. I am journey- 
ing on foot through the Simplon to the Lago Maggiore, and thence, 
with God's blessing, to Milan. But I shall rest yonder, at the New 
Hospice, to-night." 

And he pointed across the mountain towards the refuge of the 
monks of St. Bernard, close to the region of perpetual snow. “The 





al 
288 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


‘tall Ggure of an Heeyrenptepeeoetsr ia 
‘road was visible ; and from the refectory within came 
‘ofa bell, mingled from time to time with the deep | 

“ The monks receive travellers still?" asked Alena. oe 
the Hospice is rapidly becoming, like its compeers, nothing more or 
Jess than a big hotel?” 

“ Madame——" 


“ Please do not call me Madame. Tam unmarried." 

She spoke almost without reflection, and it was not until she had 
‘uttered the words that their significance dawned upon her, Her face 
became crimson with sudden shame. 

At was characteristic of the stranger that he noticed the change in 
‘4 moment, but that, immediately on doing so, he turned away his eyes 
and seemed deeply interested in the distant prospect, while he 


“ Thave again to ask your pardon for my stupidity. Mademoiselle, 
of course, is English?” 

“Yes, 

“ And is therefore, perhaps, a little prejudiced against those who, 
like the good monks of the Hospice, shut themselves from all human 
companionship, save that of the wayfarers whom they live to save 
and shelter? Yet, believe me, it is a life of sacred service! Even 
here, among the loncly snows, reaches the arm of the Holy Mother, 
to plant this cross by the wayside, as a symbol of her heavenly inspi- 
ration, and to build that holy resting-place as a haven for those who 
are weary and would rest.” 

‘He spoke with the same soft insinuating smile as before, but his 
eye kindled, and his pale face flushed with enthusiasm, Alma, who 
hd turned towards the carriage which stood awaiting her, looked at 
him with new interest. Something in his words chimed in with a 
secret longing of her heart. 

“ T have been taught to believe, Monsieur, that your faith is prac- 
tically dead. Everywhere we see, instead of its living temples, only 
the ruins of its old power. If exists stil, it is only in places 
wich as this, in company with loneliness and death.” 

% Ah, but Mademoiselle is mistaken 1" retuned the other, follow- 
ing by her side as she walked slowly towards the carriage, “ Had 
you seen what I have seen, if you knew what I knew, of the great 
‘Quiholic reaction, you would think differently, Other 

ier and more ambitious, have displaced cure Soe Si 





The New Abelard. 289 


ereeds done for humanity? Believe me, little or nothing, In times 
of despair and doubt, the world will again turn to its first Comforter, 
the ever-patient and ever-loving Church of Christ.” 

‘They had by this time reached the carriage door. The stranger 
bowed again and assisted Alma to her scat, Then he raised his hat 
with profound respect in sign of farewell. ‘Ihe coachman was about 
to drive on when Alma signed for him to delay. 

“Tam on my way to Domo d’Ossola,” she said. “A seat in my 
carriage is at your service if you would prefer going on to remaining 
at the Hospice for the night.” 

“ Mademoiselle, it is too much! T could not think of obtruding 
myself upon you! T, a stranger!" 

Vet he seemed to look longingly at the comfortable seat in the 
vehicle, and to require little more pressing to accept the offer. 

“Pray do not hesitate,” said Alma, smiling, “unless you prefer 
the company of the monks of the mountain,” 

“ After that, I can hesitate no longer," returned the Abbé, looking 
radiant with delight; and he forthwith entered the vehicle and placed 
himself by Alina’s side. 

‘Thus it came to pass that my heroine descended the Pass of the 
Simplon in company with her new acquaintance, an avowed member 
‘of a Church for which she had felt very little sympathy until that 
hour. To do him justice, I must record the fact that she found 
him a most interesting companion. His knowledge of the world was 
extensive, his learning little short of profound, his manners were 
charming. He knew every inch of the way, and pointed out the 
objects of interest, digressing lightly into the topics they awakened. 
At every turn the prospect brightened. Leaving the wild and barren 
slopes behind them, the travellers passed through emerald pasturages, 
and through reaches of foliage broken by sounding torrents, and at 
last emerging from the great valley, and crossing the bridge of 
Crevola, they found themselves surrounded on every side by vine- 
yards, orchards, and green meadows, When the carriage drew up 
before the door of the hotel at Domo d’Ossola, Alma felt that the 
time had pasted asif under enchantment. Although she had spoken 
very little, she had quite consciously informed her new friend of three 
facts—that she was a wealthy young Englishwoman travelling through 
Europe at her own free will; that she had undergone an unhappy 
experience, involving, doubtless, some person of the opposite sex ; 
and that, in despair of comfort from creeds colder and less forgiving, 
she was just in a fit state of mind to seek refuge in the bosom of the 
‘Church of Rome. 

VOL. CCLY. NO. 1833. x 


le q| 





The New Abelard. ~ 2g 


like the old anchorites and penitents, to seek some desert place and 
yield her life to God. 

Tn this mood of mind she turned for solace to religion, and found 
how useless for all practical purposes was her creed of beautifal ideas. 
Her Gaith in Christian facts had been shaken if not destroyed; the 
Christian myth had the vagueness and strangeness of a dream ; yet, 
true to her old instincts, she haunted the temples of the Church, and 
felt like one wandering through a great graveyard of the dead. 

‘Travelling quite alone, for her maid was in no sense of the words 
a confidante of a companion, she coald not fail to awaken curious 
interest ia many with whom she was thrown into passing contact. 
Her extraordinary personal beauty was heightened rather that) obs 
scured by her singularity of dress; for though she wore no weddings 
ring, she dressed in black like a widow, and had the manners as well 
as the attire of a person profoundly mourning. At the ‘hotels she 
invariably engiged private apartments, seldom or never descending 
to the public rooms, or joining in the tables-d"héte. The general 
impression concerning her was that she was an eccentric young 
Englishwoman of great wealth, recently bereaved of some person 
very near and dear to her, possibly her husband. 

Thus she lived in seclusion, resisting all friendly advances, whether 
on the part of forcigners or of her own countrymen; and her 
acquaintance with the Abbé Brest would never have passed beyond 
a few casual courtesies had it_not begun under circumstances so 
peculiar aid in a place so solitary, or had the man himself been 
anything but a member of the mysterious Mother Church. But the 
woman's spirit was pining for some kind of guidance, and: the 
magnetic name of Rome had already awakened in it a melancholy 
fascination, The strange priest attracted her, firstly, by his eloquent 
personality, secondly, by the authority he seemed to derive from a 
power still pretending to achieve miracles: ani though in her heart 
she despised the pretensions and loathed the dogmas of his Chutch, 
she ‘felt in his presence the sympathy ofa prescient mind: For the 
Test, any companionship, if intellectual, was better than utter social 
isolation. 

So the meeting on the tower of the Duomo led to other meetings, 
‘The Abbé became her constant companion, and her guide through 
all the many temples of the queenly city. 


292 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


Cuarrer XXIV. 

GLIMPSES CF THE UNSEEN. 

‘Thee earch bas bubbles as the water hath, 
Asi chese are of them ! 
Macbeth. 

‘Wen che worn be bad so cruelly deceived and wronged was 
weapieig fom Gey 10 city, and trying in vain to find rest and 
consiuckm, Ambcore Bradiey remained at the post where she had 
Yok Simm Se oR selancholy soul beneath the sun. All his 
Yugeumes: i= bos work being gone, his ministration lost the fervour 

ry Ser chaz had at Erst been its dominant attraction. 

‘Se George Sa! nxt exaggerated when he said that the clergyman’s 
Back was exaky Eas away from him. New lights were arising ; 
wow schyaons whims and oddities were attracting the restiess spirits 
ag che mewcpuis. A thought-reading charlatan from the New 
Ws. a jescpo! physioweist proving the oneness of the sympathetic 
ene wt pool ght. a maniacal non-jurist asserting the 
qrenngacive of afirmation at the bar of the House of Commons, 
Qocmme cok a simecays wonder. The utterances of the new 
PUES. Were DATA, oe Ssregarded as flatulent and unprofitable ; 
‘epi Aaedros: Scaiey Sten’ bis eccupation gone. 

Sec sl Ss ke cared Extle or nothing. He was too lost in 

semicon sf 3s owe moral misery. All his thought and prayer 
wang 2 csage Fear be tried various distractions—the theatre, 
aoe cwaaupig, week presincial theory of edification grafted on the 

qos ¢ WHE LAC cece been a tree of literature. He was 
Se Sects sai miserable, when, one morning, he received the 


meeE ESS + Monmouth Crescent, Bayswater. 
oy peek SR WEL you Fermit me to remind you, by means of 
were. eCax aves wf ntruluction presented recently by me to you, 
eee Sa gat Seed — aml — in America? My sister gives 
sok weeny cover cventag. and several notabilities of the scientific 
ae yak; Mave proenbsnd tobe present. If you will honour us 
ak eres eat, Labeck you will be able to form a disinterested 
wk wee na aweasee of the ew biology, as manifestations of 
eigen Went anc content expected. With kind regards, in 
ey eoe wees Ean test faithfully yours, 
Rs SS “SALEM MAPLELEAFE, 
“Solar Biologist. 
comamences at five o'clock, in this domicile,” 











The New Abelard. 293 


Bradley's first impulse was to throw the letter aside, and td Write 
a curt but polite refusal, On reflection, however, he saw in the’ 
posed s¢ance a means of temporary distraction. Besides, the 
the mysterious photograph had left him not a little curious as td the 
machinery used by the brother and sister—arcades améo, or impostors 
both, he was certain—to gull an undiscerning public, bd § 

Ata little before five on the following evening, therefore, he 
presented himself at the door of the house in Monmouth Cresceéit, 
sent up his card, and was almost immediately shown into the 
drawing-room. ‘To his surprise he found no one there, but he had 
scarcely glanced round the apartment when the door opened, and & 
slight sylph-like figure, clad in white, appeared before him. 

At a glance he recognised the face he had seen on the fading 
photograph. 

“ How do you do, Mr, Bradley?” said Eustasia, holding out a 
thin transparent hand, and fixing her light eyes upon his face. 

“T received your brother's invitation,” he replied rather awk- 
wardly. “Iam afraid I ama little before my time.” 

“ Well, you're the first to arrive, Salem's up-stairs washing, and 
will be down directly. He's real pleased to know you've come.” 

She flitted lightly across the room, and sat down close to the 
window. She looked white and worn, and all the life of her frame 
seemed concentrated in her extraordinary eyes, which she fixed upon 
the visitor with a steadiness calculated to discompose a timid man. 

“Won't you sit down, Mr. Bradley?” she said, repeating the 
name with a curious familiarity. 

“You seem to know me well,” he replicd, seating himself, 
“though I do not think we have ever met." 

“Oh, yes, we have ; leastways, I've often heard you preach. I 
knew a man once in the States who was the very image of you. He's 
dead now, he is," 

Her voice, with its strong foreign inflexion, rang so strangely and 
Plaintively on the last words, that Bradley was startled. He looked 
at the girl more closely, and was struck by her unearthly beauty» 
contrasting so oddly with her matter-of-fact, offhand manner, 

“Your brother tells me that you are a sybil,” he said, drawing 
his chair nearer, “1am afraid, Mist Mapleleafe, you will find me a 
disturbing influence. I have about as much faith in solar biology, 
‘spiritualism, spiritagency, or whatever you like to call it, as I have 
in—well, Mumbo-Jumbo,” 

Her eyes still looked brightly into his, and her wan face was lit 
up with a curious sinile. 


my arm to the table. The very man that was ! 
"And lifting her arm to her lips she Kissed 
ured, of crooned, to herself as she had. 





‘cont 
"1 presume you are what is called a clairvoyante, That, if 
course, I can understand, ut do you enya AER 
manifestations ?” 


zie ws nth sir 
the room, supplied an answer, 

“ Certainly not, sir, The slice ose Sea 

cate, but to destroy, supernaturslism. You mean 1a, 









which is quite another thing. - ~<a! 
ound wean erento = 
Beyond the infinite celestial =~ 
a Ee ireapem te 
*) ‘But in the moonlight and the stellar ray, — 


That's how the great Bard puts it ina nutshell Other lin 

See tes nhs lis oat ot ox bayeed Near aete 

solid universe to the remotest point in space.” 
Concluding with this flourish, Professor Map 


Peoapemesaniace snk Soe Ties aCe 


How do you feel, Eustasia?” he continued with so 
addressing his sister. “ Do you feel as if the a 
noon was properly conditioned ?” 





The New Abelard. 205 


= {¥es, Salem,.1 think so.” 

‘The Professor looked at his watch, and simultancously there came 
a loud rapping at the door. Presently three persons entered, a tall, 
powerfullooking man, who was introduced as Doctor Kendall, and 
twovelderly gentlemen ; then a minute later, a little gray-haired man, 
the well-known Sir James Beaton, a famous physician of Edinburgh, 
‘The party was. completed by Mrs. Prozzi Smith, the landlady of the 
house, who came up dressed in black silk, and wearing a widow's 
ap. 

" Now, then, ladies and gentlemen," said the little Professor, 
glibly, “we shall, with your permission, begin in the usual manner, by 
darkening the chamber and forming an ordinary circle, I warn you, 
however, that this is trivial, and in the manner of professional 
mediums As the s¢ance advances, and the power deepens, we shall 
doubtless be lifted to higher ground.” 

So saying he drew the heavy curtains of the window, leaving the 
room in semi-darkness. ‘hen the party sat down around a small 
circular table, and touched hands ; Bradley sitting opposite Eustasia, 
who had Dr. Kendall on her right, and Sir James Beaton on her 
left. The usual manifestations followed. The table rose bodily into 
the air, bells were rung, tiny sparkles of light flashed about the 
room. 

‘This lasted about a quarter of an hour, at the end of which time 
Mapleleafe broke the circle, and drawing back a curtain, admitted 
the light into the room. It was then discovered that Eustasia, sitting 
in her place, with her hands resting upon the table, was ina state of 
mesmeric trance ; and ghastly and sibylline indeed she looked, with 
her great eyes wide open, her golden hair fallen on her shoulders, 
her face shining as if mysteriously anointed, 

“ Eustasia |” said the Professor softly, 

‘The girl remained motionless, and did not seem to hear. 

“ Eustasia!" he repeated. 

This time her lips moved, and a voice, that seemed shriller and 
clearer than her own, replicd »— 

* Eustasia is not here. I am Sim.” 

“ Who is Sira?” 

“A spirit of the third magnitude, from the region of the moon.” 
A titter ran round the company, and Sir James Beaton essayed a 





joke. 
© A human spirit—we shall not, I hope, be de /umatico inguii 
“ Hush, sir!” cried the Professor ; then he continued, addressing 


el 
296 The Gentleman's Magasine. 
sion its Tet ke a 


“ T cannot tell,” was the reply. 

“ Do you sec anything, Sira ?” 

“I see faint forms ficating on the sunbeam. They come and go, 
they change and fade. One is like a child, with its hand full of 
flowers. ‘They are lilies—O, I can see no more. Tam blind. There 
is too much light.” 

‘The Professor drew the curtain, darkening the chamber. He 
then sat down in his place at the table, and requested all present to 
‘touch hands once more. 

So far, Bradicy had looked on with impatience, not unmingled 
with disgust. What he saw and heard was exactly what he had 
heard described a hundred times. 

With the darkening of the room, the manifestations recommenced. 
‘The table moved about like a thing possessed, the very floor seemed 
to tremble and upheave, the bells rang, the lights flashed. 

‘Then all at once Bnudley became aware of'a strange sound, as if 
the whole room were full of life. 

“* Keep still!" said the Professor. “Do not break the chain. 
Wait!” 

A long silence followed ; then the strange sound was heard 


again. 

“ Are you there, my friend?" asked the Professor. 

‘There was no reply. 

“ Are the conditions right?” 

He was answered by a cry from the medium, ¢o wild and strange 
that all present were startled and awed. 

“See! see!” 

“ What is it, Sira?” demanded the Professor. 

“ Shapes like angels, carrying one that looks like a corpse. They 
are singing—do you not hear them? Now they are touching me— 
they are passing their hands over my hair. I see my mother; she 
is weeping and bending over me. Mother ! mother!” 

Simultaneously, Bradley himself appeared conscious of glimpses like 
human faces ashing and fading. In spite of his scepticism, a deep 
dread, which was shared more or less by all present, fell upon him, 
‘Then all at once he became aware of something like a living form, 
clad in robes of dazzling whiteness, passing by him. An icy cold 
hand was pressed to his forehead, leaving a clammy damp like dew. 

“Tsce a shape of some kind,” he cried. “Does anyone else 
perceive it?” = 


The New Abelard. 297 


“Ves! yes! yes" came from several voices. 

“Tt is the spirit of 2 woman,” murmured the medium, 

“Do you know her?” added the Professor. 

“No; she belongs to the living world, not to the dead. I sce 
far away, somewhere on this planet, a beautiful lady lying asleep ; 
she seems full of sorrow, her pillow is wet with tears. This is the 
lady’s spirit, brought hither by the magnetic influence of one she 
loves.” 

“Can you describe her to us more closely?” 

“Yes She has dark hair, and splendid dark eyes; she is tall 
and lovely. The lady and the spirit are alike, the counterpart of 
each other,” 

Once more Bradley was conscious of the white form standing 
near him ; he reached out his hands to touch it, but it immediately 
vyanished, 

At the same moment he felt a touch like breath upon his face, 
and heard a soft musical voice murmuring in his ear— 

“Ambrose! beloved!" 

He started in wonder, for the voice seemed that of Alma Craik. 

“Be good enough not to break the chain!” said Mrs, Prozzi 
Smith, who occupied the chair at his side. 

Trembling violently, he returned his hands to their place, touching 
those of his immediate neighbours on either side. The instant he 
did so, he heard the voice again, and felt the touch like breath. 

“ Ambrose, do you know me?" 

“Who is speaking?” he demanded. 

A hand soft as velvet and cold as ice was passed over his hair. 

“Tt is I, dearest!” said the voice, “Tris Aéma/” 

“ What brings you here?" he murmured, almost inaudibly. 

J knew you were in sorrow ;—I came to bring you comfort, and 
to assure you of my forgiveness.” 

‘The words were spoken in a low, just audible voice, close to his 
ear, and it is doubiful if they were heard by any other member of 
the company. In the mean time the more commonplace mani- 
festations still continued ; the room was full of “strange sounds, bells 
ringing, knocking, shufiting of invisible feet. 

Bradley was startled beyond measure. Either her supernatural 

was close by him, or he was the victim of some cruel trick. 
Before he could speak again, he felt the pressure of cold lips on his 
forehead, and the same strange voice murmuring farewell. 

Wild with excitement, not unmingled with suspicion, he again 
broke the chain and sprang to his feet. “There was a dvary exy ow, 





298 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


the medium, as he spring to the window and drew back the-curtain, 
Jetting in the daylight’ But the act discovered nothing. All the 
members of the circle, save himself, were sitting in their places. 
Eustasia, the medium, was calmly leaning back in her chair, Ina 
moment, however, she started, put her hand quickly to her forehead 
as if in pain, and seemed to emerge from her trance, 

“Salem,” she cried in her own natal oie, “has anything 
happened ?"” 

“ Mr. Bradley has broken the conditions, that's all,” returned. the 
Professor, with an air of offended dignity. “I do protest, ladies 
and gentlemen, against that interruption. It has brought. a most 
interesting séance to a violent close,” 

‘There was a general murmur from the company, and dissatisfied 
glances were cast at the offender, 

“I am very sorry,” said the clergyman, “TI yielded to an ime 
sistible influence.” 

“The spirits won't be trifled with, sir, ' cried Mapleleafe, 

“Certainly not,” said one of the elderly gentlemen. “Solemn 
myeteries like these should be approached in a fair and a— 
hum—a respectful spirit. For my own part, I am quite satisfied 
with what I have seen, It convinces me of—hum—the reality of 
these phenomena.” 

‘The other elderly gentleman concurred. Dr. Kendall and Siz 
James, who had been comparing notes, said that they would reserve 
their final judgment until they had been present at another sfance, 
In the mean time they would go so far as to say that what they had 
witnessed was very extraordinary indeed. 

“How are you now, Eustasia?” said the Professor, addressing 
his sister, 

“My head aches, I feel as if I had been standing for hours in 
a burning sun, When you called me back T was dreaming so 
strangely, I thought I was in some celestial place, walking hand in 
hand with the Lord Jesus.” 

Bradley looked at the speaker's face. It looked full of elfin or 
witch-like rather thah angelic light. Their eyes met, and Eustasia 
gave a curious smile, 

* Will you come again, Mr, Bradley?” 

“T don't know. Perhaps ; that is to say, if you will permit me.” 

“T do think, sis," interrupted the Professor, “that you haye given 
offence to the celestial intelligences, and I am_ not inclined to admit 
you to our circle again,” v 

Several voices murmured approval, — 


= as = 


The New Abelard. 299 


“You are wrong, brother,” cried Eustasia, “you are quite 
» 

“What do you mean, Eustasia?" 

“I mean that Mr. Bradley is a medium himself, and a particular 
favourite with spirits of the first order.” 

The Professor secmed to reflect. 

“ Well, if that’s so (and yew ought to know), it’s another matter, 
But he'll have to promise not to break the conditions. It ain’t fair 
to the spirits ; it ain’t fair to his fellow-inquirers.” 

‘One by one the company departed, but Bradley still lingered, as 
if he had something’ still to hear or say. At last, when the last 
visitor had gone, and Mrs. Prozzi Smith had grimly stalked away 
to continue her duties in the basement of the house, he found himself 
alone with the brother and sister. 

He stood hesitating, hat in hand. 

“ May Task you a few questions?” he said, addressing Eustasia, 

“Why, certainly,” she replied. 

“ While you were in the state of trance did you see or hear any: 
thing that took place in this room?” 

Eustasia shook her head. 

“Do you know anything whatever of my private life?” 

‘1 guess not, except what I've read in the papers.” 

“Do you know a lady named Craik, who is one of the members 
of my congregation 2" 

‘The answer come in another shake of the head, and a blank 
look expressing entire ignorance, Either Eustosia knew nothing 
whatever, or she was a most accomplished actress. Purzled and 
amazed, yet still suspecting fraud of some kind, Bradley took his 
Teave, 


(> be comtinwal.) 


300 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


SCIENCE NOTES. 


Tae “ Buxpwors." a 


N one of my notes in the number for last December on # A 
Persecuted Fellow-Creature,” I endeavoured to refute the 

popular errors that prevail concerning this gentle animal In “The 
County Gentleman * Mr, Grant Allen has described it with his usual 
graphic power of literary detineation ; but even here a few errors are 
introduced, not, of course, the gross popular notions that have led 
to the cruel persecution I described, but others usually perpetrated 
by “eminent naturalists," and copied from book to book without 
experimental verification, 

Mr. Allen says that the blindworm “is the me ffus xlfra of utter 
indolence,—the only animal on carth that will not bestir himself even 
for the sake of his dinner,” and attributes this to his having been 
“specially developed to feed upon slugs” And further that “if the 
blindworm had to feed upon beetles, or even upon earthworms, now, 
it would be quite a different mattcr; he would have to stir his 
stumps, or his substitute for those non-existing members, in order to 
catch up with his retreating prey. But the slug makes no effort 
whatever to escape from his captor’s hooked fangs.” 

My observations contradict all these statements, ‘The two speci 
mens that lived in my study from July 188r to May 1883 were lithe 
and active. Each made his special burrow in the soil of the vivarium. 
‘They were rarcly visible during the first six months of their captivity 
—then only by thrusting forth their heads, which they drew back 
with considerable alacrity whenever I approached them. During 
this time ticy fed exclusively on earthworms, and 1 tamed them by 
holding earthworms at the opening of their retreats, which 
they came forth and seized, not sluggishly by any means, but with 
the usual darting mouth-grasp of reptiles. Unlike snakes, which 
only take food at very long intervals, my blindworms fed daily in 
‘summer time, when supplied with moderate meals. 

Afterwards I tried white slugs, and found thent preferred, but the — 
feeding on slugs is no such lazy business as Mr. Allen supposes 





Science Notes. 301 


‘The blindworm darts open-mouthed at his prey, and usually seizes 
it crosswise, but cannot thus swallow it The slug elongates itself 
and struggles violently, frequently covering the face and both of the 
bright sharp eyes of the misnamed “ blind" worm with its slime. 
After a vigorous struggle, commonly of ten or fifteen minutes’ dura 
tion, the slug is manceuvred into a longitudinal position, head or 
tail forwards, in a line of the blindworm's throat, and is then 
Icisurely swallowed. 

Ihave tried them with the larve of beetles and of moths (such 
as hybernate underground), and find that they are eaten with evident 
relish. 

After a while (about six months with one and twelve months 
with the other) they became tame enough to follow my hand and 
lick it, evidently in search of food, which I find they always taste 
with their active little black forked tongues before grasping it. 

‘The assertion that “if you try to take up a blindworm you will 
find that these same small teeth can injlict a smart wound, drawing 
blood from your finger ; and at the same time you will notice that 
the creature stiffens itself out by contracting its muscles, so that it 
scems made of wood," is book-lore pure and simple, that anybody 
‘may refute by trying the experiment. 

I have handled others besides those above-named ; could never 
induce them to attempt anything like biting the fingers, although, 
having heard of their biting propensities, 1 tested them by various 
‘means of irritation. Gently used, they lick the hand continually, 
‘but do this with the mouth closed, the tongue passing through a little 
‘notch in the front of the jaws. Instead of stiffening, as described, 
their usual habit is to twine round the finger, holding rather 
firmly. 

7 question the possibility of their teeth penetrating the cuticle of 
human fingers, simply because the length of these barely visible 
teeth is less than the thickness of such cuticle, They are mere 
needle-points, rather larger on the top than on the botiom jaw, and 
well set backwards. 

I have a dead specimen now before me, and fail to perforate the 
‘cuticle of my finger by any pressure Tcan enforce against these little 
spines. They seraich the finger if it is drawn forward among them, 
but to do this, a pull must be exerted that would lift or drag along 
bedily a score of blindworms 

‘Why is this pretty little creature so cruelly libelled by all, learned 
and vulgar alike ? 

‘My recent experience suggests a reply to this question so far as 





| 
402 The Gentleman's Magasine. 


the supposed sluggishness and blindness are concerned. Roth my 
pets died in the spring, both with the same symptoms. ‘They came 
to the surface, their scales were ruffled, eyes nearly closed, their body 
stretched out straight and nearly motionless” "This ‘continued about 
afortnight At first they ate a slug or two, and did so lazily enough, 
then gradually they became worse and worse, refusing food, and 
finally passing slowly away in that eurhanast that Dr. Richardson 
describes so eloquently. in 
While the last survivor of my two pets was in this state of blessed. 
‘ness, a charwomin brought me ore that she had picked up in a field 
hard by just in the same moribund condition, It died the day after, 
and it is upon this I have just made the experiments with the teeth. 
‘My theory is that the prevailing notions expressed by Mr. Allen 
concerning the slnggishness, the blindness, and the stiffness of these’ 
creatures, have been derived from finding them as the charwoman 
found her specimen. When in good health, they are rarely scen, 
but if they usaally come to the surface to perform their euthanasia, 
as both of my specimens did, this is the condition in which her iag 
‘be best known. - 
‘The naturalist who would capture a specimen in good: health: 
must proceed upon the basis of a very different theory of their habits 
than that which Mr, Allen has propounded, or his success will corre- 
spond to that of the boy who tries to catch Lien Riise 
silt upon their tails. a 
T have, in the course of my ife, picked up two, both oma.rod« 
way, and both in a dying condition, but have never succeeded in 
capturing a healthy specimen. ‘The statement in Bell's “ British 
Roptiles" concerning the impossibility of keeping them alive in 
confinement is probably also based on trials made with such moribund 
specimens. 
‘This theory does not explain the fallacy concerning the | 
and the smart wound on the finger. The imagination must have 
come in here. - 
A Poutre Pagapoxer.  - 


IE. great earth-flattener has written to the Gentloman's Magazine 
three folios under the title of “ Elementary Science,” in which 

hhe urges upon the editor" the impropriety of pretending to discuss 
scientific subjects ” while ignarant of “ the very elementary peineaplaly 
‘on which it is based,” and he politely inquires whether “Sit is pre 
judice or cowardice or other intellectual deficiency which prevents 
the highest Uiterary authorities in the kingdom" (#4, the.contributors 


EE 





Science Notes. 303 


to the Gentleman's Magesine) “from venturing to discuss and finally 
determine this subject." He directs our attention to the fact that 
“guilty criminals may shun exposure,” but as we writers are only 
‘cowards, bigots, and imbeciles, rather than guilty criminals, we should 
not sneak out of the conflict.” 

‘He says to the editor, “ [f you have not sufficient confidence in 
your own knowledge of the subject, why have you not the eandour 
and courtesy to make room in your columns for those who have?” 
‘Then follows an account of his long struggles with “the glaring 
falsehood of the Newtonian system,” &c., indicating that the master 
of courtesy and teacher of true science, for whom room is to be made, 
is no other than John Hampden himself. Until this is done, the 
eilitor is to “leave out the word *Gentleman,’” and not to “ pretend 
to make any reference to the subject of science.” This most 
courteous correspondent, this model of politeness, whose proposed 
contributions to this magazine are to justify its title of “The 
Gentleman's," concludes by informing us generally that he “can 
make every excuse for ignorance,” but that our “ pitiful cowardice is 
a disgrace to English journalism.” 

‘The above quotations are rather mild exmples of Mr. Hampden’s 
usual style of “ arguement," and yet he tells us,“ T have not found a 
single individual with brains enough to dispute my assertions, or 
courage enough to face an honest opponent.” 

Sad, indeed, must be the intellectual and moral condition of the 
scitatific world when such pure convincing logic and such affection- 
ate and flattering appeals are written in vain, 


Frames. 


HAT are they? They are commonly described as merely 
heated or “incandescent” gas, Ina note to Chapter VII. 
of “The Fuel of the Sun" I stated some reasons for questioning this 
definition and justifying “ the conclasion that flame should beclassed 
as another and distinct form of matter, in addition to those of the 
‘solid, liquid, and gaseous forms ;” thus reverting to the four clements 
of the ancients—fire, air, earth, and water—their real meaning being 
that matter existed in one or other of the four conditions of fire, gas, 
solid, or liquid, their use of the word “clement” being to express 
the idea that we now represent by “state.” 
_ AL suggested further investigation of the difference between flame 
and jmcandescent gases, and Dr. W. Siemens has recently used the 
opportunitics afforded by his regenerative glass furnaces for making 





showing n 
quoted! chapter) led me to the same conclusion, as such transparency 
of the white portion of the dame would be impossible if it were 
loaded with solid particles of carbon packed so closely together as 
to display continuous luminosity by their incandescence, 

In the German Annelew of Chemistry and Physics, W. Hittorf 
now claims priority over Siemens in respect to 
‘non-luminosity of heared gases. He observed in 1879 that a lay 
of air surrounding electrodes of platinum, made white-hot by 
tery of 1,600 cells, appeared perfectly dark, and that with iridium 
heated even up to fusion by a battery of 2,400 elements, the gas 
media, whether nitrogen, hydrogen, or oxygen, remained perfectly 
dark, and that these gases, when thus heated, became good conductors 
of electricity, even when its potentiality or penetrating power was low, 

It appears that Wedgwood in 1792 made similar furnace observa- 
tions to those of Sicmens, and, like him, concluded that the heated 
pods i hatarcree 

Itappears, therefore, that flame is not white-hot gas, nor white- 
hot solid particles precipitated from the gas, but is matter in a fourth 
condition—ie, in the act of vigorous combination, or what I will 
Venture to call chemical wvtality. 

Animal and vegetable activities depend upon the chemical com- 
binations proceeding in organic structures, and if we may: 
the sum of these activities the designation of vegetable and 
life, 1 am justified in describing fiames as an intense manifestation 
of inorganic or mineral fife. ‘There is really no innovation in this, 
but the opposite ; it is a return to some very ancient conceptions — 


A Crurt Carne 


I HAVE just restved a cutting ffom the Warrington Guar, 
Rearetry beke reteten tev Ei: “The Fume of f 


pam Uf i aie pepe tn otic a cacao 
reminds its readers that “a little knowledge is a 


=> 








Science Notes. 305 


He also tells them “that when a man rushes into print he should 
understand his subject,” and illustrates these propositions very neatly 
by asserting that in my statement of the analysis of the gases which 
escape from the blast furnace the sulphurous and sulphuric acid are 
omitted. 

Neither sulphurous nor sulphuric acid can possibly escape from a 
blast farnace in the free state described by T. F.—f, as gases that 
“render the first part of a shower of rain strongly acid, the ground 
and yegetation being on the surface acid enough:to redden litmus~ 


‘The impossibility of this is due to the elementary fact that these 
powerful acids combine with bates very energetically, and are thereby 
neutralised. The charge of a blast furnace consists of ore, more or 
less basic, of lime, a very powerful base, and coal or coke containing 
a little pyrite. The coal is, in fact, buried in basic material, through 
aa great depth of which the small quantity of sulpburous and sulphuric 
acid formed by the burning of the pyrites must pass before escaping, 

‘This is not a matter of mere theory, but has been proved over 
and over again by the analyses of Bunsen, Ebelman, Scheerer, 
Playfair, Rinneau, Tunner, and others, who not only made these 
analyses of the gases that issue from blast furnaces, but “rushed into 
print" and published them. ‘The analysis stated in my note, and 
contradicted by T, is a mean of their results, as tabulated in 
Bauermann's concise and valuable treatise on “The Metallurgy of 
Tron.” 

Tn the dust which 1 described is found solid sulphate of lime 
{plaster of Paris), duc to the necessary combination of the sulphuric 
acid with the calcined Jimestone of the charge, The following is 
Riley’s analysis of the dust from the Dowlais furnace, South Wales :— 





Rilicaers a oper armen Kerio ey 
iam. oy A caw aay 
Peroxide of iron. ss AT'05 
Peroxide of manganese 6 0) 1°77 
Tena web aces Le eae a'Sa 
Magnesia. 8-6 6 +e OIG, 
Potash. . . . + 180 
Soda wwe call OBE 
Water. eee 093 
Sulphate of lime 5 6 sega 
Phosphate oflime « «© | 0775 

97 


TOE, CeLT, NO, 1855. Y 






the top and ae heated as they descend. ‘The 
sulphuric acid must pass through these, and thus ie 
with the lime, and, unfortunately, to a small extent with 
its serious detriment. << 

‘The reader who desires further information on the eda 
smoke will find it ina Paper on ® The Corrosion of Building | 
reprinted in “Science in Short Chapters,” where ae 
history of the discovery of sulphurous and sulphuric acid in the 
atmosphere of our towns and their effect oa buildings, and have 
described some experiments of my own made in Birmingham, — 

An justice to T. F., I should add that he appears to have over: 
Tooked the little word “blast,” and supposes that the anslysis T 
quoted is intended for the gases of factory furnaces such as those in 
and about Warrington, which, like those of Simniogiel Se | 
give out the acids he names. . —_ 


“Fis and Pitospuorus. am 


Ae CURIOUS notion’ concerning fish diet is widely a || 
Tt is supposed to supply special brain food. If this were | 
the Doggerbank fishermen, who feed on codfish, should be 
Toctual giants. I sailed for two months in a schooner, the 
the mate, and half of the crew of which had for many years ¢ 
codfish at every meal. They were by no incans 
cerebral activity, nor are the rest of their class. 

‘The popular fallacy seems based on a series of other fallacies. 
First, that there is something very spiritual in phosphorus ; second, 
that phosphorus is a special and exclusive constituent of the brain ; 
and third, that fish contain more phosphorus than other food 
materials. 

‘The first is mere imaginative nonsense. The second a half-teuth. 
Phosphorus is @ constituent-of cerebral and other nervous matter, but 
it is also a constituent of bone, which contains about eleven per cent 
of phosphorus, while brain matter contains less than one per cent. — 

‘The third fallacy seems to have originated in that very 1 
source of error—viz., dependence on mere words. Fishes 


















Stience Notes, 307 


‘The fact is that the chemical element named phosphorus has 
nothing whatever to do with the phosphorescence of fishes, nor with 
that ofthe multitude of other phosphorescent animals, ‘The glows 
worms (of which there are many species in England alone) and the 
numerous insects included under the general name of fireflies are 
brilliantly phosphorescent without the aid of phosphorus, The 
minute jelly-like creatures that at certain times render the crest of 
‘every breaking wave a blaze of light, and mark the course of porpoises 
and bonettas with pale rocket-like trails, are animals in whose com. 
position phosphorus is especially lacking. 

‘The true connection that exists between the luminosity of phos- 
phorus and that of organic phosphorescence is that both are de- 
pendent on slow or languid chemical combination, just as vivid 
‘combustion is a manifestation of intense or vigorous chemical com- 
bination. Ordinary combustion is a vigorous combination of some- 
thing with oxygen ; the phosphorescence of phosphorus is due toa 
slow oxidation of this element, and it is probable that the other cases 
‘of phosphorescence are due to the slow oxidation of something else. 

T. Radziszewski has recently investigated this subject, and con- 
cludes thar the phosphorescence of organic bodies is produced by 
the action of active oxygen in alkaline solution, Ozone is another 
‘name for active oxygen.. He describes two kinds of organic phos- 
Phorescent matter, the first of which contains hydrocarbons, and the 
second aldehydes, or yields aldehydes when treated with alkalies, 

According to this, all phosphorescence is a result of slow com- 
bustion, like that which produces animal beat, or the heating of a 
damp haystack or other heap of vegetable matter and water. 

As heat and light are both due to internal activities of matter, 
Giffcring only ina manner analogous to the difference of motions of 
the air produced hy the difference of the vocalisation,of Santley and 
Patti, the mystery of Will-o’-the-Wisp, of oceanic phosphorescence, 
glow-worm light, &c., is no greater than that of the warmth of our 
own bodies. 

‘The anomaly of phosphorescent light is that it ig accompanied 
‘with no sensible clevation of temperature, while ordinary combustion, 
when it rises to the pitch of elfecting luminosity, is accompanied with 
Intense heat. 

‘There must be an essential difference between the waves of white 
light emitted by incandescent platinum or the white-hot carbon, and 
that from the glow-worm. 1 am not aware that mathematicians have 
satisfactorily fitted the undulatory theory of light to the explanation 
of these differences, 

x2 


a el 


dimensions of the little specks that form its 
fern-case as T have done, and observe the 





—)| 


309 


TABLE TALK. 


Hamresteap Hears. 


Ree a8 is suburban London in beauty—and in this respect 
no European capital can challenge it—it is not rich enough 
to resist the processes of destruction which go on whenever an 
excuse for interference is supplied. Until recently Hampstead has 
ranked as one of the loveliest spots near London, The process of 
spoiling its beauty, commenced by the builders, when, to the dis- 
grace of London government, a long row of squalid and ignoble 
houses was allowed to crawl up the side of Parliament Hill, is being 
completed by the action of the authorities. ‘Iwo special beauties of 
Hampstead are now rapidly disappearing. To the north and north- 
east, the view, which extends from Harrow to the hills of Essex, 
and, under certain atmospheric conditions, almost recalls what 
Ruskin says about the prospect from Milan Cathedral, is being spoilt 
‘by the gradual stretching out of the stuccoed arms of Londen. ‘To 
this, as the inevitable, 1 must resign myself, Hampstead had, how- 
ever, another charm, In the zich yellow sand of the northern 
portion, relieved by clumps of furee, the character of Provengal 
‘scenery was a0 closely approached, that very little imagination was 
required to fancy oneself near Avignon, Aix, or Beaucaire, It is 
scarcely credible that this character is being deliberately destroyed, 
the rich sand being covered with grey earth, "deposited in cart- 
loads. ‘The steep slopes are also being levelled, and the whole place 
is being deliberately cockneyfied. Who is responsible for this 
Vandalism I know not. ‘That the time has come when some super- 
vision should be exercised over those who charge themselves, or are 
charged, with the protection of the Heath is but too evident. 





Soctan Gravrration, 
‘HEE influence of men over cach other, and the wonderful attrac. 
tion for individuals of large assemblages of their fellows, have 
Never been adequately investigated by sociologists, or by any other 
class. It is curious, though comprehensible, that the larger the 


| 


: be 
coun if of which he he best ng 
Richard Jefferies, the author Cans 


man in his myriads. een ate 

be satisfied away from it, . . coming too near t} 

don, the ship wends thither, whether or na. At 
ame, and I often go to London without any object 
because I must; and, arriving there, wander | 
hurrying throng carries me" Testimony stronger 
attraction of which I speak cannot surely be afforded. 


a 
Mopern Prasecetions or tim Jews. 
ay ot aaa eee tor ating c 








Le 


Table Talk. Bin 


procedure equally crucl. The revelation of human ignorance and 
credulity, however, which is furnished constitutes the most striking 
feature. ‘The idea that Jews hold it no sin to shed Christian blood 
prevailed during many centuries, Inthe * Flagellum in Judas "ot 
Hadrianus Finus, or Fin, published in 1538, a book of some 1,200 
pages in double columns, consisting of one long attack upon the prac- 
tices of the Jewsand the teaching of the Talmud —awork, I may add, 
‘of extrem rarity—the heading of the roth chapter of the ninth book 
is * Volunt Thalmudistw Judswis licitum esse, Christianos posse ab cis 
impune, et absque peccato interiici.” ‘That Jews in the dark ages were 
probably, though their opportunities were fewer, as ready to put to 
death Christians as the Christians were to put to death Jews, may be 
conceded. ‘The reproach, however, now levelled against the Jews 
was first directed against the Christians. No accusation was more 
frequent among the opponents of Christianity than that the Christians, 
for the purpose of solemnising their sacrament, were in the habit of 
stealing and murdering Pagan children. Tertullian and Minutius Felix 
are at the pains to vindicate the Christians from accusations of the 
sort. Mosheim's “Ecclesiastical History * makes reference to them, 
and Gibbon, in his “Decline and Fall," though he acquits the 
Christians of the charges of human sacrifice and incestuous com 
merce which were common, scems not wholly averse from believing 
that what was falsely said of the Christians might hold true of the 
Marciovites, the Carpocratians, and other sects of Gnostics, The 
transference of the application of an old fable from Christians to 
Jews is sufficiently curious, ‘That comparatively little is heard in 
Spain, where the persecution of Jews was hottest, of this charge is 
simply ascribable to the fact that it was there found needless. 
‘Working in secret and backed by the joint powers of the State and 
the Chorch, the Inquisition had a Sufficient justificatibn for the in- 
fiction of death or any form of torture in that the Jews were Jews. 
To bring against them such charges as are now vamped up when the 
forms of law have to be in appearance at least respected, was mere 
waste of time and trouble, 


Mr. Invixe on Diperot. 


'T is singular that no English version of a work so well known on 
the Continent, so intellectually stimulating, and so fruitful as a 
source of controversy as “ Le Paradoxe sur le Comddien” of Diderot, 
should appear until more than a century after the latest possible date 
at which the original can have been written. Fihy year: of nedeck 


bs 

















certain limite, Those actors who maintain that they feel 
they present, and are carried away by the character 


open question.’ qualities 
sled ae ely 10 be a her svn he a 
emotional, 








THE 


GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. 


Ocroner 1883. 


HONEYSUCKLE. 


HERE is often a wonderful depth of applicability in the good 

old English names of animals, insects, and flowers. ‘The for- 

gotten country observers—mute inglorious Darwins, simple-minded 
shepherd naturalists of the prehistoric period—who firet invented 
those quaint Teutonic titles for plant or bird or berry, seem to have 
had @ curious native knack of hitting off the salient features ofthe 
object they wished to describe in a single short phrase, or even in a 
single syllable, What could be more expressive, for example, more 
full of genuine though half-unconscious scientific insight, than names 
like larkspur, and monkshood, and henbane, and fool's parsley? 
Could anything better describe the real nature and the trae classi- 
ficatory place of the little white potentilla than its ploughboy title of 
barren strawberry? Could the most moder science better describe 
the actual use and function of the fruit of our smallest British plum 
than by dubbing them as bird-cherries ?- How closely ome unknown 
early English herbalist must have watched that quaint parasitic plant 
that fastens its sucker-like root upon the buried stems of broom and 
drains the life-blood from its veins, before he could have thought 
of describing it by the strangely suggestive name of broomrape. It 
is just the same with dodder, that doddering lithe creeper whose 
myriad mouths drink up the sap of the doddered flax round which it 
climbs ; it is just the same with spurge-laurel, and snake-weed, and 
dead-nettle, and sow-bread, and sheep’s-bit, and figwort, and deadly 
nightshade, and half'a dozen other equally expressive names. Every 
one of them bears testimony not only to close observation, but also 
toa certain unsophisticated trick of seeing instinctively the inner 
meaning and purport of the flowers, roots, or herbs that are still 
known by them. ‘They are all full of that consciousness of the close 
interaction between the vegetable and animal worlds which scientific 
Dotany til! very lately had quite omitted to Like into We redeoning, 

YOu CCLY, NO, 1834. 2 





«| 


34 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


But there isn't one of these old English names more 
applicable to the plant which bears it than the common and | 
name of honeysuckle. For the honey that lurks at the bottom of 
the long cylindrical tube is the very essence and formative principle 
of the entire Bower, the central characteristic upon which al 
characteristics of the blossom depend. Let us look a. 
intemal economy of this well-known English hedgerow £ 
and consider what is the function borne in its domestic arange- 
ments by the copious nectar that gathers so abundantly in the long 
narrow floral tube, 

Every flower, or at least every conspicuous and brilliantly 
coloured flower (which includes 2) he Rds fet ooo a 
usually notice), lays itself definitely out to secure the 
some particular class of insects which aid in fertilising its 
seeds by carrying pollen on their heads and legs from one plant to 
another of the same sort. But all flowers do not lay themsclres out 
for exactly the same kinds of insects; some of them are specially 
adapted for fertilisation by one group of insect visitors, and others of 
them are specially adapted for other groups. We are most of us 
more familiar with the action of bees in this respect than with the 
action of any other pollen-seekers or honey-eaters, because the bee 
is a creature of immediate importance to man himself, as well as 
Decause more attention has probably been called in books to this 
particular case of insect agency than to any other; and there can be 
no doubt that a larger number of flowers have adapted themselves in 
shape, colour, and general arrangement to the tastes and habits of 
‘ees than have adapted themselves to all the alternative visitors put 
together. Still there are a great many plants which have laid them- 
selves out to attract various minor insect tribes with more or lest 
conspicuous success, Some of them cater rather for the small 
colour-loving bectles which specially affect bright golden-yellow 
blossoms ; others endeavour to allure the carrion flies by imitating 
the nauseous smell and livid colour of decaying animal matter, Yet 
others seck to curry favour with the omnivorous wasps by their 
dingy hues and open store of honey ; while a considerable number 
{amongst them our friend the honeysuckle) conceal their nectar in 
deep, narrow tubes, where it can only be extracted by the long coiled. 

up tongues of moths or butterflies In the tropics, not a few lange 
Eedeelace wliuer Sores have even called in the birds to their 
assistance, and are habitually fertilised by the kind offices of 
Tnmaming-birds, sun-birds, and brush-tongued lorie, 

Now, out of all these and many other possible wodes 


> on * 









Honeysuckle. 315 


tion, the honeysuckle has adapted itself to that by means of moths, 
and more especially of the humming-bird hawk-moth, It blossoms 
in those months of the year—June and July—when the hawk-moths 
are most abundant ; and it has adapted itself in every particular to 
their peculiar tastes and manners, The tube of the honeysuckle, as 
we all know, is yery long and narrow, and it is filled with sweet 
nectar half-way up from the bottom in great abundance, No North 
European insects have a proboscis long enough to reach the end of 
the tube except those of the moth and butterily group. The most 
ified of our native bees in this respect, such as the great humble- 
Dee, can only get two-thirds of the way down, while of our flies very 
few can geta third of the way. But the butterflies and moths have 
much longer tongues, and can suck up the very last drop from the 
Tuscious storehouse ; it is for them, therefore, that the honeysuckle 
has specialised itself, and it is they alone who can rightly convey the 
pollen from the little hanging sacs on one blossom to the sensitive 
spot on the central style of another. 

Why is the honeysuckle pale white or faint yellow? In order to 
please and allure these same crepuscular insect guests The hawk- 
moths, though they begin to fly about in the late afternoon, arc 
chiefly evening fitters ; they love best the dusk and the twilight 
Now at these hours such colours as blue, scarlet, or purple are prac- 
tically invisible, and only white or pale yellow can be readily seen, 
Hence the evening flowers, which lay themselyes out to attract 
moths, are almost always waxen white or pale primrose in hue. For 
example, there is the night-flowering cereus, that well-known snowy 
cactus, with its pendent lily-like blossom ; there are the jasmine, 
ani the tuberose, and the evening primrose, and the white campion, 
all of which first open in the dusk, and all of which are fertilised by 
noctumal insects, The reason and origin of this peculiarity is easy 
enough to sce. Any night-fowering plant which was celoured blue 
er crimson would be indistinguishable in the dark, and so would 
Never get fertilised ; as a consequence, it would never set any Seed, 
and would leave no descendants after it. On the other hand, the 
paler any such flower was, the better would it be distinguished by the 
eyes of its nocturnal guests, and the more certain would it be of 
Jeaving progeny with similar peculiarities, In thisway all the darker= 
hued night-blossoms haye been slowly weeded out, while all the 
paler ones have been favoured and perpetuated by the unconscious 
selective action of the insects. 

Once more, why is the honeysuckle scented? For the very selé 
same reasou, Moths, though largely guided by ght, xe sa 
aa 





316 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


influenced by smell ; and the flowers which lay themselves « 
this class of visitors are almost invariably scented, and more 
evening draws on. A moment's consideration will serve to 
us that all the white or pale yellow night flowers mentioned a 
the cereus, the jasmine, the tuberose, the stephanotis, the € 
primrose, and so forth, are delicately perfumed, and most 

have also observed that their perfume is most powerful as 
draws on, This is very noticeably the case with the honey 
whose faint scent grows much more marked on summer ev 
It in interesting to note in this connection that the well- 
difference between the antennze of the day-flying butterflies a 
night flying moths is probably due to the larger development 
Organ of smell in the nocturnal group. Scent supplements sig! 
them, Juxt as touch supplements it in the bats and in the 

Wind, 

(nev more, why is the honeysuckle flower divided into tw 
4n upper and an under onc? Well, the upper acts as the 
Advertiser, Ho to speak, as the flag or sign-board hung ou 
apicnously to attract the cyes of insects ; the under acts as a pl 
‘an which the insect can alight while it thrusts its proboscis 
into the recesses of the tube. The hawk-moths, however, ¢ 
Wnttally alight at all ; they poise themselves on their rapidly-vit 
Wings in front of the blossom, and lick up the honey with ext: 
nary rapidity, so that the platform is only of use for the sub: 
Insecta which occasionally aid in the fertilisation. It has a 1 
function, however, as guiding the moth direct to the mouth 
tube ; and as the moths are chary of wasting their time, bein, 
and businesslike creatures, this arrangement indirectly benefi 
plant, which would otherwise miss their attentions. The it 
poising itself rubs off some of the pollen from the loosely-h: 
sacs on to its hairy bosom, and then rubs it off again on the set 
surface of the next flower it visits. 

We have not yet quite finished with the flowers of the I 
suckle. If you look at the base of the bunch in the common E 
wild species you will see that it is covered and protected bya m 
of little brownish leaves or bracts, fringed at the edge with sticky 
A very small pocket lens will suffice to show you that these 
are not so simple as they look at first sight; indeed, you c 
even with the naked eye, by holding them up against the ligh 
each one of them is tipped at the outer end with a small gl 
bulb or gland, which gives it the sticky appearance. The stem 

bunch is algo covered with similar glandvlex eins, { 












4 Honeysuckle. 37 


not nearly so thickly as the bracts which sheathe the base of the 
blossoms, Now what is the use of these curious sticky balls 
fastened on the end of the little hairs? Well, they serve two useful 
purposes in the economy of the honeysuckle. In the first place, they 
prevent little creeping insects from crawling up the stem, invading 
the blossoms, and finally stealing the honey or pollen. Such thieving 
guests as these are quite useless, or, rather, absolutely detrimental to 
‘the welfare ofthe plant, because their shape and size does not adapt 
them for rubbing the fertilising pollen from the stamens of one flower 
‘on to the sensitive surface of its sisters elsewhere. Moreover, as they 
do not fly, they cannot readily get from one plant to another of the 
same kind, but crawl indiscriminately up any stem where they are 
attracted by the smell of honey, and thus they would only produce 
monstrous hybrids instead of fertile and vigorous seedlings. Ants are 
‘great offenders in this kind, being extremely fond of sweets, as all 
housewives know to their cost, and flowers have accordingly guarded. 
against their depredations by all sorts of cunning devices. These 
glandular hairs are among the most effective of such plans for the 
exclusion of unwelcome insect visitors; their sticky secretions 
effectually clog the legs of the would-be plunderers, which often 
linger long stuck fast upon the stem, and die miscrably in unavailing 
‘struggles to free themselves from the gummy glands. 

And this introduces us at once to the second and still more 
important function subserved by the sticky hairs, Not only do 
they serve as barriers against the attacks of honey-stealing ants or 
other wingless crawlers, but also as traps to catch small flies and 
other winged insects whose bodies they use as manure or food for the 
opening blossoms. ‘The act of flowering is the most expensive in the 
whole plant economy. It uses up a vast amount of rich material in 
the production of the petals, the pollen, and the young seeds’ Many 
plants provide against this extraordinary outlay beforchand by storing 
‘up quantities of food-stuffs in bulbs or tubers, but others trust mainly 
to their insect-catching propensities to supply them with nitrogenous 
material when the actual moment of flowering has arrived, ‘There 
‘are some marshy plants, like the sun-dew, in which the inscct-eating 
habit has become extremely conspicuous; but, apart from these 

developed insectivorous cases, an immense number of English 
weeds (notably the saxifrages, figworts, hawk-weeds, and sow- 
thistles) possess glandular hairs on their buds and flower-branches 
which can catch small insects as they light upon them, and then suck 
‘out the juices from their bodies for the supply of the developing blos- 
soms, In the honeysuckle this curious habit is extrcwely well waskenl, 


| 


318 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


and you will generally find, on looking closely ; cs 
hairs of the stem and bracts, a number of papery empty bi 
presenting the outer shell of aphides or small flies whi mn 
tents it has digested and absorbed. T am strongly inclined | 
that wherever glandular hairs occur upon the stalks ot calyx-pieces of 
opening flowers thay possess in a greater or less degree this curious 
insect-eating power. 

‘The honeysuckle which we have been ot ag a 
owncommon English hedgerow species ; but there isa 
kind, known as perfoliate woodbine, which has run wild in many 
parts of England, and which exhibits a still more extraordinary 
arrangement for entrapping and digesting insect prey. In this species 
the leaves on the flowering branches have grown together at their 
bases, so as to form a sort of cup or saucer, apparently pierced throngls 
Dy the stem ; and this cup retains the rain-water after every shower, 
30 as to form a little reservoir upon the stalk just below the flowers. 
Such an arrangement exactly answers the same purpose as the glandu- 
lar fringe in the common honeysuckle. On the one hand, creeping 
insects, in their endeavour to get up the stem to eat the honey, are 
checked by it as by a moat around a medicval castle ; on the other 
‘hand, both they and many imprudent flies get drowned in the basin 
so formed, and their juices, being dissolved in the water, are then 
absorbed by the plant to act as material for developing the pollen, 
honey, and seeds, An exactly similar device exists in the common 
teasel, where the water-cups are much larger, broader, and deeper ; 
and in this ease one of Mr. Darwin's sons has shown that the plant 
actually protrudes long threads of protoplasm from its own cells into 
the water, to suck in the dissolved nutriment, and so convey it into 
the general circulation of the tensel’s system. It is interesting 10 
note, accordingly, that while our common English honeysuckle, 
which has no moats, is hairy on the lower part of its stem, 60 as to 
keep off climbing insects as by a chevaucade.frize, this Continental 
species, having nothing to lose but everything to gain by their 
presence—since it is sure of drowning them in the long fun—is quite 
destitute of hairs from top to bottom. While I am on the subject of 
this garden woodbine, I may as well add that its flowers are even 
longer than those of our native kind, and that their honey is even” 
more inaccessible to any mo a eet eee 
moths, o 

And now, to retum to our own English h 
remember that though the flowers are the part of its 
usually interest us the most, it does not consist 


a 





Honeysuckle, 319 


you were to ask the birds about it, they would tell you that the most 

‘things about the honeysuckle were its berries. After the 
blossoms have been duly impregnated by a grain or two of floury 
pollen from a sister plant, the lower part of the flower begins to 
‘swell out into a small yellowish-red or orange fruit. At first these 
littic berries are hard and green, because at this stage the plant does 
not wish that they should attract attention ; it could only lose by 
their being plucked or eaten while the seeds are yet unripe. As the 
sceds ripen, however, the berries grow gradually sweeter, softer, and 
ruddier, until at last they hang out from the hedge in those little 

orange bunches with which we are all so familiar. Then 
the birds, attracted by the bright hue and swectish pulp, swallow 
them whole, and, after digesting the softer parts, aid in dispersing the 
seeds, which is the end chiefly held in view by the careful mother 


Here, however, is a very curious fact in the life of the honey- 
suckle, If you cut open the very young berry (or ovary) in the 
blossoming flower, you will find in it a large number of minute 
undeveloped seeds. But as the berry ripens, all these seeds, exeept 
‘one, gradually.atrophy and shrivel away, till at last, in the full-grown 
fruit, you only find a single hard little nutlet as sole representative 
of the entire brood. The reason for this strange procedure Is a 

fical one. Once upon a time, as we say in fairy tales and 
‘evolutionary histories (which are a kind of true fairy tales of science), 
the ancestors of the honeysuckle used to ripen their seeds in a dry 
capsule ; and then they needed many seeds to each flower, in order to 
keep up the number of the species, because so many of them fell in 
‘useless places, or otherwise came to gricf incficctually, But as the 
capsule slowly changed into a berry, under the selective action of the 
friendly birds, which picked out and so aided in dispersing the 
juiciest fruits, it became unnecessary to produce so largea number 
Of extra seeds. One seedling did as well now as a dozen would 
have done under the old casual system. Hence the plant left off 
Tipening so many as it used to do, and took to storing the single one 
more richly than of yore with foodstuffs for the young plantlet. 
Something analogous has happened with almost every succulent or 
luscious fruit which depends upon the kind offices of birds or animals 
for the dispersion of its seeds ; in ncarly all of them the number of 
seeds has been much diminished, and in the largest ormostadvanced 
kinds—such as plums, peaches, apricots, mangoes, cherries, and 
‘nectarines—there is only # single “stone” with one kernel, sur- 
rounded by a large and pulpy coloured fruit, 





Floneysuckle, 321 


colour and length of tube according to the insects for whose attrac~ 
tion they are respectively intended, the shortest and reddest being 
designed for bees and wasps, the longest and palest for night-flying 
and scent-loving moths, 

A simpler and earlier modification of the same type is shown us 
im the common snowberry of our shrubberies, which is an undeve- 
Joped honeysuckle with a very short and round tube. Its blossoms 
are a pale and rather lurid red, and are fertilised to some stall 
extent by bees, but fur more by wasps, whose taste for dull or livid 
colours has been most instrumental in fixing theirhue. Far prettier, 
though doubtless also more primitive in type, is that beautiful little 
trailing evergreen, the northern Linnvea, which the father of botanical 
science honoured with his own name, Linnma bears small, drooping, 
bell-shaped flowers, pinky white in general hue, but traversed by 
five purple lines, and with a yellow patch on the under side, ‘The 
use of these lines ix to act ax honey-guides or pathfinders for the 
fertilising insects, and they are very common on the most advanced 
flowers, especially those adapted for receiving the visits of bees. 
Sir John Lubbock has shown that bees don't like to waste any time 
in needless hunting ; and he has also proved that they are very much 
dependent upon routine and upon certain well-known place-marks 
jin finding their way. ‘The existence of such lines or spots upon a 
flower therefore proves of advantage to it, because it ensures the 
visits of the busy bee, who might not be inclined to stop and find 
his way into any blossom less distinctly marked. As a matter of 
fact, a large majority of the most specialised bee-flowers are pro- 
vided with very decided honey-guides. On the other hand, spots 
and lines are never found upon the white or pale yellow night- 
blooming species, which depend for fertilisation upon moths, because 
they would, of courso, be simply invisible in the grey of evening, and 
would therefore be a mere waste of colouring matter on the part of 
the plant. 

We may thus fairly conclude that the honeysuckles are descended 
from ancestors with simple, comparatively open, bell-shaped flowers, 
ted or pink in colour, and with very short tubes ; but the selective 
action of various insects has caused the tubes to grow Jonger and 
Jonger, while at the same time it has produced sundry characteristic 
changes in the hue of the blossoms. Our own English honeysuckle, 
‘one of the most advanced members of the group, has acquired 
climbing habits, like many of its congeners, and has accommodated 
itself to the special tastes of humming-bird hawk-moths and other 
noctumal insects Tis tube has thus grown excgedingly Wong,» baa, 


322 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


developed a strong perfume ; and its corolla has declined in colour 
from pink to pale yellowish white. ‘This last may be regarded as to 
some extent a retrograde step, since it is a change from a higher to a 
lower stage of coloration; but at the same time it is one necessarily 
demanded by the peculiarities of the crepuscular insects. It still 
retains some memory of its original pinkness, however, in the bud 
and in the outside of the blossom ; and this shows us that its white 
tinge is really derivative, not primitive. Side by side with the other 
changes, the honeysuckle fruit, like that of almost all the family to 
which it belongs, has progressed from the stage of a mere dry, many- 
seetled capsule to that of a coloured and succulent berry. In the 
blossom it still retains the numerous ovules of its ancestors, but in 
the ripe fruit all of these save one (or at most two) have become 
abortive. ‘Thus, at last, from a herb with a short, bell-shaped flower 
and a dry capsule, the honeysuckle has grown into the tall creeper, 
with long tubular blossoms and red berries, whose features are so 
familiar in our English he: ws, 
GRANT ALLEN. 


323 


MY MUSICAL LIFE. 
ve 


WENT up to Trinity College itt 1858. I was completely alone, 
T had an introduction to Dr, Whewell, the Master of Trinity, 
Bat what was Dr. Whewell to me, or I to Dr, Whewell? Somethit 
strange to say, we were destined still to be to cach other. Of this 
more anon: 

Soon after passing my entrance examination, I was summoned 
fnto the great man’s presence. In the course of our interview, T 
ventured rashly to say that I understood Cambridge was more given 
to mathematics than to classics. Dr, Whewell replicd, with lofty 
forbearance, that when I had been a little longer at Cambridge 1 
should possibly correct that opinion. 

As I had entered under the college tutor, Mr, Munro, perhaps the 
most famous Latin scholar of the day, my remark was indeed an 
unfortunate one, most fully displaying my simplicity and ignorance, 

‘The master questioned me as to my aims and ambitions, I had 
none—I told him so very simply—I played the fiddle. He seemed 
surprised ; but from the first moment of seeing him I took a liking 
to him, and I believe he did to me. He had been seldom known to 
notice a fresh man personally, unless it were some public schoolboy 
of distinction. After my first interview, I was closcly questioned at 
inner in hall, when I found that Whewell was regarded as a sort of 
ogre, not to be approached without the utmost awe, and to be 
generally avoided if possible. Of this I had been happily ignorant; 
and, indeed, there had been nothing to alarm me in the great man, 
His physique was that of a sturdy miner; his face, to my mind, 
noble, majestic, and, as most thought, ugly. But I shall never 
look upon his like again, His walk was impressive ; his flowing 
gown gathered negligently about him. I can see him now, as he 
stalked across the quad into the Trinity Lodge. He was one of 
Nature’s intellectual monarchs. His reputation was worldwide. I 
shall never forget that broad forehead, with its bushy eyebrows, and 
those flashing eyes. I remember him so very distinctly as he used to 
sit in the master’s stall at chapel ; his very presence seemed wo lew 





324 The Gentleman's Magazine. 5 


a ceria dignity to that light and inattentive assembly of collegians, 
woz € whom only “turned up” to be “ pricked off.” under pain of 
being ~ baaled up.” In the companion stall sat another noble igure, 
Prssece Sedgwick, also of European fame, then professor of geology, 
aod is advanced in years. 

Gand old Whewell! encyclopedic mind! Genial, eloquent 
Sedgwxk ! mest loving teacher of fossil truth! Where are your 
successes? Ye were men of large and monumental mould. When 
voc ézyaned, one after the other, the very university seemed to 
shrek I Jook back at that time—Whewell, Sedgwick, Donaldson, 
Muzro. ai in ofSce together at Cambridge, whilst Macaulay, Living- 
stone. Crwen, Lord Lawrence, and Tennyson came to dine as guests 
az the Trinity Ligh table, and appeared in chapel afterwards. Truly 
there were ciznts in the land in those days ! 

Wohewell, who contrived to say something rude to everybody he 
mew soonez ca later, never but once spoke a harsh word to me. It 

wai or this wise. He had a particular objection to undergraduates 
sanding a oc. the Trinity bridge and looking over into the river. I 
cht it mere idleness—which, indeed, it generally was. 
pealth at the time, and one morning I was looking 
the mild sunshine of spring, into the river. By 
with his rapid and magisterial stride. 
Mr. Haweis,” he said, abruptly, “not to loiter on 
he swept past me angrily, before ever I had time to 
- him i now even of that little memory. 
ee ee cogetect was immense, his knowledge vast, his virtues many 
zzed and combative, and his kindness of 
were all on the surface—they were of an 
.aracter, and any fool could carp at them. - I 
zo he annoyed by the great man’s brusqueness, 
cer proofs of his gentleness, forbearance, and 
‘On one occasion, in all the conceit and 
‘atrshman, I wrote a rude letter in a news- 
2 the manner in which the Vice-Chancellors 
cachers.  Whewell was Vice-Chancellor, 
sd to him. Ihave his letter now, kind, 
“wat a touch of harshness, with advice like a 
























re, 





ang WOR YS 





we ary 


ene 
wes <% pritigs alla by the freshmen Whewell’s 
we S al ‘s Aankergentuates were not supposed to “sit” 
see panne mere vst ablorned in my time ; but T 
aa “6 


awe 





My Musical Life. 325 


‘The Master married, during my term of college life, Lady Affleck, 
a charming person, and from the time she became mistress at the 
Lodge the rugged old lion seemed to grow affable, and gentle, and 
apparently eager to do what he could to make people “at home.” 
Thave seen his wife go up to him and whisper in his ear, and the 
Master would nod approval, and thread his way at her bidding 
through the crowd of guests to some one wha had to be introduced 
ornoticed, The parties at the Lodge grew suddenly pleasant and 
‘sought after ; the men sat down and chatted, and Lady Affleck—a 
thing unknown in Whewell’s Ionely days—introduced the under- 
graduates to the young ladies present, 

When he married, the Master did a very graceful thing. He sent 
for me one morning, brought Lady Affleck into the drawing-room, 
and said in his bluff way, * Mr, Haweis, I wish you to know Lady 
Affleck, my wife. She is musical ; she wishes to hear your violin.” 
‘The master then left me with her, and she got me to arrange to come 
and play at the Lodge on the following night at @ greatparty. 1 was 
to bringmy own accompanyist. had played at Dr. Whewell's before 
that night, but that night the master paid me special attention. Tt 
was part of his greatness and of his true humility to recognise any 
sort of merit, even when most different in kind to his own. 

Whewell’s ability was of a truly cosmic and universal character, 
‘but nature had denied him one gift—the gift of music. He always 
beat time in chapel, and generally sang atrociously out of tune, I 
do not think he had any ear; music to him was something mar- 
yellous and fascinating ; he could talk leamedly on music, admire 
music, go to concerts, have music at his house, worry over it, insist 
‘upon silence when it was going on ; and yet I knew, and he knew 
that I knew, that he knew nothing about it; it was aclosed world to 
him, a riddle, yet one he was incessantly bent upon solving, and 
he felt that I had the key to it and he had 

On that night I played Ernst’s * Elégie,” not quite so hackneyed 
then as it is now, and some other occasional pieces by Emst, in 
which I gaye the full rein to my fancy. The master left his coms 
pany, and taking a chair in front of where I stood, remained in 
absorbed meditation during the performance, 

T was naturally a little clated at.this mark of respect shown to an 
unknown freshman in the presence of so many “ heads” of houses 
and the éfte of the University. I played my best and indulged rather 
freely in a few more or less illegitimate dodges, which 1 thought 
calculated to bewilder the great man. I was rewarded, for at the 
close Dr. Whewell laid his hand upon ty am, SVE we ore 








326 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


thing ; how do you produce that rapid passage, ascending and 
descending notes of fixed intervals?” I had simply as a four de 
force glided my whole hand up and down the fourth open string, 
taking, of course, the complete series of harmonics up and down 
several times and producing thus the effect of a rapid cadenza with 
the utmost ease ; the trick only requires a certain lightness of touch 
and a knowledge of where and when to stop with effect. I replied 
that Ihad only used the series of open harmonics which are yielded, 
according to the well-known mathematical law, by every stretched 
string when the vibration is interrupted at the fixed harmonic notes. 
‘The artistic application of a law which perhaps he had never 
alised Int in theory seemed to delight him intensely, and he 
hastened whilst I repeated the cadenza, and again and again showed 
‘nay the various intervals on the fingerboard, where the open 
hatmomus might be made to speak ; a hair’s-breadth one way or the 
wither prtucing a horrid scratch instead of the sweet flute-like ring. 
At struck him marvellous how a violinist could hit upon the 
\ariuus interv.tls to such a nicety, as to evoke the harmonic notes. 
1 replied that this was easy enough when the hand was simply swept up 
and down the string as I had done, but that to hit upon the lesser 
nodes for single harmonics was one of the recognised violin diffi- 
culties, I then showed him a series of stepped harmonics, and played 
much to his surprise a tune in stopped harmonics. He was interested 
to hear that Paganini had been the first to introduce this practice, 
which has since become common property, But I have a little 
anticipated, 

After the mi: 





















y of iny entrance examination at Trinity College, 
jory. I solaced my loneliness by making as 
much noise as ever T coatd I had three rooms at the 
fusthest extraanity of th \dinz into the Bishop's Hostel. 
(pen yaniders:. command’ formidable and 

“oon pistol — 
















2 old ci 


wighbour 





nade 
wants alae De rk 







free! 
awl Me 
Vath WEY 


tng 


My Musical Life. 327 


‘The consumption of beer and buttered muffins after tea was un 
usually large on summer nights. he listeners who stepped in to 
smoke and chat, declared that under the infliction of music additional 
support was absolutely needed. ‘The dean occasionally sent polite 
and deprecatory messages from over the way, whilst Messrs. Hammond 
and Burn, fellows of Trinity, who “kept” just undemeath me on the 
same staircase, exhibited a certain angelic forbearance with the 
pandemonium upstairs which, after the lapse of twenty-five years, I 
cafnot sufficiently admire, 

‘My mathematics may have been weak and my classics uncertain, 
‘but it was impossible to ignore my existence, 

Thad not been up a fortnight when the president of the Cam- 
bridge University Musical Society called upon me. He believed 1 
played the violin, "How did he know that?” T asked, He laughed 
out, “Everybody in the place knows it." Then and there he re- 
quested me to join the Musical Society, and play a solo at the next 
concert. I readily agreed, and from that time I become solo violinist 
at the Cambridge Musical Socicty, and played a solo at nearly every 
‘concert in the Town Hall for the next three years. 

1 confess to some nervousness on my first public appearance at 
& University Concert. It was a grand night. Sterndale Bennett, 
our new professor of music, himself conducted his “ May Queen,” 
and I think Mr. Coleridge, an enthusiastic amateur and old musical 
star at the University, since very well known in London, sang. I 
had selected as my chewad de datatiie, Rode’s air in G with variations, 
and to my own surprise when my tum came to go on I was quite 
shaky. The hall was crammed, the Master of Trinity sat in the 
front row with other heads of colleges and their families. I tuned in 
the ante-room. Scie one offered me a glass of wine. 1 had never 
resorted to stimulants before playing, but I rashly drank it ; it was in 
my head atonce, Sterndale Bennett conducted me to the platform, 
I was a total stranger to the company—a freshman in my second 
month only. My fingers felt limp and unrestrained, my head was 
half swimming. The crowd looked like a mist, J played with 

expression, I tore the passion to tatters. I trampled 
on the time. I felt the excess of sentiment was bad, and specially 
abhorrent to Sterndale Bennett, who followed my vagaries like a 
lamb, bless him for ever | 

‘But the thing took. The style was new; at least it was uncon. 
ventional and probably daring, for 1 really hardly knew what 7 was 
about. The Air was listened to in dead silence, half out of curiosity 
no doubt ; but a burst of applause followed the last Gie-cway BANE. 








My Musical Life. 329 


quaintance with most of the famous quartets. I was a great deal 
too much “about” to do any real good with classics or mathe- 
matics, I was playing somewhere nearly every night, and had the 
entrée at most evening parties held at the Trinity Lodge, the Master 
of Sidney, is, St. John's, Catharine's Hall (Philpott’s, now 
Bishop of Wi }), Harvey Goodwin (now Bishop of Carlisle), &c. 
‘My town connection was also pretty extensive, At the house of my 
kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. R. Potts (of Euclid celebrity), I was ever 
welcome. ‘There I met Adams, of comet celebrity ; Babington, who 
popped a little American weed into the Cam one day, which choked 
all the rivers in England for several years. Many other scholars 
and men of science were frequent visitors at Mr. Potts’ house on 
Parker's Piece, but I think I was perhaps as frequent as any of them. 

Henry Kingsley, Fellow and Tutor of Sidney, met me at the 
house of Hopkins, the eminent mathematician, one night, and was 
so pleased with my playing of Beethoven's F sonata that he 
gave me the whole sct, Je took me to his rooms and showed 
me & most interesting series of ‘Turner's water-colours, of which 
he was a great collector. He pointed out the rapidity and 
eager fidelity of Turnet’s work. ‘Two extraordinary water-colour 
studies of a descending avalanche in the Alps struck me very 
much, ‘Turner had dashed off the first where the snow cataract 
began, and, rushing to another spot lower down the mountain, 
he was just in time to make another sketch before the avalanche 
had reached the bottom, I also saw several sketches all blurred. 
‘Turner had doubled up the paper, wet as it was, and put it into his 
pocket, thus destroying his work as soon as he had “taken his 
observation." In others the rapid painter had dabbled away quickly 
over a folded crease of the paper. Kingsley had etretehed it, cut 
‘out the white angle, and joined together the parts that tallied. 

My father had been a great admirer of Turner, and a great 
reader of Ruskin, I could just remember Turner's later pictures 
appearing year after year in the Academy, and I distinctly remember 
any father’s reading out passages from the immortal “Seven Lamps" 
and “Stones of Venice.” I was, therefore, prepared for Kingsley's 
attentions ; and as I was able to feed him with one art, he generously 
gave me all the pleasure he could with another. 

+ Twas very grateful to Kingsley for his friendly appreciation. He 
never treated me a3 merely a fiddler—this was the tone of the fellows 
and tutors and public schoolmen ar my own college. I begun to see 
that if a man does one thing well, lie cannot easily get credit for 
doing anything cise. I did not, indeed, epend rch Gone coer wy, 
Yor. cctv. No. 1834, AA 








1 


330 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


class work, but I spent long hours in the University library and pored 
incessantly over Nante and the German philosophers—Hegel, Fichte, 
Schelling, and the Schlegels—with dictionaries and translations 
T had a passion for writing, though, unfortunately, I had nothing 
to say, Mr. G. Clarke, the public orator, and one of my examiners, 
whilst declaring my handwriting to be almost illegible—a statement 
in which he was correct—observed with a friendly smile, which 
stung me (in my heart full of literary ambition) to the quick, “ More 
at home with the violin bow, Mr, Haweis, than the pen—eh?” And 
I remember one night, when I was dining at the Master of Sidney's, 
the great Doctor Donaldson saying across the table to Harvey 
Goodwin (now Kishop of Carlisle), also one of my senate house 
examiners, “Well, I never examined Mr. Haweis in classics or 
mathematics, hut 1 can bear witness that whatever he may be in the 
senate house, he invariably passes a brilliant examination in the 
Town Hall.” 

I could never get the smallest recognition of any kind at the 
University from the authorities for anything but music. I tried hard 
for the prize poem on “ Delhi,” for the English essay on “Mary 
Queen of Scots,” in vain, But my literary enthusiasm could not be 
quenched, and, with the assistance of one or two clever under- 
graduates, who have since risen to name and fame, and whom I 
will therefore spare, I floated a University magazine called the “Lion.” 

‘My own contributions alone would have been quite enough to 
dann that preposterous serial; but George Otto Trevelyan, who 
just come up from Harrow, thought it would be well and 
‘want to hasten the process. So he issued the “Bear,” which 
«lof short parodies of articles that had appeared in the 

‘The thing was cleverly and good-humouredly done, and 
fume the moral was “stick to the fiddle.” The “Lion” expired with 
tear in the third number ; it contained, however, the 
ticle T had yet written—readable because written 
Genin heat on Mendelssohn.” We got a vast deal of fun out 
Vhe greatest success was certainly in calling 
slew it, and a wag suggested that a new 
wiht he started called * David,” to “slay 


Rea 

















a Vary tien 





vialy 





















tw instruet an ungrateful and prejudiced. 
tod lise the provincial 


rete Dat 







athe cc tunars cl antl 
A aan bapliy 


My Musical Life. 33t 


_ . As I now look back upon those scrap-books full of articles, it is 
inconceivable to me how they ever got printed. But I had always the 
pen of a ready writer, and along with it at that time the common 
misfortune of very little to say. But such matters only touch at 
certain points my musical life, and I willingly return tomy muttons. 
One day as I was sitting in my armchair with ap open book 
“upon my knee, contemplating vaguely the row of china musicians’ 
heads on little brackets over my mantlepiece, a knock came at the 
door, My “oak was sported,” and I accordingly “ did the dead.” 
Twas in no mood for interruption. In front of me, in the centre 
of my china row of busts—Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Chopin—stood 
‘Mendelssohn's bust, raised {above the rest and draped with black 
velvet, with F.M.B. in gold on the velvet. The china face at times, 
as the light caught the shadows about the delicate mouth, seemed to 
smile down upon me. The high forehead surrounded by wavy hair, 
the aquiline nosce——What? more knockings! Lrose at last, and 
opening the door brusquely was confronted by a strange figure with 
asort of wide plaid waistcoat, well-made frock coat, heavily-dyed 
thin whiskers, and dark wig (as I well saw when the broad brimmed 
hat was off), yellow gloves and patent boots. Middle-aged? No— 
in spite of the wig and showy get up—old, very old, but oddly 
vigorous, inclined to embengoint, ruddy, florid, rude, perhaps choleric 
face, marked features overspread now with a beaming smile and a 
knowing twinkle in the rather theumy cys, 

_ Tnever saw such an odd man. My anger evaporated. I laughed 
out almost, and instinctively extended my hand and shook that of 
the isresistible stranger warmly, although I did not know him from 
Adam. 


“Beg pardon,” he said, "may I come in? I tell you, my friend, 
my name is Venua—never heard of me—no matter—old Venua 
knows you; heard you play at the Town Hall—got the stuff in you ; 
you can play d—d well; you can play better den dat—nature 
gif you all dis gift—you practise and den you play like zed—I 
himself. Old Venua, dey say to me, he know all about it—he am 

how to play. Forty years ago you should have heard me 
Play de fiddle, by——! I play de fiddle now ; gif me your fiddle— 
vonderful tone your fiddle—where is your fiddle?" 
» All this was uttered without a pausc, very rapidly. 

The strange, rambling, stuttering, energetic, decided old creature 
had now rolled into my room ; he had sat down and pulled out an 
enormous silk pocket-handkerchief Then an old gold. snuff-bor, 
“This gif me by ze Grand Duke of Heme Darmdadt. Nos tke 


= q 


My Musical Life. 333 


things. A loose joint somewhere and he goes ‘ tubby ' (a term used 
to express a dull vibration), a worn finger-board and he squeaks, a 
bridge too high and his note grows hard and bitter, or too low and he 
whizzes, or too forward and one string goes loud, or too backward 
and two strings go soft and weak ; and the sound-post [/e, the little 
peg which bears the strain on the belly and back], mein Gott ! dat is 
de teffel.” But, correcting himself, he added, “No, the French are 
right, they call it the soul of the violin ; and it is the soul—if that is 
not right, all the fiddle goes wrong. A man may sit all the morning 
worrying the sound-post a shade this way or that, and at last, in 
despair, he will give it up; then he will go to the bridge and waste 
his whole afternoon fidgetting it about, and then he will give that up. 
A hait's-breadih this way with the bridge—oh ! the fourth string is 
lovely ; but, bah ! the secondand thirdare killed ; a little back then, 
and now the fourth is dead, and the elauterelle [i.e. first string] sings 
like a lark—misery ! it is the only string vat sing at all. Give hima 
fiddle!” cried the old gentleman, gesticulating ; “ yes, give him a 
fiddle, it will make him mad!” 

Interspersed with such droll exaggerations were excellent hints, 
such as, “Leave your bridge and your sound-post alone if ever you 
get the fiddle to sound near right ; don't change your bridge unless 
you are absolutely obliged—sound-board, neck, head, nut, everything, 
‘but not the bridge ; a fiddle and a bridge that have lived for years 
together love each other as man and wife ; let them alone, my young 
friend, why make mischief?” and old Venua’s eye twinkled as he 
chuckled at hizown joke, and never ceased talking and flourishing 
his arms. 

Ttwas Venua who first taught me about the fabric of the violin 
what my old master, Oury—another pupil of Paganini—first made 
‘me feel about violin playing—a tender love and sympathy for the in+ 
strument as well as the art, 

What was Venua’s connection with Cambridge 1 never could 
make out. He seemed independent, He had long ceased to teach 
or play, yet he was frequently away, and appeared only at intervals, 
always retaining the same lodgings at Cambridge, and generally 
giving me a call when he was in town, When I came up, about a 
year after leaving the University, for my voluntary theological exami. 
nation, I inquired for my old friend Venua, but he was gone, and 
no one could give me any news of him. I never saw him again, 
‘He remained to me simply a detached episode in my musical life. 

T think it was in my second year at college that a few friends, 
‘tore enterprising than discrect, revealed to me a dehen when yee 





smnsemem. if not profit. ‘They pro- 
wn some fifteen miles away 
smpanr. consisting of Signor 
and-so, would appear on a 
















avy great coats, well 
‘e of summer, and 
my own name was 
‘st Herr Emstein. 


wzs so thin that it 
sadience their 
ce to the wide- 
caatter by going 
We none of us 





of war. We were in 0; 
up our minds what to do, I 
slab, and waked the eckoes. 

‘Out of a dark side street presently strode, or rather shuffled up, 
a strange-looking man. As I played on he sidied up to me and 
stood gazing at me in mute astonishment. When I ceased he gasped 
out, “Who be you, sir?” “Who should you think?” I said. 
“ Dun-no, sir; never 'eered anything like it afore in all my born 


as we could not make 
=. sat down on a stone 








My Musical Life. 335 


days!" “Fond of music?” I said cheerfully, and was preparing to 
give him another taste of my quality, when he laid his grimy hand on 
my arm, and peering into my face, said, “ You jist tell me one thing, 
sir. Be you one of the gents that’s a coming: down next week with 
Mr, Jullien's band?” “Why? If they're only coming down next 
‘week, I should say not.” My companion, our agent, here plucked 
me by the sleeve ; he had gained admittance to an inn hard by, and it 
being now nearly two o'clock we concluded to turn in. T have come 
tothe conclusion that adventures of this kind are better beforeand after- 
wards ; at the time theyare often but poorsport, but they are anticipated 
with pleasure and recalled with interest, I am not aware that our 
secret was ever betrayed or that our escapade was ever discovered, 

‘Towards the close of my career at Cambridge a sort of rival to the 
Musical Society sprang up, which met at Sidney Hall and was largely 
choral. 


‘Mrs. Ellicott (wife of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol) was 
the vocal star at Cambridge in my time, and herservices were usually 
in request whenever the concert could by any stretch of imagination 
be called of a private or a collegiate character. On special occasions, 
however, the Fitzwilliam programme admitted instrumental music, 
and the last occasion on which 1 played in public at Cambridge was 
when f led Beethoven's grand Septuor for the Fitzwilliam Society in 
Sidney Hall. 

What my life at Cambridge might have been without my violin 1 
cannot say. Had I worked harder at Latin, Greek, and mathe- 
tmatics, I sometimes ask myself, Who would have been the better for 
it now? Had I even got a fellowship, should I have been the 
better for it then? Had I read less miscellaneously, written less 
voluminously, played Jess habitually, aud known half a dozen 
studious men only, instead of hundreds of all sorts, during those 
three years of college life, should 1 have been better or worse fitted 
for my after life than the studious men who went up with me were for 
theirs? Where are those studious men? One of the cleverest 
drank himself to death in India, Another senior wrangler became 
‘unfit for several years for all mental exertion, and is now a lawyer 
like any other lawyer. Some have subsided into the Church and are 
forgotten in country livings, useful, obscure, happy. Others were 
expected to do great things, but have not done them. Some are 
professors ; others fellows of colleges, like other fellows of colleges ; 
many are married and in every sense done for, and many are 
dead ; a few have risen to eminence, but these were in no one 
instance the men who attained the very higher honoom, Cesk 


80 sort oF mental lnfhvence whalsvex Tknew a0 1 
when I jerect na ha wtie0 OE sy Sear 


did not happen to know. Almost all the kno 
of any real use to me in the world I have 
University proclaimed me Master of Arts, 





337 


LADY CAROLINE LAMB. 


EW stories in English literature are more interesting and 
pathetic than that of Lady Caroline Lamb, the wife of the 
well-known statesman who afterwards became Lord Melbourne, and 
the friend of Byron, Madame de Stat, and other great luminaries of 
that brilliant period, Except for her romantic attachment to the 
author of Childe Harold,” who seems not only to have impressed 
her feelings, but fired her imagination for literary work, the world 
would probably have heard little of her in the domain of letters, 
though her name might have survived for a gencration in the circles 
of fashionable society, But her extraordinary infatuation for Lord 
Byron, and the difficulties to which it led, together with her sketches 
‘of his lordship and her confessions, have invested her personal his- 
tory and her literary cfforts with a singular attractiveness, More- 
over it is only within the last few years that letters have been pub- 
lished shedding additional light upon the most melancholy passages 
in her career, 

On both sides, Lady Caroline Lamb (sé Ponsonby) inherited 
Blue blood. Her father was the Earl of Bessborough, and her 
mother was the daughter of Earl Spencer. She was born on Novem- 
ber 13, 1785, and at an carly age she began her education under the 
direct supervision of the Countess Dowager Spencer, a lady famed 
forher accomplishments. A critic—probably a friendly one—states 
that in sprightliness of style, the Countess's letters would rival those 
of Sévigné or Montagn's, while in solidity of thought and ethical 
purity they might rank with the epistles of Carter, But granting 
exaggerations where we could scarcely perhaps expect impartiality, 
her ladyship was no doubt a highly gifted woman, and had consider- 
able store of erudition. Lady Caroline Ponsonby’s maturer character 
was prefigured in childhood, for we are told that she was impatient 
of restraint, wild in her movements, rapid in impulses, generous and 
kind of heart. Such traits being so early perceived, it would 
haye been well if, to the cultivation of her mind, there had 
been added strong moral and disciplinary treatment. It might 
hhaye prevented the growth of that dangerous impulsiveness anc 





338 
sien, which mache led 0 i, aaa 
happiness. a 
iverec pir teetmtripy ny i | 
exhibits her in.a very favourable light, at least as ilities 
and culture, “She was mistress of several of the living as well as 
of the dead languages ; as a reader she was ( 
her style of reciting the noblest Greek odes was of the m y 
and impressive character. Yet with all this, not the sli | 
dantry was apparent. Her powers of conversation | 
brilliant; and her compositions, in verse as well 
evidently the emanations of an elegant and benevolent n 
was an amateur and a patroness of the fine arts, 
pencil sketches, executed even in childhood, are 
genius.” Mr, McCullagh ‘Torrens, in his * 
bourne,” adds to these details that “ she possessed 
then unusual in one so young, and a peculiar charm of 
more than compensated for the want in some degree of 
tiong, In person she was slight and graceful, but of som 
than the ordinary height ; her features, small and 
set off by any beauty of complexion ; only her dark eyes, w 0 
trasted strikingly with her golden hair, vindicated her claim 
reckoned among the distinguished and prepossescing.” After spend- 
ing some years in Italy, Lady Caroline, who was still a. 
to Devonshire House, to be brought up with her L 
cousins, Here, according to her own account, there were defe 
training, for the children saw little of their parents, and they were 
allowed to go about as they pleased, When a child was 
to be served on silver in the morning, it is scarcely isi 
she should soon ignorantly assume that all people are either nobles 
or paupers, and that there is no end to the wealth of the rich, Ina 
frank and amusing letter describing this period, and addressed to’ 
Lady Morgan, Lady Caroline many years afterwards wrote: “ We 
had no idea that bread or butter was made ; how it came we did not 
pause to think; but had no doubt that fine horses must be 
beef At ten years old I could not write. My kind aunt, | 4 


I wrote not, spelt not, but I made verses which they 
beautiful. For myself, I preferred washing a dog, or | 
piece of Derbyshire spar, or breaking in a horse, if they 
se, At ten years old I was taken to my godmother, La 


_  - 














~*~ Lady Caroline Lam. 339 


where the housekeeper, in hoop and ruffies, reigned over seventy 
servants, and attended the ladies in the drawing-room, All my 
childhood I was a trouble, not a pleasure ; and my temper was so 
wayward that Lady Spencer got Dr. Warren to examine me. He 
said I was neither to lear anything nor see anyone, for fear the 
violent passions and strong whims formed in me should lead to mad- 
neas; of which, however, he said there were as yet no symptoms. I 
differ : my instinet was for music ; in it I delighted ; I cried when it 
was pathetic, and did all that Dryden made Alexander do, But of 
course I was not allowed to follow it up. The severity of my 
governess and the over-indulgence of my parents spoiled my 
temper, and the end was that until I was fifteen I learned nothing.” 

She abundantly made up for lost time, however, and in the course 
of a few yours became accomplished beyond the average of her sex. 
But the above passage throws some light upon the psychological 
aspects of her character, and should tend to modify the harsh judg- 
ments usually passed upon her, Mr, Lamb, on being thrown into 
her society, was soon charmed with her. He found her very attrac- 
tive-and agreeable, and utterly unlike anyone else in conversation. 
‘She was, in fact, a little too unconventional, and was consequently 
misunderstood. But she specdily found herself as much attracted 
towards William Lamb as he was towards her, and those who ought 
to have been most concerned were not aware of the rapidly growing 
nature of the intimacy between them, At length, in the early part 
of 1865, Mr. Lamb becamic the accepted suitor of Lady Caroline, 
and on the 3rd of June they were married, the bride being but nine~ 
teenand a half years of age. As Lamb was now in the thick of 
political life, his house was frequented by the most influential per+ 
sonages of the time, the heir to the throne himself attending the 
assemblies given by Lady Caroline, and frequently staying afterwards 
to supper, in company with Sheridan and other of his intimate 
fiends, For some time life was perfectly harmonious with the 
newly married couple, the young wife reading the classics with her 
husband, and taking a lively interest in his various studies, She also 
entered’ with zest into his political life, albeit she allowed a some- 
what masculine bent of mind occasionally to show itself. On one 
occasion she made herself conspicuous by personally canvassing the 
houscholders of Westminster when her brotherin-law, the Hon, 
George Lamb, was.a candidate to represent that city in Parliament. 
‘Two children were born to the Lambs—a daughter, who died in 
infaney, and a son, George Augustus Frederick, to whom the Prince 
of Wales stood sponsor, 

a 


‘The spirits of Byron and of Ledy Caroline 
maxbid thoughts shout themselves, ‘While a 
Byron, Lady Caroline affirmed that she used 
called at Holland House after a moming nde | 





too mature, ripened into. 
his own. One who knew her Jong and well, and who 
‘others lenient to her errors, has said of her that 








Lady Caroline Lamb. 341 


gradually the cause of disappointment and vexation. Craving on 
the one side encountered exaction on the other; and, as neither 
knew how to stifle ill-humour nor chagrin, he would grow moody and 
she fretful when their rival egotisms jarred. It was scarcely to be 
expected that the man who could write “Manfred” could affect a 
profound interest in Lady Caroline's feeble dallyings with the Muse ; 
and this became one of the potent causes in their estrangement. 
“Their strained relations beeame apparent once at Lord Holland's, 
‘The host having taken an antique censer from a cabinet to show it 
to some learned guest, as he passed Byron and Lady Caroline he 
turned and said to her, “You sec, I bear you incense.” “Offer it to 
‘Lord Byron,” she answered, “he is accustomed to it." 

Mr. Lamb at first attached little Importance to his wife's friendship 
with Byron ; he predicted a specdy rupture ; and, morcover, he knew 
‘of the poct's intention to take a wife and settle down at Newstead, 
Byron, says Mr, Torrens, married Miss Milbanke with the advice and 
approval of Lady Melbourne, but in spite of many petulant warnings 
of evil from Lady Caroline. But the real grievance was that he 
would no longer pay court to herself. To appease her, it is to be 
feared that, both in prose and verse, Byron greatly added to his list 
of false declarations to the fair, by asseverations of eternal constancy, 
&e, & Vet, during his unhappy union, Byron did not object to let 
it be stated that he still cared more for the society of Lady Caroline 
than that of his wife. “During Lady Caroline's temporary stay in 
Treland a correspondence was kept up between them, At length, on 
iearning that she was about to return to England, Byron resolved to 
put an end to all future communication ; and did so ina letter which 
bore on its seal the coronet and initials of Lady Oxford, whom he 
knew she disliked, Before she recovered from the illness that 
ensued he had quitted England, and they met no more.” Now, 
without palliating for a moment the folly of Lady Caroline, there is 
no doubt that Lord Byron had a brutal manner of getting rid of a 
worn-out attachment when he chose, Captain Medwin himself says, 
of this particular intimacy, that Byron most cruelly and culpably 
trifled with the feelings of Lady Caroline. 

Lord Beaconsfield, in “ Vivian Grey,” roughly sketched the 
portrait of the subject of our article in Mrs, Felix Lorraine. At 
the end of the first edition of that work (1827), now before us, there 
ig a key to the novel, in which these disguised and real names, 
Amongst others, are given—Marquis of Carabas, Marquis of Clanri- 
carde ; Mr. Foaming Fudge, Mr. Brougham ; Mr. Charlatan Gas, 
Mr, Canning ; Lord Past Century, Earl of Bldon, Wx. Waves 


He Tie Gentleman's Magazine. 


\ Mr. Huskisson; the Duke of Waterloo, the Duke of 
Yrince Hungary, Prince Esterhazy ; the Marchioness 
ness of Londonderry ; Mrs. Felix Loraine, 
Stanislaus Hoax, Theodore Hook; Lord 
1 Witiiam Lennox; and the Marquis of Grand: 
ef Hertford. Lady Caroline’s character and 
disguised in the novel, though her 
ess are well rendered. Her person is 
and as to her flirtations with Vivian 
sing beautiful French songs, and then 
e¢ the luminous lake in the park and 
blue Rhine ! and then she remem- 
and abused her husband ; and then 
some other fooleries besides.” On 
irs. Felix Lorraine at the feet of Mr, 
scene Lord Beaconsfield had Lady 
» Her countenance indicated the 
as it were, for mastery—suppli- 
2 Her companion’s countenance 
was not wreathed with smiles: 
‘ted, and then both quitted the 
despair and the gentleman in 
ts to poison Vivian, and, when 
passes between them, in which 


































ai and ineffable essence ; shrined 
is an image, before which 
that image is—yourseff. And 
eyes,” and here the lady's 
tone became more terrestr when I do look upon thy 
Juxuriant curls, and here the ail white hand played like 
lightning through Vivian's dark hair, ‘and truly when I do remember 
the beauty of thy all-peréect form, T earmot deem thy self-worship—a 
false idolatry 5‘ and here the lady's arms were locked round Vivian's 
neck, and her head rested on We m 
to the novel for the remainder of this interesting se 
think, justify the opinion expressed by another of the characters in 
this singular novel, “‘ How's Mrs. Felix Lorraine? She's ad——d 
odd woma But in the character drawn by Lord Beaconsfield 
and intended for Lady Careline lamb, we should say that there 
was a good deal that was libellous, if there was much otherwise. 
Galt depicts a scene which occurred between Lady Caroline 


in the secret 
you bow down 
truly, when 1 do gaze up. 

























Lady Caroline Lami. 343 


Lamb and Byron, at a rout given by Lady Heathcote, Recrimi- 
nations and an alleged attempted suicide play a part in it, as will be 
seen from the passage we reproduce. 

«The insane attachment of this eccentric lady to his lordship was 
well known! insane is the only epithet that can be applied to the 
actions of a married woman, who, in the disguise of a page, flung 
herself to a man who, a3 she told a friend of mine, was ashamed to 
‘be in love with her because she was not beautiful—an expression 
at once curious and just, evincing a shrewd perception of the springs 
Of his lordship’s conduct, and the acuteness blended with frenzy and 
talent which distinguished herself Lord Byron unquestionably at 
that time cared little for her, In showing me her picture, some two 
or three days after the affair, and laughing at the absurdity of it, he 
bestowed ‘on her the endearing diminutive of vixen, with a hard- 
hearted adjective that I judiciously omit, 

“The immediate cause of this tragical flourish was never very 
well understood ; but in the course of the evening she had made 
several attempts to fasten on his lordship, and was shunned + certain 
it is, she had not, like Burke in the House of Commons, pre- 
meditatedly brought a dagger in her reticule, on purpose for the 
scene; but, seeing herself an object of scorn, she seized the firet 
weapon she could find—some said a pair of scissors—others more 
acandalously, a broken jelly-glass, and attempted an incision of the 
jugular, to the consternation of all the dowagers, and the pathetic 
admiration of every Miss, who witnessed or heard of the rupture. 

“Lord Byron at the time was in another room talking with 
Prince K——, when Lord P—— came, with a face full of con- 
sternation, and told them what had happened ; the cruel poet, instead 
of being agitated by the tidings, or standing in the stnallest degree 
in need of « smelling bottle, knitted his scowl, and said,. with 
contemptuous indifference, ‘It is only a trick.’ All things con- 
sidered, he was perhaps not uncharitable ; and aman of Jess vanity 
would have felt pretty much as his lordship appeared to do on the 
occasion. The whole affair was cminently ridiculous, and what 
increased the absurdity was a letter she addressed to a friend of 
mine on the subject, and which he thought too good to be reserved 
only for his own particular study.” 

Lord Beaconsfield for a second time depicts Lady Caroline Lamb 
in the character of Lady Monteagle in “Venetia.” Here she is de- 
scribed as throwing herself into Byron’s rooms in masculine disguise, 
when she found his valet had been ordered to deny her admission, 

‘The intimacy between the poct and Lady Caroling Sased Sax 


I 








Lady Caroline Lamb. 345 


you shall find your error. I feel that within which tells me that 1 
could be superior—ay, very superior—to those who cavil at my faults, 
and first encourage and then ridicule me for them, I love—I honour 
you, Henry. You never flatter me, Even if you neglect me, you 
have confidence in me—and, thank God, my heart is still worthy of 
some affection, It is yet time to amend." Byron is represented as 
having been driven by his crimes from a foreign country, and he 
arrives upon the shores of Ireland to pervert and mislead others, 
to disseminate his wicked doctrines amongst an innocent but weak 
people, and to spread the flames of rebellion, already kindled in 
‘other parts of the island, He turns the heads of all the people, 
especially those of the female sex, and by his conduct and speech 
throws a glamour over them, One young lady follaws him every- 
where throughout the country, He is credited with bravery and 
generosity, and a dangerous seductiveness. “Cattle walk out of 
the paddocks of themselves ; women, children, pigs, wander after 
Glenarvon ; and Miss Elinor, forgetful of her old father, my dear 
mad brother, her aunt, her religion, and all else, to the scandal of 
everyone in their senses, heads the rabble." ‘The poet poisons the 
whole of society, disaffects a whole nation by a single pamphlet, and 
puts himself at the head of an insurrectionary force. To all which, 
we can only say with Dominie Sampson, “ Prodigious 1” 

‘Over Calantha, Glenarvon wields the power of the rattlesnake 
or the basilisk. “Never did the hand of the sculptor, in the full 
power of his art, produce a form and face more finely wrought, 50 
full of soul, so ever-varying in expression. Was it possible. to 
behold him unmoved? Oh! was it in woman's nature to hear him 
and not to cherish every word he uttered? And having heard him, 
was it in the human heart ever again to forget those accents which 
awakened every interest, and quieted every apprehension? The 
day, the hour, that very moment of time, was marked and destined. 
It was Glenarvon—it was the spirit of evil whom she beheld ; and 
her soul trembled within her, and felt its danger." We shall not 
follow the philanderings of the infatuated couple, nor trace the melo- 
dramatic carcer of Glenaryon. In page after page of transpontine 
theatrical declamation, are not these duly set forth in the work from 
which we have been quoting? Whosoever will may turn to these 
curious volumes for himself, 

But the writer has occasional sayings which are well worth 
extracting, and for a few of these we must make room, ‘The ideas 
are not always new, but they are given a new expression. “ Fate 
jtself cannot snatch from us that which has once been! “Sac 

YpL CCLY. NO, 1834, vn 


Lady Caroline Lamb. 347 
“What did you mean,’ asked J, one day, ‘by that line in 


« Beppo” 
a * Some play the devil, and then writea novel 2” 

“‘T alluded,’ replied he, ‘to a novel that had some fame in con- 
sequence of its being considered a history of my life and adventures, 
characters, and exploits, mixed up with innumerable lies and Iam- 
poons upon others, Madame de Stal asked me if the picture was 
like me, and the Germans think it is not a caricature, One of my 
foreign biographers has tacked name, place, and circumstance to the 
Florence fable, and gives me « principal instead of a subordinate 
part in a certain tragical history therein narrated. Unfortunately for 
‘my biographers, I was never at Florence for more than a few days in 
amy life ; and Fiorabella's beautiful flowers are not so quickly plucked 
or blighted. Hence, however, it has been alleged that murder is my 
instinct, and to make innocence my victim and my prey part of my 
nature, I imagine that this dark hint took its origin from one of my 
notes in ‘The Giaour,” in which I said that the countenance of a 
person dying by stabs retained the character of ferocity, or of the 
particular passion imprinted on it at the moment of dissolution. A. 
sage reviewer makes this comment on my remark ; “It must have 
‘Deen the result of personal observation f” 

®*Bot Tam made out a very amiable person in that novel ! 
‘The only thing belonging to me in it {s part of a letter, but it is 
mixed up with much fictitious and poetical matter. Shelley told me 
he was offered by ——, the bookseller in Bond Street, no small sum 
if he would compile the notes of that book into a story, but that he 
declined the offer. . . . . But if 1 know the authoress, shave seen 
letters of hers much better written than any part of that novel.” 
‘This was a very just criticism on Byron's part, Lady Caroline 
Lamb's letters being in favourable contrast to her novels, both as 
regards style and matter.” 

‘There seems little doubt that this eccentric woman possessed an 
open frankness to such a degree that, whilet it might be understood 
‘by her friends, led to much misconstraction on the part of others. 
Nor can she certainly be acquitted of a foolish levity. Yet she 
owas extremely kind-hearted and generous. If her feelings were ones 
touched, she would rush to the aid of a person, regardless of appear- 
ances inimical to her own reputation. The distressed always found 
in her a friend, and she has been compared with the character of 
‘Lady Orville in one of her own novels, who had this trait among 
others : “The knowledge that a human being was unhappy at once 
‘erased from her mind the recollection either of enmity or of error.” 

é nua 


ae SS 


348 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


han, the friend of Lord Byron, and the composer who set so 
sany of his stanzas to m: 's of the infinity of trouble she took 
in the case of a lady in Cistressed circumstances, to whom she 
was quite unknown ; and many similar incidents could bave been 
cited. 

‘The wound caused by Lord Byron's conduct towards her was 
d, but rather aggravated, by the issue of the well-known 
ses in which his lordship strove t0 depict what he declared to be 
sorrows ¢f his own broken hear. Lacy Caroline's temper had 
jeen uncertain ; Lut, after her quarrel with the noble poet, we 
are credibly assured that it became ungovernable. Her erratic con- 
duct led to many wild and incredible reports, one of them being to 
the elfeet that in a fit of rage she had killed a page. Her own 
tion of this report, together with some glimpses of her life at 
ind, are furnished in this letter, writen by Lady Caroline to 





tel 






























Iny was at little expéégle, and would throw detonating balls 
» the fire. Lord Melbuurne always scolded me for this and I the 
One day Twas playing ball with him; he threw a. squib into 
the tre, I threw the ball tt his head ; it hit him on the temple and 
he bled. He cried out, «Oh ! my lady, you have killed me!” Out 


















Lady Caroline Lumb. 349 


is, that when the time came, Lamb, who could be very tender- 
hearted, really shrank from throwing off his indiscreet wife. He 
Teflected that, perhaps, he had not given her that guidance which 
‘one of her peculiar nature ought to have received from her husband ; 
and, great a were her eccentricities, the memory of his old love 
returned, and he relented. “Ought he to fling her, inthe face of the 
hissing world, and from such a height of luxury and indulgence, 
down such a steep of ignominy, humiliation and reproach? He 
felt he could not do it, and readily clutched at the excuse her 
strange and foolish novel unexpectedly offered to reprieve the but 
half-accountable offender.” So, although the deeds of separation 
were prepared, they were not signed. ‘The storm blew over, “and 
‘she made all manner of promises to be tractable, obedient, and calm. 
Bot the spoilt child of fortune and affection, though for the hour 
sincere, was not to be so easily cured of spoiling. he evil spirit 
had departed for the moment, but, unhappily, it returned.” 

When “Glenarvon” appeared, there was naturally 4 good deal 
of interest to sce the portrait of Byron as sketched by one whose 
name was in everybody's mouth. ‘The book, as a whole, was found 
to be almost beneath criticism, and the leading character was a gross 
caricature of the popular poet. The work is, in truth, a curious cons 
glomeration, as we have already scen, and it must have sorely tried 
her long-suffering husband. On leaving England, Byron addressed 
to Lady Caroline the stanzas commencing — 


Farewell, if ever fondest prayer. 


Bot at the same time he did not disguise his contempt for the novel. 
When she heard of his plans, and also of what he had said concern- 
ing herself, she had 9 bonfire prepared, and caused his lordship to 
‘De burned in effigy—a form of recreation which, while acting as a 
safety-valve to herself, certainly did not hurt Lord Byron, who 
must have smiled grimly when he heard of the incident. The fair 
incendiary took care that he had knowledge of his sentence and 
execution, te 

Lady Caroline again turned to authorship, and this time produced 
“ Grabam Hamilton,” which was suggested to her by this remark of 
‘Ugo Foscolo: “ Writea book which will offend nobody; women cannot 
afford to shock.” ‘The story, which is better written than its prede- 
cessor, fully answered to this description. But again she had a purpose. 
‘his time it was to show that an amiable disposition, if unaccom- 
panied by firmness and resolution, is frequently productive of more 
misery to its owner and to others than even the mos dadwy, ee ot 














Lady Caroline Lams. 351 
If thou couldst lenow what "is to smile, 

To omile whilst scorned by everyone, 
To hide, by many an actful wile, 


A heart that knows mare grief than guile, 
‘Thou wonldst not do what I have done, 


And, oh! if thou couldst think how dear, 

‘When friends are changed and health is gone, 
‘The world would to thine cyes appear, 
TE thou, like me, to none wert dear, 

‘Thou wouldst not do what I have done, 


Lady Caroline Lamb wrote many other things, both in prose and 
-vers¢, but there is nothing to require further notice, sive her third 
work in fiction, “ Ada Reis,” which the writer herself regarded as her 
best production. Butit is as wild and inconsequent as “‘Glenarvon,” 
the hero being a cross between Lord Byron and Paul Jones, Ada 
Reis is a daring agiventurer, and everything he does is upon a great 
scale, As a thief and robber’ he is almost unparalleled for the 
thoroughness of his work ; but he makes his way amazingly, and when 
‘a very important personage applies for his daughter's hand, he is 

that “an imperial crown awaits her.” The novel would 
run any other work with wiffch we are acquainted very close as 
tegards the amount of insane writing within a given space, but deca- 
sionally there isa penetrating gleam of very good sense, Observes 
one character to another: * Of what you call accident, misfortune, 
calamity, disaster, infliction, you will find the real names to be sloth, 
negligence, imprudence, despondency, and intemperance.” But a 
reader might fairly include this work in the list of books he is neces« 
sitated to skip, in spite of the author's partiality for it 

‘This partiality was strongly apparent in a letter written to Lady 
Morgan by the author, “All Lhave asked of Murray," she said, “is a 
dull sale, or a still-binh. This may seem strange, and T assure you 
it iscontrary to my own feelings of ambition; but what ean I do? 
Tam ordered peremptorily by my own family not to write, All you 
say is true, and so true, that I ask you if one descended in a right 
line from Spenser, not to speak of the Duke of Marlborough, with all 
the Cavendish and Ponsonby blood to boot, which you know were 
always rebellious, should feel a litte strongly upon any occasion, and 
burst forth, and yet be told to hold one’s tongue and not write, what 
is to happen? You cannot do me a greater favour than to recom- 
mend and set abroad * Ada Reis.’ I will send you three copies.” 
And in return for the interest which she expects her friend to take in 
the work, she promises to do all she can for Lady Morgsts Sie 





Lady Caroline Lamb, 353 


We now come to an interesting passage in Lady Caroline Lamb's 
career, viz, the one arising out of her relations with William Godwin. 
‘The acquaintance beganon theoccasion of the Westminster election in 
February 1819, when Mr. George Lamb, herladyship's brother-inslaw, 
wasacandidate. Lady Caroline wrote a note to Godwin, soliciting his 
interest for Lamb, but fearing that his politics would incline him to 
refuse her request. The author of “ Political Justice" replied : “You 
have mistaken me. Mr. G. Lamb has my sincere good wishes. My 
creed ig a short onc. I am in principle a Republican, but in practice 
a Whig. But I am a philosopher, that is 2 person desirous to 
become wise, and I aim at that object by reading, by writing, and a 
little by conversation, But I do not mix in the business of the 
world, and I am now too old to alter my course, even at the flattering 
invitation of Lady Caroline Lamb.” Notwithstanding, a friendship 
began between the two. Limb himself did not care much for 
Godwin, but he was pressed for an introduction to the philosopher 
by one who was afterwards destined to achieve celebrity in more 
than one field—Edward Lytton Bulwer. 

Lady Caroline consequently wrote to Godwin a letter, from which 
we make the following extracts : * Mr. Lytton Bulwer, a very young 
man and an enthusiast, wishes to be introduced to you. He is 
taking his degree at Cambridge ; on his return pray let me make 
him acquainted with you. I shall claim your promise of coming 
to Brocket ; would your daughter or son accompany you? Hob- 
house came to me last night ; how strange it is Tlove Lord Byron so 
much now in my old age, in spite of all he is said to have said, and 
Talso love Hobhouse because he so warmly takes his part, Pray 
write to me, for you sce your advice has had some effect. T have 
been studying your little books with an ardour and a pleasure which 
would surprise you ; but what has vexed me is that the two children 
and four young women to whom I endeavoured to read them, did 
not choose to attend, 

“ After all, what is the use of anything here below but to be 
enlightened and try to make others happy? From this day I will 
endeavour to conquer all my violence, all my passions ; but you are 
destined to be my master, The only thing that checks my ardour is 
this: For what purpose, for whom should I endeavour to grow 
wise? What is the use of anything? What is the end of life? 
When we die, what difference is there between a black-bectle and 
me?.... The only thoughts that ever can make me lose my 
senses are these :—A want of knowledge as to what is really true ; a 


certainty that J am useless ; a fear that V am wowsvew,, & Tot 


4 


Byronism, While she woutd now and again 
on other occasions she turned fiereely upon 
with haying sown the seeds of discord 
strained imagination conjured up scenes which ered, 
and her brother even had no influence over her: a 
healthy mental excitement, precibuekeencrs Co 
one reminding him of his promised visit to Brocket, : aide eee 
afterwards this was followed by another, in which she 
her own feelings : “All I know is, that I was happy, 
and surrounded by friends, I have now one 
William Lamb, two others in my father and brother, but health, 
spirits, and all else is gone—gone how? Oh, assuredly, not by the 
visitation of God, but slowly and gradually by my own fault! You 
said you would like to sce me and speak tome. I shall, if possible, 
be in town in a few days. When I come I will let you know. The 
last time I was in town I was on my bed three days, rode out and 
came off here on the 4th. God preserve you.” ‘To another corres 
spondent she said; “I ato satisfied with all Ihave. My husband 
has been to me a guardian angel. Tlorshin nor setae 
boy, though afflicted, is clever, amiable, and cheerful. Tet me not 
be judged by hasty. words and hasty letters. My heart aman 
Jake on a fine summer day ; and I am as grateful to God for His 
mercy and blessing as it is possible to be." But her moments of 
contentment were quite as evanescent us she here wished it to be 
believed was the case with her melancholy. And her son, now 
nearly seventeen, added to her anxiety and increased her despond- 
ency, There was something psychologically wrong with him, but: 
Beers a bas es ie 
a strong impression that a,metaphysician like Godwin. 
accurately to diagnose the disease, There was nothing for it, there= 
age; but to: have \Godwia: downtite,Birocket and Lady Caroline 
wrote him this extraordinary letter (lle 
“Fem the omen hen ou at order ech cine 





Lady Caroline Lams. 355, 


‘not strange, then, that I can suffer my mind to be so overpowered, 
and mostly about trifles? Can you think of me with anything but 
contempt? Tell me, would you dislike paying me a little visit? I 
‘will not allure you by descriptions of a country life. If you come, I 
imagine it is to pay me a friendly visit, and if you do tot, T shall feel 
secure you have good reason for not coming. The whole of what 
passed, which set me so beside myself, I forget and forgive ; for my 
‘own faults are so great that I can see and remember nothing beside, 
‘Yet Tam tormented with such superabundance of activity, and have 
80 little to do, that I want you to tell me how to go on, 

“Tt is all very well if one died at the end of a tragic scene, 
after playing a desperate part ; but if one lives, instead of growing 
‘wiser, one remains the same victim of every folly and passion, with- 
‘out the excuse of folly and inexpericnce, What then? Pray saya 
few wise words to me. There is no one more deeply sensible than 
myself of kindness from persons of high intellect, and at this period 
‘of my life Inced it. I have nothing to do—I mean necessarily. 
‘There is no particular reason why I should exist ; it conduces to no 
one's happiness, and, on the contrary, I stand in the way of many. 
Besides, I seem to have lived five hundred years, and feel I am 
‘neither better nor worse than when I began. My experience gives 
me no satisfaction ; all my opinions and beliefs and feelings are 
shaken, as if suffering from frequent little shocks of earthquake. Tam 
Jike a boat in a calm, in an unknown, and, to me, unsought-for, sca, 
without compass to guide or even a knowledge whither I am destined. 
Now, this is probably the case of millions, but that does not mend 
the matter, and while a fly exists it secks to save itself, therefore 
excuse me if] try todo the same. Pray write to me, and tell me 
also what you have done about my journal Thank you for the 
frame ; will you pay for it, and send me in any account we have at 
your house? I am very anxious about my dear boy. I must speak 
to you of him. Everyone, as usual, is kind to me; I want for 
nothing this earth can offer but self-control.” 

A letter like this from a wife with a husband whom she under- 
stood, and who understood her, would be an impossibility, She 
would shrink from thus opening her heart toa third person, even 
though it might be a much dearer friend than Godwin was to 
Caroline Lamb, William Lamb himself had a nature that was 
‘peculiarly ible to such things ; he regarded the affections as 
much too Matters to be talked about, and every incident of 
this kind only drove him into a condition of impassive reserve. He 
had no antipathy to Godwin, however, but rather, on She cavtscary, 


Bexceman . Siierem. 








it te mums :¢ Lamb's 
= ou TSMEr che ams mssstance 
Sem Tmune mus wit Sad many 
gor ke est nem ste <Eroni 






Bis converse with the 
d@ that he had a 





relatives, 














Lady Caroline Lamb, 357 


Life was now a miserable thing for both husband and wife, but it 
‘must be borne, patiently or impatiently, for three years longer, In 
the autumn of 1827, however, Lady Caroline's physical condition 
became serious. Foreseeing the end, she seemed suddenly to attain 
to a calm she had never before known. Her letters to her husband, 
observes one writer, “might have been written by one who had 
never known a troubled hour. They were full of affection, fortitude, 
and tenderness; not a word of recurrence to sad memories, or of 
repining at her actual Jot. It scemed as if the unquiet spirit which 
had so long lamentably possessed her was at length cast out, and 
that she reverted calmly to the days of early love and admiration for 
the man to whom in girlhood she had given her heart and hand.” 
‘This is at least the bright spot in her melancholy history. The 
disease from which she was suffering was dropsy, and she came to 
town for medical assistance. An operation was performed, which 
gave her relief for a month or two; but by the beginning of January 
1828 it was perceived that her case was hopeless. 

Lamb, who was in Ireland, at once came over to Melbourne 
House. He was pained to find her worse than he expected, and 
behaved most tenderly to her, His brother has testified to the 
gentleness and affectionateness of his demeanour. And the sufferer, 
toa, she had been anxious that her husband should be with her at 
the last, and her wish was gratificd. She died on the 2sth, after 
some days of but flickering consciousness. Long after her death, 
and in spite of the sorrow and anxiety she had caused him, Lamb 
cherished her memory tenderly, “Shall we meet in another world ?” 
was the question he would ask his friends, while unable to control 
his emotion, 

In person Lady Caroline Lamb is represented to have been 
rather small ; but, notwithstanding Byron's depreciation of her, she 
was perfectly formed, although she had no claims to beauty beyond 
that of expression. This charm she possessed to a large degree, 
Her eyes were dark, but her hair end complexion fair ; her manners 
had an apparent affectation, and yet a fascination which none but 
those who encountered her could understand. “ Perhaps, however, 
they were more attractive to those beneath her than to her equals ; 
for as their chief merit was their kindness and endearment, so their * 
chief deficiency was a want of that quict and composed dignity 
which is the most orthodox requisite in the manners of what we 
term, Jar emphasis, socicty. Her character it is difficalt to analyse, 
because, owing to the exireme susceptibility of her imagination, and 
the unhesitating and rapid manner in which she followed its impulses, 
her conduct was one perpetual kaleidoscope of changes” 


358 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


She had strong passions, but lacked guiding principles. Her 
nature was one not fit to stand alone, as it was apt to be played upon 
by means of her imagination. No doubt her friendship with Lord 
Byron did much to render both her heart and mind unstable. She 
could not resist the fascination of such a character. Had she never 
met him, the channels of her life would in all probability have been 
tumed into a more salutary direction. She needed a kind, but finn, 
controlling hand, and this was not soon enough perceived by her 
husband, who did not give sufficient weight to her impressionable 
character. He trusted her good heart implicitly, when he should 
have strengthened her weak mind. Yet he doubtless acted as he 
thought for the best, and he certainly erred on the side of kindness. 
Not one word, therefore, can be said against him, The moral of 
Lady Caroline Lamb's self-blighted and melancholy career—if it has 
a moral—is that referred to in a line of Tennyson's, when he says, 

They are dangerous guides, the feelings. 


G. BARNETT SMITH, 








359 


THE KING OF BEASTS. 


(dA SKETCH FROM OUR POETS.) 


‘HERE are inany who deprecate the lion’s coronation as the 
King of Beasts, But, after all, it should not be forgotten 
by the lion's critics that it is only contended on its behalf that it is 
the King of Bards; and, remembering this, it is very difficult I 
think to dispute its claim to monarchy. It may have vassals actually 
as strong as itself, powerful Warwicks or Burgundies, but it is still, 
Ithink, their liege lord. Its gait, eye, voice, and uplift of head all 
make it royal in presence—and, as for its character, itis no worse 
than that of any other beast, Its personal advantages therefore 
are all so much “to the good,” while in its natural life, and in its 
traditional glories the lion is indisputably majestic. 

But though Tam content that this beast should receive a lion's 
share of honour, I am not prepared to play jackal to its lion. 

‘There are two lions, the real and the imaginary, ‘The former 
exists in nature only ; the latter in heraldry, myths, and poetry. But 
both are royal; the former from attributes of person, the latter from 
attributes of mind, 

A. writer, for whom I have a great respect, calls the King of 
Beasts “x great carnivorous impostor,” challenges its claim to majesty, 
and asks proof of its ‘supposed magnanimity and generosity beyond 
the blandness of its Harold Skimpole countenance, and the dis 
dainful manner in which it throws back its mane as if it were quite 
ineapsible of the pettiness (of which it is, nevertheless, frequently 
guilty) of picking up and cating ahumble black-bectle.” But though 
it is quite tree that it is excelled in size and ferocity by the tiger, in 
elegance of form by the leopard and jaguar, and in beamty of 
colouring by most of the great cats,“ yet it would” (as Professor 
Kitchen Parker says) “be useless, even if it were advisable, to try to 
depose the lion from the throne it has, by the universal consent of 
mankind, 90 long occupied.” It would be useless, because the 
tagnificent presence and kingly voice of the lion would always 
suffice to rethrone it as often as it was deposed. And it would be 
unadvisable, as no other beast could be crowned in its Weak. Toe 


The King of Beasts. 361 


rogal, it is.at times tyrannical, and, though usually magnanimous, it is 
also on oceasion “inhuman.” It is “ the awful lion's royal shape” 
in one place; in another we meet only “ the shaggy terror of the 
wood.” While Cowper portrays the beast sparing a victim “on 
the terms of royal mercy and through generous scorn to rend 2 
victim trembling at his foot,” Armstrong writes of “the ruthless 
king of beasts that on blood and slaugliter only lives.” In spite too 
of its prodigious strength, it is well worth noting that no incident of 
man’s triumph over the lion is neglected, and—as Pansanias tells 
us that Polydamas, the athlete, killed « lion, “although he was un- 
armed ”—it is particularly recorded (whenever such was the case) 
that the man was quite unarmed during the encounter. In the 
same spirit the Assyrian king has left the proud chronicle on stone 
how “TI, Assar-Banipul, king of multitudes, by my might, on my two 
legs, a fierce lion, which I seized behind the ears, in the service of 
Istar, goddess of war, with my two hands I killed”! In the same 
spirit of pride at such a conquest, the son of Jesse makes his boast 
before the king and afterwards, himself king, places among his 
“mighty men,” and before “the Thirty,” that man of calm courage 
Benaiah, who “went down and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in 
time of snow,” and who also slew, terrible as himself, two lion-like 
men of Moab, Our own Richard (“he who robbed the lion of his 
heart") was especially glorified by the ballad singers of his day, 
because he had torn a lion to pieces with his hands, and this, too, 
“without his weapons in his hands.” So Samson (“and he had 
nothing in his hand,” Judges xiv.), who 
‘Withoutea wepen save his handes twey 
Me slow and all to-rente the Jeon 
‘Toward bis wedding walking by the way. 
And David (in Cowley) 
Saw a Vion and leapt down to St; 
As carly there the royal beast he tore, 
As that itself did kids of lambs before, 
And Hercules (in Drayton)— 
‘There where Nemea's howling forests wave 
Tle drives the fion to his dusky cave, 
Seized by the throat the growling fiend disarms 
And tears his gaping jaws with sinewy arms. 
So in Glover's “Leonidas”: “This unconquered hand hath from 
the lion rent his shaggy mane.” So Drayton has a hero smashing two 
4 “Who drew the lion vanquished ? “twas a man."—Pzte. * Avec plus de 
ee confréres savaient peindre,” says the lion in 


VoL. ccty. NO. 1834. ce gq 


362 The Gentleman's Magazine, = 





deen rabbits, and who were themselves ruled over by gis i 
whose robes were * spoils of lions” speaks of Don 
Quixote’s adventure with the lions as Beery 
which the unheard-of courage of the Knight ever did, or could, 

and Don Quixote himself was of the same opinion, as thenceforward 
he called himself the Knight of the Lions. So perhaps “ the lion is 
not so fierce as painted,” as Fuller—plagiarising from Herbert's 


Chatham (or Mr. Winkle), for the other to “come on,” but occasion. 

ally, as in straight-thrusting Quarles— ° 
They faint, and show 
Their fearful heels if Chaanticleer do crow." 


“Though usually so chivalrous as to refuse to take advantage of 


equal foes "— 
"Mid the sad flock at dead of night fe prowls 7 
‘With mander glattet, and in carnage rolls; 
Tnuatiete ill theough teeming herds ho ress, - 
Ta vena of gore the lordly tyrant foams! - 
‘Though, as a rule, “ courteous" to their subjects, we read in 
Butler that | 


c Lions are kings of bessts, and yot their power 
Is not to.sule and govern but devour, 
Sach savage kings all tyrants are, 
Again, though the sovereignty is one that “ makes all nature glad,” 
and the beasts unanimous in loyal submission (the fox says “ Thee all 
the animals with fear adore”), yet we find the lion's subjects abused 


+ "Tn oar time ia the Court of the Prince of Bavaria one ofthe Hons Teaped 
down intoa neighbour's yard where, nothing regarding the crowing ce noise of 
the cocks, he eat them up, with many henk” (Note to Sie Thos Browng’s 
works.) ‘The lions in the Tower used to be regaled eccasionally with eock 

4 Byron, Phineas Pletcher hns the following, identical in split — 

+ As when 2 greody lion, long unfed, 





——— 


The King of Beasts. 363 


for submitting to his supremacy, * No better than mere beasts that 
do obey,” says Butler, and Pope— 

Ifa king’s a lion, at the least 

‘The people are a many-headed beast, 
So that, even from these few quotations, it is evident that the poets 
‘had not arrived at any stich unanimous opinion as to the lion idea 
as they have about many other beasts. As the King of Beasts it is 
merely the correlate of the cagle, But as the fabulist’s lion, done into 
‘verse, it remains the same mock-heroic animal that the folk-lore of 
the world has bequeathed to us. 

Above all, of course, the Lion is royal. Notso superlative, perhaps, 
in sovereignty as the eagle, but still yery emphatically the King of 
Beasts. “The sovereign lion”—*the forest king"—* the kingly 
beast "—" the lion-king "—* dread king""—* imperious lion," and so 
forth, are to be collected for the gathering by bushels Nor, seeing 
how unanimously the past has conspired to crown the lion, is it.easy 
to quarrel with the poets for perpetuating the monarchical idea. But 
itis essentially a poctical form of procedure to accept a fiction on the 
statement of professed fables and myths, and then to build upon it ac- 
cording to individual imagination. ‘Thus, nothing is so popular with 
poets as the image of a lion, like some chivalrous knight of the 
‘Crusades, challenging attack from overwhelming numbers, and defying 
superior strength. No lion in the flesh behaves as Dryden’s, that 
“provokes the hunters from afar, and dares ther to the fray,” and 
that “roars out with loud disdain, and slowly moves, unknowing to 
give place ;” or, as Thomson's beast docs— 

Despising flight 
‘The roused-up Lion, resolute and slow 
Advancing fall on the protended. spear, 


or as many other lions of poetry do that scorn to turn from a foe. As 
a matter of fact, the lion, of all beasts of prey, is one of the readiest 
to ayoid a scrimmage, King James used to try to divert his friends 
with lion-fights in the Tower, but (according to Howe's Chronicle) 
His Majesty always failed, owing to the lions’ objections to fighting. 
“Then were divers other lions put into that place one after another, 
but they showed no more sport nor valour than the first ; and every 
of them, so soon as they espied the trap-doors open, ran hastily into 
their dens, Lastly, there were put forth together the two young 
lusty lions which were bred in that yard, and were now grown great, 
‘These at first began to march proudly towards the bear, which the 
bear perceiving came hastily out of a comer to racet Uhem, WG 
cca 


364 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


lion and lioness skipped up and down and fearfully | from the 
bear ; and so these, like the former lions, not willing : 
fight, sought the next way into their den.” But perhaps this for. 
‘Dearance is like that of the late Mr. T. Sayers, who, it is said, “never 
liked to hit a man who didn’t know who he was." He was afraid of 
killing him in all his ignorance, So before he hit him al 

the victim that he was Sayers. In the sume way the ‘lion 
always “roars” before attacking. 

Now, to complete the poctical lion it is necessary that in all its 
moods it should be classic. Not only in those that are heroic but 
those that are pathetic also. For are not strong passions merely 
strong feelings? So the lion in grief is the most grievous beast 
imaginable. No parents created (except eagles) feel the loss of their 
young so keenly as lions and lionesses ; none are so quickly a} 
sive of danger to their hearths and calla none are so frantic in 
revenge. Therefore, from Spenser, with his “ felle” lion that “ mournes 
inwardly, and makes to himselfe mone,” to Burns, who (anxious to 
give expression to an overwhelming melancholy) cries out for the 
voice of a lioness “that mourns her darling cubs’ undoing,” we find 
the poets punctually magnifying the tenderness of the species. It 
‘was necessary, of course, that this should be done—just as one hears 
it said, describing some utter ruflian, that, “after all, his heart is in 
the right place.” Thus, some of Ouida’s maned heroines are very 
Jeonine. ‘They crunch up bronze candlesticks between their fingers 
in agonies of suppressed passion. But their violet eyes overflow with 

liquidity at the first appeal of pathos. 

‘The “ stately lion,” that “ stalks with fiery glare" and “dauntless 
strides along,” offers in its majestic gait an obvious simile that is 
abundantly and handsomely availed of Omitting the interminable 
series of individuals that have been Ieonine in deportment, the sur- 
passing dignity and sense of power that ennobles the lion's pace have 
been admirably transferred to, among other objects, an army (Mrs. 
Hemans)— 





With a silent step went the cuirassed bands, 
Like a lion's tread on the burning sands 5 


and by Wordsworth to primeval man— 
Mis native digniry no forms dbase, 
‘The eye sublime, and surly liongerce: 
‘Tho slave of none, of beasts clone the lord. 


‘When tranquil in mind, there is a simplicity and case in the lion's” 
movements, though full of a tremendous consciousness of strength, — 


Pt) a 


The King of Beasts. 365 


that is eminently beautiful, When slightly out of temper this state- 
liness increases by the addition of a splendid sullenness—"‘with sullen 
majesty he stalks away” (Avoonte)—biit the simplicity is 1st. When 
it fies into a passion both stateliness and simplicity are gone, for the 
lion reverts at once to 2 furious rough-and-tumble wild beast. 

But the poets measure its kingliness by its fury, and the more 
“ woode” it becomes the more royal. This is an error, not only of 
fact, but of grace. When Jove gets angry he grows undignified. Gods 
and kings should always keep their tempers, for sceptres do not 
become furious hands Subjects begin to question divinity when 
they see such passions in cedestibus animis. 

Sometimes, but very seldom, he is merely “the shaggy lion” 
(Prior), “the forest prowler” (Byron), “bristly savage” (Young), 
“terror of the wood” (Zroome), that “grins dreadfully ”—the lion of 
nature pure and simple, “lapping at the palm-edged pool” ; the 
husband of the “tawny” lioness that, robbed of whelps, “forgets 
to fear"; the father of the brindled cubs “blood-nurtured in their 
grisly den.” And it is worth noting that, just as the cock comes 
off, both in poetry and proverb, with such honours, while the hen 
is left behind to cackle and be generally ridiculous, 60 the lioness 
fails to receive from her spouse any adequate reflection of his digni- 
ties, She is desperately cruel and, in defence of her young, excep- 
tionally fierce, But the pocts know little else of her, Pope callsher 
“ stubborn,” Spenser, King, and several others, “fell,” Montgomery, 
in the sense of mad with rage, “ wild,” and all the rest as the incarna~ 
tion of maternal fury. But the poets should not call the lioness or 
her cubs “ brindled,” nor speak of ‘lioncts" (or as heraldry calls little 
lions “lioncels”*) “shrieking.” Lion-kittens are spotted, and mew. 

But their home, the grisly den, all strewn with victim-remnants, 
cannot be too dreadfully rendered, and the poets’ grimness ? rises to 
the subject, 

‘The alr as Ina tlou's den 


Is close and hot. 
Terrific as the fair 
Where the young lions couch, 
Giant racks at distance piles 
Cast their deep shadows o'er the wild, 
Darkly they rise. 





rt 
He Jooketh with an eie of ames of fyre."—Chatterten. 
* Later adios Wordsworth, Thowson, Hewans, Monigowmery, Vosee, 


al 
366 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


Away ! within those awful eelis 
; Tie perme Deny of Afric dwells, 
: * ravi aga ee 
‘The enormous lion rests bis 
‘For blood in dreams of hunting burns ; 
Or, chased himoelf, to fight returns, 
Growls in his sleep, a dreary sound, 
Grinds his wedyed tecth and spurs the ground, 
ae eee a ate Ap . 
‘There, bent on death lie hid hig tawny brood, 
And couched in dreadful ambush, pant for blood 5 
Or stretched on broke limba, consume the day_ 
Tn darkness werapt, and slumber o'er their prey. 

But, as a rule, the lion is not merely the natural beast. It is the 
“dread King,” autocrat of the forest and desert, the “blood-nurtured 
monarch of the wood” (SontAey), with terrific attributes of eye and 
voice and stride— 

‘The lordly lion stalks. 
Grimly majestic in his lonely walks, 
‘When round he glares, all living creatures fly. 
Te clears the desert with bis rolling eye. 
Each special feature in turn engages the poets’ deference, and cach 
in turn is cited—like the birth-marks on the Christian Champions, 
on the Fatal Children, or Eastern Messiahs of all kinds, and heroes 
generally—as an indisputable proof of natural dominion and a birth= 
right of sovereignty, ‘Thus of the.lion's eye—{ Montgomery) 
A tion ofer his wild domains 
Rules with the terror of his eye. 
And the undoubted majesty of the lion's gaze when startled into 
apprehension or anger is a frequent metaphor. 
Like a lion turns theararrior, 
Back he scads an angry glare, 
Asa leon he his looking caste. 
Chaucer. 
‘A lion's noble rage sits in thele face. 
"Tene comely 1 arnt wilt sea grace, 
Cowley. = 

Ts voice, * the Pee Tion's Here t am” (Wordsworth) : 
that “doubles the horrors of the midnight hours" (2rvome): “how 
fearful to the desert wide,’—is one of the poets’ finest resources 
whenever terror is needed in a stanza or panic-striking catastrophe 


requires a simile from nature, 


‘Echoes the lion's roar, the timid herd 


an 4 





The King of Beasts. 367 


than do enemies before the battle-cry of heroes of the lion ramp, 
conspirators before the discovering lantern-flash, cvil-doers at the 
voice of God, courtiers at the nod of kings ; and, in short, everything 
in Nature that at one time or another may be suddenly startled into 
the propriety of precipitate self-preservation, 

As arule it is heard roaring at night—midnight listens to the 
lion's roar” (Byron) ; but sometimes in broad daylight, “the lion’s 
sullen roar at noon resounds along the lonely banks of ancient 
Tigris” (Akenside). As a rule, too, the lion roars only when alone, 
when, that is, it is calling to its mate or seeking one—the solitary 
lion's roar" (Montgomery)—but occasionally travellers have heard 
them roaring in company, and justifying therefore Montgomery's 
fine simile of— 

Mad as a Lybian wilderness by night 
With all its tions ap, 


So that the poets have no room for error, and make none, But it 
43 not a fact, as Prior supposcs,! that lions go about roaring sccking 
for hunters to rend. 

Yet, reverent as the majority are, there are poets who (in spite of 
Eliza Cook’s warming?) have been found audacious cnough to 
“talk as familiarly of roaring lions, as maids of thirteen do of 
puppy-dogs,” and even to make fun of the tremendous voice. 


Pombaster: So have Vheard on Afrie’s buraing shore 
‘A hungry lion give a grievous roar. 
‘The grievous roar echoed along the shore, 
Artax.: So have T hearil on Aftie’s burning shore 
Another lion give a grievous roar, 
And the first lion thought the Inst a bore, 


Or, as in Swift's delightful “ hyperbole on a lion ": 


Me rear'd so loud and looked so wondrous grim, 
His very shadow dlurst not follow him, 


‘The prodigious fervour of the lion's attack—or rather the 


} #* So the fel! Sion in the lonely ginde, 

‘His side still amarting with the hunter's spear, 

‘Tho! deeply wounded, no way yet dismay'd, 

‘Roars terrible, and meditates new war, 

In salen fury trwverses the plain, 

‘To find the vent’rous foo, and battle him again,” 

Olle to the Queen, 

* Let the lion be stirred by too daring a word, 

And beware of his echoing growl.” 





The King of Beasts. 369 


and Bacchus, and Love, Indras, Prakrit, and Bala share with other 
divinities and personages the luxury of a lion-stecd. 

Again, in popular works of fiction, from the “ Arabian Nights” 
tothe “ Pilgrim’s Progress” the lion appears as a janitor or guardian, 
faithfully ferocious to the suspicious-looking stranger and the evil- 
doer, but as tune to its own household and friends as Una's com- 
panion or Androcles’ acquaintance, 

Nor in this “ferocious” connection is it impertinent to note how 
carefully the poets credited the fiction of the lion finding it necessary 
to exasperate itself up to the necessary point of fury by lashing its 
own body with its tail,’ just as Picrochole had to goad himself into 
courage against Grandgousier by self-reproaches. ‘ Roused by 
the lash of his own stubborn tail," says Dryden, happily hitting off 
British characteristic of abusing ourselves into action, while Waller 
is more precisc— 

A tion so with self-provoking smact 

(His rebel tall seourging his noble part) 

Calls up bis courage, 

That the lion wags its tail when angry has passed into a proverb, 
and those who have hunted the splendid animal, either in Asia or 
‘Africa, always record the preliminary “lashing of the tail” of a lion 
that has made up its mind to charge. So Darwin's “indignant lions 
rear their bristling mail, and lash their sides with undulating tail." 
Byron's “lion, that, ere he secks his prey, lashes his sides and 
roars and then away,” and others are within “the literal verity.” 
But the extension of so common a feline gesture into a leonine 
singularity—above all, for so absurd a purpose as stinging itself 
into courage—is a prolongation of the idea that is decidedly poetical, 
but certainly Tittle else. 

Indeed, the poets seem to recognise the dilemma in which undue 
insistence on the unmitigated ferocity of the Hon would place them— 

Fic 

Upon a Jord that wol have no mercie 

But be a Jeon both in word and dede ! 
ejaculates Chaucer, aftcr having exhausted the lion-idea to magnify 
the heroic fury of Palamon. For if the tion is not magnanimous it 
is evidently unworthy of the royal title. So the poets “ hedge,” so to 
speak, on all their ferocity by explaining that under certain particular 
circumstances the lion is quite lamblike, and with certain very special 


4 This fiction no doubt arog from the curious clawslike prickle, or “thorn,” 
found sometimes af the ip of the animal's tail, and for which naturalists are stilt 
‘explanation, 





puzzled to provide an. 


370 The Gentleman's Magazine. 
classes of persons “roars you as gently as any sucking dove." You 
are never, of course, to be in aay doubt an ly He Gracie ae 
for being terrible on occasion—“ Mind you, Todgers can do it when 
it likes.” But, on the other hand, Hercules can calm down to the 
distaff, and Mars play with pet sparrows Did not Cosur-de-Lion 
himself withdraw his hand on one or two occasions from committing 
unnecessary murders? So just as the partial historian tempers the 
crimson story of the first Richard with dabs and specks of white 
clemency, so the poet, afraid of finding his monarch-beast a complete 
Nero, qualifies its bloodthirstiness with legendary and mythical 
suggestions of an occasional magnanimity. So Moore diverges from 
his usual importraiture to call it “ generous lion,” and Dryden (using 
generous in the best sense, as Prior has “the hungry lion’s gen'rous 
mige"), goes on to say— ‘ 

So when the gen'rous lion has tn sight 

‘His equal match, he rouses for the fight. 

But when his foe lies prostrate on the plain 

Hee sheaths his pasrs, uncurls his angey mato, 

And, plens'd with bloodless honours of the day, 

‘Walks over, and disdains th’ inglorious prey. 
Which is industriously untrue to fact. The dasr really does. act in 
this way. But not the lion, “The royal disposition of that beast 
to prey on nothing that doth seem as dead” is a fiction, Ie will 
even prey on things that arc obviously and outrageously defunet. 
Its opportunity comes when “the foc lies prostrate on the plain.” 
Above all, it prefers to surprise its “equal match” when he is 
by the camp fire The same agreeable fiction is very 
repeated. Tn one of the oldest of our ballads we find— 

Aa the lyonne which is of bestes kyngey 
Unto thy subjects be kurtets and benyngne ; 

whereas in nature the lion will even condescend to pick up off its 
royal path such inconsiderable “ subjects” as mice, lizards, frogs, and 
even cockroaches. ‘The larger ones keep out of sight, knowing His 
Majesty's omnivorous propensities, and disregard Wyatt's assurance 
that “the tion in his raging hour forbears that sueth," or Broome’s, 
that “the fierce lion will hunt no yielden things.” Dr. Livingstone. 
once saw a very fine lion in Africa that had just captured a fawn 
only a few hours old. Yet Quarles tells the fawns that “hanya 
woo'd with tears, will spare,” and Spenser the lady— 

‘The lyon lord of everie beast in field 

‘His princely puissance will abate 





The King of Beasts. 371 


But women were the special objects of leonine forbearance, 
particularly if they were chaste 
"Tis said that a lion will turn and flee 
From a maid in the pride of hee purity, 
And again— 
a have eung and poets told 





Before a virgin, fair and good, 
Math pacifiot the savage mood ; 
£0 that, if Byron, Scott and the rest be correct, “alion among ladies” 
need not after all be so “dreadful” a thing as Snug supposed. Nor 
if they are of royal blood will the royal beast do them hurt— 
¥etch the Numidian lion I brought over. 
If she be sprung from royal blood, the tion 
‘Will do her reverence ; cle, he'll tear her. 

As a matter of (poctical) fact, lions will not hurt princes under 
any consideration, Nor are many individual instances of leonine 
generosity wanting, To say nothing of the frequent allusions to 
Androcles his lion, Shakespeare, Waller, Dlake, Fairfax, Cowper, and 
others cite examples of the lion’s unexpected clemency to such as 
‘wére in misfortune, or those who hari befriended it. 

Thoroughly consonant with this theory of the occasional gentle- 
ness of “the terror of the wood,” is the poet's cheerfulness in en- 
dorsing its amiable familiarity with the lamb, Everybody, probably, 
remembers the astonishment of the Seven Champions of Christendom 
(even though they were accustomed to “untamed lions” laying 
their heads in the laps of Angelicas) when they saw lions and 
lambs together, But the poets are not to be surprised by such 
trifles. The Orpheus and Amphion myths redound to the credit of 
‘the muse,' and it is not therefore altogether unnatural that lions “by 
tuneful magic tamed,” “by verses charmed” and “Iced by the ear,” 
should now and then be found “ dandling the kid,” or “ gamboilling 
with the bounding roe.” ‘They write, however, on a point of a high 

‘iption, for in the cartiest past, as we know from Holy Writ 
{and as Mary Howitt says), “the tion gambolled with the kid” in 
Paradise, 


‘The lyon there did with the lambe consort, 
And eke the dove sate by the faulcon's side 
Ne each of other feared fraud or tort, 

But did in safe securitle abide, 

‘Withoaten perill of the stronger prife.* 


© Poste claim both 8 of their raft alvo Arion. 
* Spenser, Faerie Queene, 


372 The Gentleman's Magasine. 


‘We can also surmise, from sacred promises of a future of universal 
peace and idyllic amiability, what Shelley, dreaming of the hereafter, 
foresees:— 

‘The lion now forgets to thirst for blood « 

‘There might you see him sporting in the sun 
Reside the dreadless kid ; his claws are sheathed, 
His teeth are harmless ; custom's force has made 
‘His nature as the nature of a lamby 


and that then, blessed as in Montgomery's Pelican Island," 


‘The steer and tion at one crib shall meet, 
‘And harmless serpents lick the pilgrims’ feet, 


‘The weary Progress will then be over: the chained lions and the 
loose ones will have no further terrors for Faithful, and the beasts 
that came along “ at a great padding pace,” will have been forgotten: 
by Christian, 

Tn heraldry it is a more conspicuous beast than even the ordinary 
familiarity with the armorial lion would lead the uninitiated to sup- 
pose, for (as Planché tells us?) it was once upon a time the oxfy beast 
thought worthy to be worn on shields and helmets. ‘Thus, kings of 
England, Scotland, Norway, and Denmark, Princes of Wales and 
Dukes of Normandy, Counts of Flanders, Earls of Arundel, Lincoln, 
Leicester, Shrewsbury, Pembroke, Salisbury, and Hereford, all bore 
lions—indeed, up to the twelfth century, heraldic zoology begins and. 
ends with the King of Beasts. Later on, the Icopard came upon the 
heraldic field, not only to divide honours with the lion but to usurp: 
its place, For leopard and lion—notably in the arms of 
are the one and same animal, the difference of attitude alone deciding 
the nominal species. In other words, * leopard" is used in heraldry, 
not to represent a specific beast, but only a particular attitude of the 
lion. ‘Thus lion-leopard means a tion passing and seen in profile, 
while a Ieoparded-lion means a lion full-faced. For the lion, pure | 
and simple, heraldry insists that it shall be “rampant.” ‘That attitude 
belongs to it, as a matter of course. According to further details 
of position, couching, standing, stalking, &c., the lion symbolises 
sovereignty, circumspection, sagacity, magnanimity, valour, counsel. 
But heraldry has played strange pranks with the animal, for it has 
degenerated into many unworthy varieties, double-headed and 





‘© Liou nor tiger here shed innooeat blood,” —elieam Asland, 
* Plagché, "The Parsaivant.of Arms," Chatto & Windus. 


7 on | 


The King of Beasts. 373 


double-tailed, fork tongued and winged, blue and red, silver and gold, 
black and white—and even spotted. 

As our national emblem the lion cannot fail of course to meet with 
abundant and flattering recognition. But there has been, on the whole, 
@ generous forbearance from the topic that deserves our gratitude. 
Nevertheless, whenever treaties are signed, “the British lion kisses 
the feet of peace,” and whenever they are broken “our lion roars." 
In subsequent battle “the lion-glance appals the foe,” and after 
the victory it “learns to spare the fallen foe.” But many other 
couatries claim the lion for their cognisance, or have at one tine or 
other carned the Iconine epithet, for, besides “the Anglian lion, the 
terror of France," there is ‘the ruddy lion ramped in gold" in 
“proud Scotland's royal shield" ; “the winged lion of St. Mark,"# 
where “ Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles,” but now: 

St, Mark yet sees his lion whore he stood, 
Stand but in mockery of his wither'd power, 


‘There is “Belgia," with her lions “roaring by her side" and “the 
Assyrian lyonesse,” and “the lion of Neustria,” and (whatever that 
was) the Tartar lion, and Salem's lion-banner,” "Judah's lion,” and 
others of more or less celebrity. 

For, with all their homage, the poets can hardly exceed the measure 
of this animal's dignity in prose, It is the ensign of Hercules, Hector, 
and Achilles; the Egyptian hieroglyph of divine strength ; the 
‘vehicle’ of many gods both of the Bast and West, and of the heroic 
all the world over, from Scandinavian Rollo to Ethiopian Candace. 
‘The gods of Greece borrowed its form, and the chiefest of Olympus 
and of the carth accepted its spoils as the insignia of imperial strength, 
‘To describe or paint Jove himself, men have had to take the lion as 
their model, and in the imaginative Orient the figure is repeated in 
the forces of nature and the pageantry of the Pantheon, It stands, 
the mere name alone—*Sinha,” lion—2s the honourable office of 
every member of the noblest nation of Hindostan, whose king all the 
world knew as Runject Singh, “the lion of the Punjab.” But what 
a roll of heroes that title summons up to the fancy—*the lion of 
Persia,”? Ali, “the lion of God,” “the lions of Judah,” “the lion 








‘That “taught by the bright Caledonian tance, learned to fear in his own 
native wood." —Fiurns, 
+ +*Sullen old Hon of grand St. Mark 
Lordeth and lifteth his front." —Jasehim Miller, 
"That splendid prince who met his death, unhappily, while chasing. w ass. 


kings of Assyria,” “ the lion of the north," 
“the lion of Bavaria" —and so forth in 


Quixote— 
considered the climax of their courage. It adds a dignity to the 
light offence of the fleet maiden and her lover that for their disre= 
ped er given ty finns CHa a ‘ 
firmament borrows a splendour from its terrific lion-constellation. 
Homer himself is the grander for his lions, and what notable blanks: 
there would have been on the gates and walls of fortress and palace 
and city had there been no lion for the sculptor, and what beauties 


been missing on canvas and in literature. 

Individuals dignified with lion compliments are too numerous 
“for specification.” But they include British sailors (‘the Tion- 
spirits that tread the deck,") and British soldiers (“the lion-heart 
of British fortitude”); most British kings, from Richard I, to George 
TIL, and a very large number of heroes from St. George to Nelson, 
as slto most European celebrities—Henri IV, Napoleon, Tell, Charles 
XII, Luther, and others ; "classical" notables, varying in degrees of 
merit, from Hercules to Tarquin, and all the heroes of poets’ 
the Douglases, Alberts, and Tracy de Veres, besides a prodigious 
series of miscellaneous personages of very diversified character, 
Tanging from Cain to Jonathan, and from the Messiah to Satan. 

‘The singular elasticity of the Hon idea fs thus abundantly iius- 
trated. But when we remember that in Holy Writ the animal stands. 
as the symbol of such very diffcrent things as dignity and falsehood, 
courage and craft, the enemies of truth and wickedness: that 
part of Holy Writ it typifies the devil, in another is a type of 
Saviour ; also, that in all fables the lion is presented to us 
possible varicty of character, from supreme grandcur to 
meanness, we perceive that the poets pero ‘been faithful to their 
sources of information. 

But it is in the metaphors and morals which the King of Bessts 
affords that his many-sided nature is perhaps best illustrated, In- 
dependence is (in Smollett) “Lord of the lion-heart” ; Ambition is 
“the Hon-star”; ‘Truth, “lion-bold""; Danger, has a “lionwalk' 5 


Andi him beside rides fierce avenging Wrath 
‘Upon ation loth for to be ded. 


a 














The King of Beasts, 375 


Passion, and War, “fierce as the lion roaring for his prey, or lioness of 
royal whelps foredone,” are on one side, while Peace, Cruelty, and 
Self-Interest may be cited on the other, 

‘The sea is often a lion, and sometimes with admirable force, 
Thus, in Hood, “Three monstrous seas came roaring on like lions 
Ieagued together ;” or, in Hemans, Like angry lions wasting all 
their might." In Jean Ingelow, Time, “A grim old lion gnawing lay, 
and mumbled with his teeth a regal tomb.” Into-innumerable other 
facets is the lion-stone cut, It does homage (in Grahame) to the 
announcing angels of Bethlehem— 

‘The prowling lion stops 
Awestruck, with mane upreared, and flattenod head, 


And, without turning, backwant on his steps 
Keeoils, aghnst, into the desert gloom ; 


it spares the prophet (thus characteristically “Emblem"-ed by 


Quarles) — 
Fierce Lyons roaring for thelr prey 1 and then 
Daniel throwne int snd Daniel yet remaine 
Alive! There wae a Lion in the Den 
‘Was Daniel's friend, or Daniel had been slainc, 
Among ten thousand Lions, I'd not feare 
Had I but only Daniel's Lion there 


it is soothed by musie— 


So playful Love on Ida's Bowery sides 
‘With ribbon rein the indignant lion guides ; 

Pleased on his brinded back the lyre he rings 

And shakes delirious rapture from the steings, 

Slow as the pausing monarch stalks along % 
‘Sheaths his retractile claws and drinks the song— 


and isa pattern of connubial constancy. ‘This may be tue of the 
lion—for nature has enforced monogamy upon nearly all dangerous 
or noxious (male) beasts—but it is far from the truth with regard to 
the lioness. She is a very Messalina, at once faithless and cruel. 
“Tn consequence of the great mortality of female cubs during 
the process of dentition, she possesses over European ladies the 
advantage of not being ‘redundant,’ as Mr. Greg calls it—nay, of 
being, on the contrary, ata high premium. Every third lion prowls 
about the desert sands, roaring vainly for a mate ; and the conse« 
quence is, of course, an immense exaltation of value, and perhaps, 
also, some additional cruelty on the side of the lioness,” ‘The author 
then goes on to give a terrible illustration of thiscruelty—but the facts 
are, perhaps, too familiar to need repetition, Suffice it to say that, 


376 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


the lioness manages by her coquetry to bring rival suitors into each 
other's presence, and, having excited them to combat, leaves them to 
bleed to death for her sake while she strolls away in search of fresh 
conquests. 

“The lion,” says Professor Kitchen Parker, “ enjoys the honour- 
able distinction of being strictly faithful to his spouse, although 
report says she is by no means so virtuous, but only cleaves to her 
mate until a stronger and handsomer one turns up.” 


PHIL, ROBINSON. 





377 


UNIVERSITY LIFE IN THE EARLY 
PART OF THE SEVENTEENTH 
CENTURY. 


TTTING beneath the limes in the pleasant grounds of St. John’s 

College, Cambridge, on the occasion of a garden-party given 

by the Master and Fellows, I overheard the following conversation, 

The speakers had left the crowd of brightly-dressed lawn-tennis 
players, and were resting till ready to begin again, 

SHE (contemplating his gaily-striped blazer with approbation) : 
“ Awfally nice stuff.” 

He (gratified): “ Ah, aw?lly nice.” 

Sux (with an air of economy): “ What did it cost?” 

He ; * Really don't know ; oh, yes! the man said it would be 
a guines ; very cheap!" 

Sux: (as one struck with amazement) : * That's awfully cheap {” 

He (taking up the chorus): “ Oh yes! awflly cheap 1" 

Sue (bent on fully appreciating this marvellous Nienomenon): * It 
‘must cut into a great deal of stuff, you know.” 

He (rather more Janguidly) : “ Yes ; awful deal stuff.” 

Hr and Sum (recurring instinctively to the original proposttion) : 
“Oh! very cheap ; yes! atwfully cheap!" 

This set me wondering whether an undergraduate two hundred 
and fifty years ago would have looked at things in such an airy 
‘manner ; and the incident may serve as a peg on which to hang a few 
details of University life in the days when living and education aot 
Cambridge really sere “* awfully cheap." 


When we read in the Paston Letters that Walter Paston’s half- 
year's expenses at Oxford, about the year 1478, were some 
4S, 55 s4a, we are apt to dismiss the fact from our minds as relat- 
ing to a period so remote that it can hardly be brought into com- 
parison with our own times. That, we say, was before Columbus 
sailed for Ameries ; before English printing had spread further thas 
Caxton's press-room 5 in short, before the dvadlation of Ye wones- 

VOL, CCLY, NO. 1834. DD 


: il 





University Life in the Seventeenth Century. 379 


to cover everything. Tt is true that the “house of pure Emanuel” 
(which is not now considered a particularly fast College) was noted 
in those days for its Puritan doctrine and precise discipline.! 

‘The tator rejoices that young Knyvet will find no example of 
gaming set him there, and the statutes expressly forbad hunting and 
the wearing of great ruffs,” both symptoms of what Mr. Trayers calls 
“the humorous lust of boastfull expence.”” 

From these letters we gather the following miscellaneous facts. 
Winter quarters were more expensive than others, and the “ excessive 
rate of things” made it difficult for the youth, though studiously in- 
clined, to keep within his “stint” or allowance. The rent of his 
chamber, to be divided between himself and his chamber-fellow, was 
only 125. a year, and 7s. 4¢, supplicd him with coal and candles from 
the end of long vacation till the beginning of March (1614-5). 
But perhaps the most interesting document is a more or less com- 
plete half-yearly account of young Knyvet’s outgoings, ordinary 
and extraordinary. Of this I will now give an analysis, and wish T 
could print side by side with it as perfect a statement of some other 
undergraduates’ bills, let us say for the years 1745 and 1815. 

Commons” for six months amount to £2. 10.; “Sising”* 
for the same period, £3. 9s. 6¢. ; light and firing (as already men- 
tioned), 75. 4¢. ; and, among minor items, we have cash advanced to 
him by his tutor on two separate occasions, £1. 15, ; his hatter’s bill, 
as. Gil; two pairs of cuffs, ts. 27, ; incidental expenses, £1; and a con- 
tribution towards the entertainment of King James 1., on his visit to 
the University that year, of seven shillings ! The one act of extrava- 
wince appears in the following six items, which are marked in the 
margin as Mr, Cradock’s little bill for things got at Seatrigae fair ;s— 


* 
Four dozen oflong buttons. 6 8 4 
Black galoun lace LAC ha nme ied | 
dozen of black buttons =. ‘ : r 
Coloured silk (talfouncey . 6 62 gy 
AsattinColler . 6 se 1 9 
Ayeard of green Cotton. 2 


With his chamber rent the total only amounts to the tee sum of 
Som 3 The 
¥ As late as 1669 thie College records shiow that offenders were '* whipt in the 


7 “Fourth Report Historical MSS, Commicsioners," p. 420. 

* “Sising " is now said to be confined to extras got from the buttery, suchas 
creat, eres, Ks. For an instance of the older, wider acceytation of fue wort wee 
King Lear, act il. sc. 4: Tis not in thes... . to seant may Snes” 


= 4 


with parcels from home, Lady Knyvet, on one i 

a picce of cloth fora gown, of the same stuff as his 
new gown, and did not fail to apprise the tutor what ought | 
for the making. Several letters must have passed on 
tous subject, the pedagogue finally agecing with ber 
wonder that the Cambridge “‘snip" should make so little. 
in price between the old gentleman's ample robe and the: 


ably) scanter gown of the undergraduate: “wherfore I were 
not amiss if you willed him to deferr ye making up of it till his” 
comming” home, wch may happily save yt weh ye Taylor here made 
‘a reckoning to have had for his share.” —- 
‘That this oversecing of ol oes 
system is clear from the fact that they fell under the tutor's 
charge at Oxford as well as at Cambridge. Lady Brilliana 
1639, wrote to her son Edward at Magdalen Hall, I like i 
yon ator baa nade you bamecme clotheaj" and agai; ¢¢ en aa 
for your cloths well ; but the cullor of thos for euery day I doo nok 
like 0 well ; the silke chamlet I like very well, both cullor and stuf 
Let your stokens be allways of the same culler of your cloths, and 
Thope you now weare Spanisch leather shouwes, Jf your tutor doer 
not intend to bye you sithe stokexs to weare with your silke shute 
I will bestow a peare on you.”! The interesting correspondence in 
whieh this occurs also supplies us with examples of the hampers from 
home, now mostly confined to scholars of tenderer years. Lady 
Harley sends Ned o kid pie, believing that “ you have not that meat 
ordinarily at Oxford,” and adding appetisingly, “on hailfe of the pye 
is seasned with one kinde of seasening and the other with 
A baked ot Sarasin ie Aa 
come his way, but they are sent at first with some 
otan 8 tates Leen” ‘Camden Society's Publications, 


cs 
FM. Be $3 


— = 





University Life in the Seventeenth Century. 381 


‘Mrs. Pirson (apparently a local Mrs. Grundy) having informed Lady 
Harley that when she sent such things to Aer son at Oxford he 
prayed her she would not.? 

Considerable trust being thus reposed in the tutor, we find that 
parents kept a close eye on him, often writing, and embracing con- 
venient opportunities to have him visit them during vacation time, 
when they could become personally acquainted. In one letter Mr. 
Elias ‘Travers becomes quite apologetic over certain faults and short- 
comings for which Lady Knyvet had reprimanded him. He winds 
up : “Ifthe tobacco I have sometimes taken be a iust grievance to 
any, I desire them to know yt if ye forbearance or utter avoidance 
of it will give vm content, I shall quickly quite ridd myself of it." 

Let us now read a similar series of letters from another tutor, 
Nathanael Dod, of Gonville and Caius College, to Framlingham Gawdy, 
of Norfolk, in the years 1626-7, concerning the latter's kinsman 
Anthony. They will be found to confirm our views of the position 
of a tutor, and the responsibility, financial and otherwise, which he 
undertook for his pupil. “The first we cite runs as follows? :— 


May it please you Sir, 1 receywed your letiers by your kinsman Anthony 
Gandy dated Septemb, 17%. Your and hie request for the discharging of his 
expenses to the Colledge Lam ready to pforme, And if there were any other thing 
wherein I might doz him any freindly office, he shoulde wot God we backward, 
for his orderly bebnivour in the house and loving affection to me challenge moore 
at my handes, According to your desire I bave and will further advise him to all 
frugality, wishing that he may be no lesse pleasing to you, then (as I understand) 
you arc loving 2nd helping tohim This inclosal note * showes you his expences 
for this last halfe yeare from our lady to Michaelmas. desire you would be 
pleased to send up these monies soe soone as may be for 1 am already called upon 
by the Colledge officers, ‘There is due to Mr. Michells of ould reckonings 
1" § of w he requested me to reccive for him. Your kinsman (a he tells me) 
hath certifyed you of the particulars I desire (if it please you) to recelve all 
together de even thus w" my best love T commit you to god 
Your unknowne freind 
Cains Col Naraaxart. Don 
Noremb, 8 
1626 


‘The next news that Mr, Dod bas to send is not so pleasant, and 
probably caused some heartache at Harling Hall :— 


Worthy Sit, Tam now necessarily enforosd in regard of my rolation to 
acquaint you with « buimes that concerns your kinsman and my Pupill Anthony 








+ “Lady B, Harley's Lettera” Camden Society's Publications, 1854, p. 13. 


Gawd MSS," wii sup. No, 474. 
. 


» iid. (509). Not extant. 





pleased to helpe me with these monies so soone ag 
‘Much whorsof is out of my purse alrendy, & y* rost 


come across, and it will be allowed that Mr, 
for his country patrans in procuring their 
reasonable quarters 2=— a 


“Cains Col + 
May at 16377 














University Life in the Seventeenth Century, 383 


The next letter acknowledges the receipt of certain gold pieces 
and quarter pieces by the carrier, with a note of the number of grains 
they were found deficient in weight. ‘The carrier is algo to be paid 
by the person remitting the money for his trouble, We will pass over 
this and give one more letter bearing on our main subject, 


‘Sir, A quarter of a yeare Is now expired since your kinsman entered into 
‘Commons in y* towne, for whom according to your desire T stand ingaged. My 
desire now it that you would be pleased to send unto me y* monies due at yt next 
conveniency, for Iam called upon for them, Besides the 3! due for his board, 
Ife bath ruon some few necessarie expeaces upon other occasions, vit for new 
shoes & mending 4* 8 the Taylor for mending his ould apparel! 2° 4¢ Barber 1° 
=the whole samme of all is 3 8 w"* summe E expect at y* carriers next returne. 
Tn your kinaman's behalfe I can «xy that I have seene him often at o” religious 
exercises. Ihave, melt him sometimes walking alone into y* fields w Iean noe 
otherwise interprett but w an intent to his studdies and meditations I have 
likewite observed that he is out of apparell notw®¥standing his care & thriftines 
in the fiervation of thoes clother you have already beitowed upon him, I con- 
ceive good hopes for his ree-cnterance into ¥* Colledge soone after Michaelmas 

To hast E take my leave & rest 

In all due respect 


Caius Coll, Natitan 1 Doo 
‘Aug. 8. 1627." 

‘The above rate of living does not seem to haye been exceptional, 
as in his next letter (April 9, 1628) Mr. Dod asks for £7. rev. for 
young Gaudy’s expenses for the half-year from Michaelmas to Lady. 
day. Beyond this I am not able at present to trace the course of 
Anthony’s fortunes at Cambridge. 

‘What was the style of living at Gonville and Caius College from 
which “Sir Gawdy” was thus harshly expelled? The following jot- 
tings from the Bursar’s books of the period, which have never been 
published, will give us some idea of the manners of the time.* 

‘The Fellows drank out of silver“ potts," each man having his own, 
In 1622 “Mr, Cruso’s pott” was mended ata cost of two si 
and several entries of old cups changed for new ones (the Fellow who 
had the use of it contributing out of his private means so as to get 
# larger or finer goblet) show how itis that old silver ware is so-hard 
to find nowadays, But they did not always drink out of the nobler 
metal, “a little iugg and pott for the fellowes in y* halle and par- 
Jour" being bought for 17. in 1644. Silver spoons, got ten years 
previously from London (a shilling being given to the person that 

4 Gawdy MSS." sé suft No. 522. 
6 MSS, Booles 63 ane 692, Gonville and Caius College Library, 1609-1661.” 
‘My thanks are due to R, C, Bensly, Esq. M.A., the Librarian, for permission to 


make these extracts, — 





384 The Gentleman's — | 


‘brought them), must also have been meant for the upper ta 
there was a regular overhauling of the College Agere! 





buitlership.” Dut iit is bed te Love Sie lately Wace 
haycit stolen, and in 1658 we find that this has happencd, and fifteen 
shillings is paid Mr. Marsh for “putting the lost plate into the 
Divrnad,” and “other charges in pursuance of the stoll'n plate” 
come to £1, 10%, Gd. 

‘The undergraduates drank and ate out of pewter, an 
which saved breakage, and had the additional advantage that when 
the mugs and platters got bent out of all shape, the pewterer took 
them back as old metal, and a new stock of “ dishes, sawces, and por- 
ringers” was laid in, the Melanderp retrain 
‘The duty of locking after the pewter, and collecting and 
after cach meal, fell on “ young Ablinson,” the cook's son, 
trifle every quarter for his pains, He could not expect much, seeing 
that his father (shades of Soyer forgive us for exposing the 
fact !) only got ten shillings a half-year for his salary, and the “ sub- 
coquo” a miserable 3s. 44, 

What Ablinson and his sculleryman cooked is not so clear, for 
the details of the viands are not given in the accounts, except an 
item of exceptional “cheere" in which the Fellows indulged in the 
treasury, “‘the same night the counts were made up” poetics 2 
worth of pigeon pies, cight pennyworth of puddings, cheese 
extent of fourpence, and a“ pottle of clarret wine,” pair 
pence, formed the solace after that cvening’s reckoning. Entries of 
gratuities to the messenger who brought the brawn at Christmas (at 
Emanuel College they were careful to call it * Christ-tide") from one 
of the College tenants, and of a special payment for fuel for boiling 
that delicacy, remind us to note that the rents were still paid, parthy 
at least, in kind. Out of a rent of £20, for instance, thirty-three 
shillings and fourpence would be taken in wheat and malt, while 
wethers, capons and hens were not unfrequently received as well, 

Porridge was caten, as appears by the charge of twenty pence for 
an “oatemeale box.” One dozen fmuit dishes, got in 1618, were 
probably reserved for the dons, who also indulged in oysters. The suc- 
culent bivalve when it arrived at Cambridge was cried through the 
streets, and an occasional fourpence to the “ oyster crier” was évi- 
dently not grudged. What they drank with their natives is not 


‘entry in 1647 of the purchase of a lock “ of the Hart of 


| 


University Life in che Seventeenth Century. 385 


Good food deserves to be neatly served, and the College was 
extravagant in the matter of table-napery, if in nothing else. “Three 
dossen of diaper according to 8* 64 the dossen” made up into two 
dozen napkins and three towels, and they cannot have been reserved 
for the seniors, as at the same time no less than seven dozen more 
napkins were bought at prices varying from 7s. to 8s. 4. That the 
purchasers were particular appears from their paying 2s. gd. for the 
carriage to and fro of the stuff “upon the liking or not liking.” 
When they bought damask napkins in 1629, the price was 22s. a 
dozen ; white tablecloths, of “ clbroad cloath,” for the upper table, 
cost r7d,a yard ; and “schollers" tablecloths, rod. and 11d. ‘From 
curiosity I picked out all the items relating to table linen for four 
years (1634-1638), and found in that space of time 192 yards of table 
cloth, and 27 dozen and ten napkins were laid in, Linen was 
bought at Sturbridge fair, and in 1649 they went as far afield as 
Lancashire to purchase it, for which I can suggest no reason. ‘There 
is a pleasant clean homely scent about the entry of twelvepence 
paid to “ Goodwyfe Lavender for heming and double-marking the 
table-cloths, and darning up some small holes in them,” with which 

” we will close the door of the linen-closet. 

Let us pass on to the library, lest, like Master Anthony Gawdy, 
we should be accused of loitering overlong about the buttery hatch. 
In the half-year ending Michaelmas 1620, “ Grauer the Smith” got 
half-a-crown for taking off the chains that were fastened to the books, 
and a scholar was paid 6¢, for helping him—no doubt a labour of 
love, The next year we trace the “chaines and the iron barres y* 
were taken from the bookes and of(f) the deskes” being carried up 
into the treasury, and the new order of things marked by a “ figur- 
ing” of the printed books in the library to the number of 1742. In 
1631 the MSS. were first catalogued ; in 1650 the College contributed 
£20 towards the University Library then being’established. ‘The last 
entry relating to the library is the purchase in x661 of an Anglo- 
Saxon Dictionary for two pounds, which the librarian has still to 
show for the money. 

‘The parlour was refurnished in 1657 with a dozen russian leather 
chairs at 7s, 6é. cach, and three great chairs, £2, 85.5 six “tulip 
velure” cushions, £2. 4s. ; and three leather carpets containing 42 
skins, which cost £3. 36; besides ras. for packing. When Simkins 
the “Scauinger” had finished his sanitary work hard by, sedge and 
frankincense were burnt in the parlour to correct the resulting evil 
odours. ‘The fuel burnt there in the winter of 1608-9 came to three 
pounds, and it was probably in that room what Dr. Cais yatras 


386 The Gentleman's — | 


hung, which was repaired ata charge of xgs. 4a it 
1642 there were certain cushions extant (and it 
which were known by the a 

Pulops the exe owas of hese seg 
is the “ Honor Gate," which was built, according to Bergusson, in 
1574, ftom the designs of Theodore Have, of Cleves. It has been 
figured and described many times as the earliest specimen of so- 
called Greck architecture in England. In sober verity it is a pic- 
turesque mélange of debased Tudor style and prettily-applied 
classical pillars and omaments. Tam, able to trace some curious 
incidents of its early career, which, so far as 1 know, bape nies 
their way into. print hitherto. Its toy-like mouldings and delicate 
detail were evidently singularly liable to fracture, as appears by 
‘several items of account. é 

But we must first notice an additional beauty it then posseatcl 
of which no traces are now left. In 1615 the College paid “ for 
coloring all the stone worke of Porta Honoris and gilting ye armes 
and roses there.” At the same time a Pegasus, possibly an appen= 
lege tea sun dial, had fost penne of lea greeted a aa 
basis,” and was also gilt. In 1624 a new pillar at Honoris Gate cost 
eight shillings for stone and workmanship, which got broken again in 
1631, and had tobe set up afresh, The very next year one of the“ Py- 
amides" of the gate had to be mended ; unless one of the pedimentsis 
meant I do not understand this, as there are no pyramids to be seen 
on any part of the structure now. It then enjoyed a rest till 1646, 
when Thomas Grombold, a freemason, had the job of new making 
and setting up one of its pillars. He also did some “ playster of 
paris” work in the chapel, and his moderate charge for hig time and 
another's, three days, was only tos, 6d. ‘The lessons to be deduced 
seem to be that from the very first immoral Renaissance work 
(a3 a disciple of Mr. Ruskin would doubtless consider it) did 
not prosper, and that the students, who susf have made the 
gate their clambering thoroughfare. to surmount the walls by 
when locked out, were the unwitting instruments of this judg- 
ment, Cs = otf 

Jn 1609 four pennyworth of frankincense was got for the chapel, 
perhaps for disinfecting purposes, as E do not find the entry repeated. | 
‘The communion cloths were made of diaper in 3619, and cost fifteen 
shillings each ; in 1652 the “‘copwebbs " were swept out of the chapel, 
and Woodroffe, the joiner, did carving work there in 11 $ 
in 1661, the last time to the amount of £7. 105. In 1642 | 
more expensive damask covering for the communion t 


—_— wi 













University Life in the Scventeenth Century, 387 


two yards coming to 24s. Finally, we notice in 1637 an expenditure 
‘of eighteen shillings for twelve brass candlesticks for the chapel. 

In conclusion, let us see how the College practised what they 
learned in their Chapel, for the duties of charitable hospitality had 
not then entirely lapsed into disuse. Indeed, I should presume that 
the Steward dispensed refreshment to poor wayfarers pretty much as 
‘a matter of course, so that no special entry appears of these acts of 
kindness. At least this is the construction I put upon the item of 
five shillings given to "a distress’d Lady in the Steward’s ubsence,” 
which occurs in 1660. The next year a blind scholar, by the Master's 
order, received 1os,,"and the same sum was given in 1649 to 
“ Barnabce Ame, heretofore a lining-draper, now growne very poore, 
by consent.” The entry in r621 of two shillings to “ two poore 
women that weeded ye garden two dayes” will prove that the autho- 
tities were not unduly layish in this branch of their expenditure. 

Here we will close the Bursar’s books of Gonville and Caius Col- 
lege, not refusing our idmiration forthe simple tastes and inexpensive 
habits of our forefathers as we find them recorded in those pages. 


FRANCIS RYE, 


ni 
y 


Jieman's Magazine. 


= NEW ABELARD. 


4 BIMANZE. 








Hr Ronee: Brouaxax, 
¥ A TEX swort.” “Sop AND THE MAS,” ETC. 





which she had at 
and contempt 

thoughts at all; so 
e forgot them 
they were but 
el Had he been 










shadows w’ 
left to himse! 
again. 
But he was evidently too valuable a convert to be let go in that 
One moming he received the following note, written on delicate 
, in the most fairylike of fragile hands : 










My pear Mr. BrapLey,—We hold a sézme to-morrow night 
at six, and hope you'll come; at least, 7 do! Salem don't 
particularly want you, since you broke the conditions, and he regards 
you as a disturbing influence. J &now better: the spirits like you, 
and I feel that with you I could do great things ; so I hope you'll be 


here. 
“ EvsTasia MAPLELEAFE.” 





The New Abelard. 389 


' Bradley read the letter through twice, then he gazed at it fora 
time in trembling hesitation. Should he go? Why not? Suppose 
the people were humbugs, were they worse than dozens of others 
he had met? and they had at least the merit of bringing back to him 
the presence of the one being who was all in all to him. His 
hesitation lasted only for a moment—the repulsion came, He threw 
the letter aside. 

A few days latera much more significant incident occurred. As 
Bradley was leaving his house one morning he came face to face with 
a veiled woman who stood before his door. Efe was about to pass ; 
the lady laid a retaining hand upon his arm and raised her veil, 

It was Eustasia, 

™ Guess you're surprised to see me,” she said, noticing his start; 
“ suppose I may come in, though, now I'm here?” 

Bradley pushed open the door, and led the way to his study. 
Eaustasia followed him ; having reached the room, she sat down and 
eyed him wistfully. 

“ Did you get my letter?” she asked. 

“Yes.” 

“You didn’t answer it?” 

“No.” 

“ Why not?” 

Bradley hesitated. 

“ Do you want me to tell you?” he said, 

“Why, certainlyelse why do I ask you; but I sce you don't 
wish to tell me. Why?” 

“Because I dislike giving unnecessary pain.” 

“Ah! in other words you believe me to be a humbug, but you 
haven't the cruelty to say so. Well, that don’t trouble me, Prove 
me to be one, and you may call me one, but give me a fair trial 
first.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Come to some more of our sfames, will you? de say you'll 
come 1” 

She laid her hand gently upon his arm, and fixed her eyes almost 
entreatingly upon him. He stared at her like one fascinated, then 
shrank before her glance. 

“Why do you wish me to come?” he said. “You know my 
thoughts and feelings on this subject. You and I are cast in dif 
ferent moulds ; we must go different ways.” 

She smiled sudiy, 

“The spirits will it otherwise,” she sad , while woder bet Wreat. 


ashe added, “and so do 1," d 


The New Adciard. 398 


in which he could spend an hour or 90, when he was suddenly startled 
by an apparition, 

A party of three were making their way towards the bathing- 
machines, and were even then within a few yards of him, One 
was a child dressed in a showy costume of serge, with long curls 
falling upon his shoulders ; on one side of him was a French donne, 
‘on the other a lady extravagantly attired in the most gorgeous of 
sea-side costumes. Her cheeks and lips were painted a bright red, 
but her skin was white as alabaster. She was laughing heartily at 
something which the little boy had said, when suddenly er eyes fell 
upon Bradley, who stood now within two yards of her, 

Tt was his wife. 

She did not pause nor shrink, but she ceased laughing, and a 
peculiar look of thinly veiled contempt passed over her face as she 
walked on. 

“ Maman,” said the child, in French, “ who is that man, and why 
did he stare so at you?" 

‘The lady shrugged her shoulders, and laughed again. 

“ He stared because he had nothing better to look at, I suppose, 
chérd ; but come, T shall miss my bath ; you had best stay here with 
Augustine, and make sand-hills till rejoin you. Aw revoir, Bebé.” 

She left the child with the nurse, hastened on and entered one of 
the bathing-machines, which was immediately drawn down into the 
eR, 

Bradley still stood where she had left him, and his eyes remained 
fixed upon the machine which held the wouan whose very presence 
poisoned the air he breathed, All his old feelings of repulsion 
returned tenfold ; the very sight of the woman seemed to degrade 
and drag him down, 

As he stood there the door of the machine opened, and she came 
forth again. This time she was the wonder of all. Her shapely 
limbs were partly naked, and her body.was covered with a quaintly 
cut bathing-diess of red. She called out some instructions to her 
furse 5 then she walked down and entered the sea. 

Bradley turned and walked away. He passed up the strand and 
sat down listlessly on one of the seats on the terrace facing the water. 
He took out Alma’s last letter and read it through, and the bitterness 
of his soul increased tenfold. 

When would tis migery end? he thought. Why did not death 
come and claim his own, and leave him free? Wherever he went 
his existence was poisoned by this miscrable woman. 


392 The Genileman's Magesine, Poy 


* So it must ever be,” he said bitterly, * we 
for the very sight of her almost drives me mad.” . 

‘He rose and was about to move away, when he cious, 
for the first time, that something unusual was taking 5 
heard sounds of crying and moaning, and everybody seemed | 
rushing excitedly towards the sand. Wut taal sone 
could not understand, for he could see nothing. ‘He stood and 
watched ; every moment the cries grew louder, and the crowd upon 
the sands increased, ‘He seized upon a passing Frenchman, and 
asked what the commotion meant. 

“Ras de mare, monsieur\” rapidly explained the man as he 
rushed onward: 

Thoroughly mystified now, Bradley resolved to discover by per- 
sonal inspection what it all meant, Leaving the termes he leapt 
upon the shore, and gained the waiting crowd upon the sand. To 
get an explanation from anyone here seemed to be impossible, for 
every individual member of the crowd scemed to have gone crazy. 
‘The women threw up their hands and moaned, the children screamed, 
while the men rushed half wildly about the sands. 

Bradley touched the arm of a passing Englishman. 

“What is all this panic about?” he said. 

“The ras de martet” 

“Yes, but what is the ras de marie?" 

“Don't you know! It isa sudden rising of the tide; it comes 
only once in three years. It has surprised the bathers, many of 
whom are drowning, See, several machines have gone to pieces, and 
the others are floating like driftwood! Yonder are two boats our 

up the people, but if the waves continue to rise like this they 
will never save them all, One woman esa that boat has fainted ; 
no, good heavens, she is dead.” 
‘The scene now became one of intense excitement. The water 
rising higher and higher was breaking now into waves of foam ; most 
cof the machines were dashed about like corks upon the ocean, 
their frightened occupants giving forth the most fearful shrieks and 
cries. Suddenly there was a cry for the lifeboat ; immediately after 
it dashed down the sand, drawn by two horses, and was launched 
‘out upon the sea; while Bradley and others occupied themselves in 
attending 10 those who were laid fainting upon the shore, 

But the boats, rapidly as they went to work, proved insufficient 

to save the mass of frightened humanity still Wie 
waves, ‘Ihe screams and cries became heartrending as 
another sank to rise no more. Suddenly there was 


ae. , \ 











The New Abelard. 493 


“Leave the women to attend to the rescued,” cried several voices, 
“Let the men swim out to the rescue of those who are exhausted in 
the sea.” 

‘There was a rush to the water ; among the first was Bradley, who, 
throwing off his coat, plunged boldly into the water. Many of those 
who followed him were soon overcome by the force of the waves 
and driven back to shore ; but Bradley was a powerful swimmer and 
went on. 

He made straight fora figure which, scemingly overlooked by 
everyone else, was drifting rapidly out to sea. On coming nearer he 
saw, by the Tong black hair which floated around her on the water, 
that the figure was that of a woman. How she supported herself 
Bradley could not see ; she was neither swimming nor floating ; her 
back was towards him, and she might have fainted, for she made no 
sound. 

On coming nearer he saw that she was supporting herself by 
means of a plank, part of the dédris which had drifted from the 
broken machines. By this time he was quite near to her;—she 
turned her face towards him, and he almost cried out in pain. 

He recognised his wife t 

Yes, there she was, helpless and almost fainting—her eyes were 
heavy, her lips blue ; and he seemed to be looking straight into the 
face of death, Bradley paused, and the two gazed into each other's 
eyes. He saw that her strength was going, but he made no attempt 
to put out a hand to save her. He thought of the past, of the curse 
this woman had been to him; and he knew that by merely doing 
‘nothing she would be taken from him. 

‘Should he let her die? Why not? Ifhe had not swum out she 
most assuredly would have sunk and been heard of no more. Again 
he looked at her and she looked at him = her eyes were almost 
closed now : having once looked into his face she scemed to have 
resigned all hopes of rescue. 

No, he could not save her—the temptation was too great. He 
turned and swam in the direction of another figure which was floating 
helplessly upon the waves. He had only taken three strokes when 
a violent revulsion of feeling came; with « terrible cry he turned 
again to the spot where he had left the fainting and drowning woman, 
But she was not there—the plank was floating upon the water—- 
that was all. 

Bradley dived, and reappeared holding the woman in his arms. 
‘Then he struck out with her to the shore, 

‘It was a matter of some difficulty to gx there, lot che Yay Cee 


VOl, CCLY, NO, 1834. BE 2i 


394 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


lead in his hold. Having reached the shore, he carried her up the 
beach, and placed her upon the sand. 

Then he looked to see if she was conscious. 

Yes, she still breathed ;—he gave her some brandy and did all in 
his power to restore her to life. After a while she opened her eyes, 
and looked into Bradley’s face. 

“ Ah, it is you!” she murmured faintly, then, with a long-drawn 
sigh, she sank back, dead ! 

Still dripping from his encounter with the sea, his face as white 
as the dead face before him, Bradley stood like one turned to stone. 
Suddenly he was aroused by a heartrending shriek. ‘The little boy 
whom he had seen with the dead woman broke from the hands of his 
nurse, and sobbing violently threw himself upon the dead body. 

“ Maman | maman!/” he moaned. 

The helpless cries of the child forced upon Bradley the necessity 
for immediate action. Having learned from the nurse the address 
of the house where “ Mrs. Montmorency” was staying, he had the 
body put upon a stretcher and conveyed there. He himself walked 
beside it, and the child followed, screaming and crying, in his nurse’s 
arms. 

Having reached the house, the body was taken into a room to be 
properly dressed, while Bradley tried every means in his power to 
console the child. After a while he was told that all was done, and 
he went into the chamber of death. 


395, 


Cuarrer XXVL 
THE LAST LOOK, 


‘Dead woman, shrouded white as sow: 
While Death tho shade broods darkly nigi, 
Place thy cold hand {a mine, and so— ’ 
*( Good-bye! 
No prayer or blesiing bora of breath 
Came from thy lips as thou didst die 5 
Tloath’d thee living, but in death— 
“ Good-bye 1" 
So close together after,all, 
After tong strife, stand thou and I, 
I bless thee, while J faintly call— 
“Good-bye 1” 
Good-bye the past and all its pain, 
Kissing thy poor dead hand, FE ery— 
Again, again, and yet again— 
Good-bye 1?” 
The Exile: a Poem 
Tr would have been difficult to analyse accurately the emotions 
which filled the bosom of Ambrose Bradley, as he stood and looked 
‘upon the dead face of the woman who, according to the law of the land 
and the sacrament of the Church, had justly claimed to be his wife, 
He could not conceal from himself that the knowledge of her death 
Drought relief to him and cven joy; but mingled with that relief 
were other feclings less renssuring—pity, remorse even, and a strange 
sense of humiliation. He had never really loved the woman, and 
her conduct, previous to their long separation, had been such as to 
Kill all sympathy in the heart of a less sensitive man, while what 
might be termed her unexpected resurrection had roused in him a 
bitterness and a loathing beyond expression. Yet now that the last 
word was said, the last atoncment made, now that he beheld the 
eyes that would never open again, and the lips that would never 
again utter speech or sound, his son! was stirred to infinite com~ 


non. 

After all, he thought, the blame had not been hers that they had 
been so ill-suited to each other, and afterwards, when they met in 
after years, she had not wilfitlly sought to destroy his peace. It had 
all been a cruel fatality, from the first : another proof of the pitiless 
laws which govern human nature, and make men and women suffer 

In as sorely for errors of ignorance and inexperience as for crimes of 


RED 





“ Madame was so good a mother, devoted to her child 
good—the little one has a father still!’ 






redeeming virtues, not the least’of them being her 


You are right; tandame," he replied, andly, *: 








few moments? I wish to speak to you alone.” 

He placed his hand tenderly on the child’s head, and agi 
to soothe him, but he shrank away with petulant & a 
Walking to the front entrance he waited till he was joined 
the landlady, and they stood talking in the open air, 

“ How long had she been herc, madame?" he asked. 
“For a month, monsieur," was the reply. “She 
‘the season for the baths, with her domme and the litte 
my rooms Pardon, but I did not know madame 
living, and so near,” 

“We have been separated for many years, 1 
yesterday quite by accident, not dreaming the lady 
you tell me if she has friends in Boulogne ?" 

“Ido not think so, monsicur, She lived quite 


—- a 


The New Abelard, 397 


one, and her only thought and care was for the little boy, She was 
a proud lady, very rich and proud; nothing was too good for her, 
or for the child; she lived, as the saying is, em princesse. But no, 
she had no friends! Doubtless, being an English lady, though she 
spoke and looked like a compatriote, all her friends were in her own 
Jand.” 

“Just so,” returned Bradley, turning his head away to hide his 
tears ; for he thought to himself, “Poor Mary! After all, she was 
desolate, like myself! How pitiful that I, of all men, should close 
her eyes and follow her to her last repose |” 

“Pardon, monsieur,” said the woman, “ but madame, perhaps, 
was not of our Church? She was, no doubt, Protestant?" 

Tt was a simple question, but simple as it was Bradley was startled 
by it. He knew about as much of his dead wife's professed belief 
as of the source whence she had drawn her subsistence, But he 
replied : 

“Yes, certainly, Protestant, of course." 

“Then monsicur will speak to the English clergyman, who dwells 
‘there on the hill” (here she pointed townward), “ close to the English 
church. He is a good man, Monsieur Robertson, and monsicur will 
find" 

“T will speak to him,” interrupted Bradicy. “But I myself am 
an English clergyman, and shall doubtless perform the last offices, 
when the time comes.” 

‘The woman looked at him in someastonishment, for his presence 
was the reverse of clerical, and his struggle in and with the sea had 
left his attire in most admired disorder ; but she remembered the 
eccentricities of the nation to which he belonged, and her wonder 
abated. After giving the woman a few more general instructions, 
Bradley walked slowly and thoughtfully to his hotel. 

More than once already his thoughts had turned towards Alma, 
but he had checked such thoughts and crushed them down in the 
presence of death ; left to himself, however, he could not conquer 
them, nor restrain a certain feeling of satisfaction in his newly-found 
freedom. He would write to Alma, as in duty bound, at once, and 
tell her of all that had happened. And then? It was too late, 
perhaps, to make full amends, to expect full forgiveness ; but it was 
his duty to give to her in the sight of the world the name he had 
once given to her secretly and in vain. 

But the man’s troubled spirit, sensitive to a degree, shrank from 
the idea of building up any new happiness on the grave of the ase 
woman whose corpse he had just quined. A\wough bt was WOK & 





The New Abelard. 3909 


great misunderstanding between us, all that is over forever, you 
‘understand. Tt is in a spirit of the greatest tenderness and com- 
passion that I wish to conduct the funeral scrvice—to which 1 
presume there is no objection.” 

Mr. Robertson started in amazement, as if a bomb had exploded 
under his feet. 

“To conduct the funeral service! But you have seceded from 
the Church of England.” 

“Tn a sense, yes ; but I have never done so formally. I am still 
an English clergyman.” 

“TI could never consent to such a thing,” cried the other, 
indignantly. “I should look upon it as profanity. Your published 
opinions are known to me, sir; they have shocked me inexpressibly ; 
and not only in my opinion, but in that of my spiritual superiors, 
they are utterly unworthy of one calling himself a Christian.” 

“Then you refuse me permission to officiate?” 

Most ciphatically, More than that, I shall require some 
assurance that the lady did not share your heresies, before I will 
suffer the interment to take place in the precincts of my church.” 

“Ts not my assurance sufficient?" 

No, sir, it is ned!” exclaimed the clergyman with scornful 
dignity. “I do not wish to say anything offensive, but, speaking as 
a Christian and a pastor of the English Church, I can attach no 
weight whatever to the assurances of one who is, in the public 
estimation, nothing better than an avowed infidel. Good morning!” 

So saying, with a last withering look, the clergyman turned on his 
heel and walked away. 

Seeing that remonstrance was useless, and might even cause 
public scandal, Bradley forthwith abandoned his design ; but at his 
suggestion his wife's sister saw the incumbent, and succeeded in con- 
vincing him that Mrs Montmorency had died in the true faith, 
‘The result of Mr. Robertson’s pious indignation was soon apparent, 
‘The sister and her husband, who had hitherto treated Bradley with 
matked respect, now regarded him with sullen dislike and suspicion, 
‘They could not prevent him, however, from following a3 chicf 
mourner, when the day of the funeral came. 

‘That funeral was a dismal enough -experience for Ambrose 
Bradley. Never before had he felt so keenly the vanity of his own 
creed and the isolation of his own opinions, as when he stood by the 
graveside and listened to the last solemn words of the English burial 
service, He seemed like a black shadow in the sacred place. The 
words of promise and resurrection had Vite meatiny for ons “YS 


Gi 





400 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


had come to regard the promise as only beautiful “ poetry,” and the 
resurrection as only a poet’s dream. And though the sense of his 
own sin lay on his heart like lead, he saw no benign Presence 
blessing the miserable woman who had departed, upraising her on wings 
of gladness; all he perceived was death’s infinite desolation, and 
the blackness of that open grave. . 


(Zo be continued.) 


4o1 


SCIENCE NOTES. 


Science AND PEDANTRY. 


WRITER in a scientific magazine of high standing, reviewing 

an introductory book on chemistry, says that ‘it is question- 

able whether young persons do well in attempting to study chemistry,’ 

and proceeds to remark that “ should, however, any youth desire 

information regarding material changes which he observes around 

him,” the book in question is good enough, but not so “ should he 

be desirous to study chemistry,” and that “ without steady work in a 
laboratory no real progress in chemistry can be looked for.” 

I know nothing of the book in question beyond what is told in the 
review, but quote the above as an example of the direction in which 
modern pedantry is drifting, to the serious detriment of true sclence 
and sound philosophy. 

In our laboratories we have a considerable number of scientific 
workmen who have served their apprenticeship in these chemical 
workshops,and do much useful mechanical work in the way of analyses 
and the manufacture of new organic compounds, &c. They contribute 
tothe progress of science by working out the minor details, which the 
philosopher afterwards grasps and collates for the induction of 
general laws. Until such generalisation is completed these details 
are but superficial trivialitics, though to the small mind of the 
technical pedant they appear to constitute the profoundest depths of 
science, only attainable by superior creatures like himself. 

Men of this class are incapable of understanding that the true 
profandities of science are the great general laws which are so firmly 
established and so clearly defined that they may be taught to litle 
children in any ordinary school, and illustrated effectively by the 
most simple and familiar facts. This is especially the case with 
chemistry, as it deals with visible, tangible, audible, smellable, and 
tasteable phenomena, and thus appeals to the senses, which are so 
specially active in children, 

‘The technical pedant imagines that chemical science is something 
that is only to be found in laboratories, transactions otleamed sadehes, 


al 








the child “observes around him” are as purely. 
scientific as any possible laboratory’ p 


grammar are intangible, invisible abstractions. 

At is perfectly true that if T had attempted 
children the latest fashions in atomic hypotheses, 7 
empirical formule, I should have deservedly failed to ¢ 
Faraday himself, in spite of his unrivalled powers of 
ee ce ee ee 














Science Notes. 403 


modesty is forced upon them by their perception of the overwhelming 
magnitude of the problems presented by the mechanism of creation 
and the feebleness of the human intellect in its efforts to solve them. 


Tux Discovery or Coan in Betcium, 


IN Angit sed Angeli,” said the gallant Pope Gregory when the 

beautiful captives from Britain were brought before him, 
‘That British women, undeformed by stays or fichus or high-hecled 
boots, should be thus described, was natural enough, but that an 
Englishman concerned in coal-mining should be mistaken for an 
angel is curious. 

According to a paper read by M. Edouard de Laveleye to the 
recent meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers at Litge, 
this appears to have been the case. 

Alegend, authenticated by ancient documents, tells of a black- 
smith of the village of Plaineveaux, near Liége, named Houllos, 
who was complaining of the deamess of his wood fuel, when an 
angel appeared and advised him to go to the heights of Publémont 
hard by, where he would find a black earth that might be used as 
fuel. He did so, found it, and used it ¢o successfully that it thence- 
forth bore his namo, “soul,” and bears it still in France and 
Belgium. But Father Bouille, who transmits the legend, suggests 
that in the old Latin manuscript there is a copyist’s error of Angefies 
for Angius, a version that greatly improves the credibility of the story. 


AnriricaL EaRtH-WAVvEs. 


HEN 1 lived in Sheffield my abode was at the top of Wood- 

hill, about a quarter of a mile from the centre of the Atlas 

Tron Works, and about 150 fect above their level. At this distance 

and elevation T could feel the thumps of the largest steam hammer 
by the vibrations or shakings of the house. 

What was the nature of these shakings? What must have 
happened to produce them? It is evident that the whole af Woad- 
hill, with all the houses built thereon, must have vibrated or have 
risen and fallen bodily in response to these thumps in order to effect 
‘the sensible tremour. A heavy-laden waggon passing over a lumpy _ 
‘stonc-paved road causes the houses on both sides of the road to 
move in like manner with evcry down-jolt of its wheels, on their 

from the middle of each paving stone to the deqremian 
between ft and the next, 


404 The Gentleman's Magasine = | 


Professor H. M. Paul, of the Seismological Society o 
placed box containing about 20 Ibs, of mercury, | 
gamation with tin, upona post sunk 4} feet deep in the d 
express train passing at a distance of one-third of ease 
surface of the mercury in confused vibration for two or three minutes, 
and a one-horse vehicle passing along a gravelled road 400 or 500 
feet distant agitated the mercury whenever the wheels struck a small 
stone, 

Those who have accepted the current conceptions concerning: 
the solid foundations of the earth should reflect on these simple 
facts and consider how they happen. The hammer must make an 
indent or depression on the face of the earth at every blow, so must 
the waggon wheel. If the surface were inclastic clay, the depression 
‘would remain, and no sensible effects would be produced at even a 
few yards’ distance, 

On a surface of stony material, such as constitutes the chief 
material of the carth’s crust, the effect of such a thump is similar to 
that produced on water when it is struck in a similar manner, Let 
us consider what happens in this case. 

The blow may be struck by a falling stone, but in order to 
simplify, I suppose it to be by something which immediately after 
making its depression is lifted or withdrawn, as in the case of the 
steam hammer. The water, of course, will “find its level” by 
yielding to the inequalities of fluid pressure, and this recovery of 
Icvel is effected by an upward motion of the depressed portion of the 
water, towards its position of equilibrium (/.e the general level), just 
asa pendulum moves towards its perpendicalar equilibrium. But, 
like the pendulum, the water will not make a sudden halt when it 
hasreached this point ; the momentum it has acquired in moving thug 
far will carry it farther, in the same upward course, and thus the 
depression ix converted into a mound,—the concavity into a 
convexity, This falls again, not merely to the mean level, but. 
beyond it, like the returning pendulum, and thus depression, mound, 
depression, mound, and so on, succeed each other at the spot where 
the first depression was made, each of these gradually diminishing 
until equilibrium and consequent rest is regained. 

And this is not all. ‘The first shock on the surface not only made 
a depression where it struck, but pushed aside the waters all around 
it, forming a circular ridge or wave, ‘This heap, by its falling, was a 
contributor to the first uplifting of the original depression, and it 
pushed outwards as well as inwards, thus making its circle | 


as shown so visibly a ee 
=~ | 





Science Notes. 405 


‘The actions of the hammer and the cart wheel are similar, and a 
circular outspreading wave of actual superficial deformation, duc to 
the partial fluidity of the so-called solid earth, is one of the results, 
though the action is not so simple as in the ease of the freely fluid 
water, Where the wave action is merely a rise and fall due to 
gravitation, A little reflection will show that the primary indentation 
of the resisting rock must effect a compression of the matter lying on 
the boundary of the indent, if such matter be at all compressible, and 
if it be likewise clastic it must react expansively, and transmit this 
compression and expansive reaction outwards like sound-wayes in the 
air. 

‘The steam-hammer blows must, therefore, have not only moved 
Woodhill and all the houses upon it up and down, but have also 
moved them in horizontal tremors, as the wave of condensation 
travelled in horizontal outspread. These waves of superficial 
deformation or uplifting, combined with waves of lateral vibration, 
constitute true carthquakes on a small scale, 


Naturat Eanta-waves. 


F the thump of a steam hammer is sufficient to disturb the solid 

foundation of the carth, and produce outspreading waves upon 

its surface and in its substance, what must happen when the in- 

comparably greater violence of eruptive volcanic force operates in 
the manner of striking a sudden blow? 

In thinking out this problem, keep well before the mind the 
distinction between an ordinary eruption of Mount Vesuvius, 
Stromboli, and other similar volcanoes, and that which recently 
occurred with such terrible consequences on the island of Krakatoa. 

Stromboli (Lipari Islands) is so constantly in eruption that it 
serves as a lighthouse just where a lighthouse is required. I passed 
it in the night some years ago, and it then flashed out at intervals of 
about half minute. Although very variable (so much so that it 
serves as a weather warning to the fishermen, being more active on 
the approach of storiny wexther), it is never quite quiestent. Vesuvius 
has usually a small open cone at the bottom of the great crater, and 
from this there is sufficient emission to produce a trail of cloud 
stretehing away at varying distances to windward. The same with 
‘Etna and many other active volcanoes. 

Tt is evident that where such open vents cxist an inercase of 
eruptive energy below may effect a gradual widening of this veut, 
which thus acts as a safety-valve, and yrevents the sudden exsies 


Science Notes. 407 


destruction of life and property by the rush of waters over the 
land (the “tidal wave,” as the newspapers have called it) has far 
exceeded that effected by the direct action of the eruption itself, 

In this case the wave was 98 feet high when it reached the 
opposite coast of Java, 25 miles distant from the shattered Island. 
Tt swept along more than 59 miles of the coast of Java, totally 
destroying the towns of Anjer, Mcrak, and Tijiringin. At Taujong 
Priok, 5$ miles from the source of disturbance, “a sea 7} feet 
higher than the ordinary highest level suddenly rushed in and over- 
whelmed the place, Immediately afterwards it as suddenly sank 
rok feet below the high-water mark, the effect bemg most de- 
structive.” On the same day, August 27, series of waves, supposed 
to be an extension of this, reached the harbour of San Francisco, on 
the other side of the Pacific Occan, 

The great wave of the great earthquake of Iquique, on the coast 
of Peru, spread over the Pacific as far north as the Sandwich 
Islands, and south to New Zealand and Australia. 

In Vol. I. of Mixture (November xt, 1869) is a carefully collected 
statement by Mr. Proctor of the course of the waves produced 
by another Peruvian earthquake which started from Arica and 
overswept the whole of the Pacific. ‘The shores of Lower California, 
at a distance of between three and four thousand miles, were swept 
by a wave 63 feet high, The Sandwich Islands, the Marquesas 
Islands, Yokohama (nearly half way round the. globe from Arica), 
the Fiji Islands, New Zealand, and Australia, and all the multitude 
of intermediate islands as far as Australia, were visited by monster 
waves, between five in the afternoon of August 13 and half-past six on 
the following morning. 

Mr. Proctor says that at the Sandwich Isles the sea around 
rose and fell in a surprising manner; that “it appeared as though the 
islands were first slowly raised as by some irresistible subterranean 
forces, and then suffered to subside until they seemed about to dis- 
appear for cyer bencath the waves; nor was it casy to believe that 
in reality the sea around them was in motion.” 

Tam disposed to conclude that the islands actually did rise and 
fall, that the primary action was that of earth-waves, the seawaves 
being merely secondary and comparatively small. 

‘This view is confirmed by the facts connected with the Lisbon 
Earthquake of 1755. There the greatest destruction waseffected by the 
wave which swept away the multitude that had fled from their falling 
houses to the new marble quay, ‘This was certainly a land-waye, for 
‘the quay and all upon it subsided bodily, and. has never shace ween 


Science Notes. 409 


metal," &c. It is a cast iron, but it differs from ordinary or old- 
fashioned cast iron quite as widely as copper differs from brass. 

Silicon, sulphur, and phosphorus, like carbon, lower the melting 
point of iron, and in similar manner and degree. All the four increase 
its hardness and brittleness. In ordinary cast iron all are there, and 
hence we have a fusible, hard, and brittle compound, almost glass-like 
in its hardness and brittleness when the quantities of these are 
excessive. 

‘The infusibility of iron would have deprived mankind of the vast 
services it has rendered but for the beneficent compensation due to 
another property, viz., its mvddadifity. ‘This, and the regelation of 
water, as I have long since contended, is simply a result of softening 
before melting, after the familiar manner of sealing wax, so that pieces 
in this soft or viscous condition adhere when pressed together. 

Any ordinary mass of wrought iron is composed of a 
multitude of particles that have been welded together by ham- 
merting, and by squeezing between cylindrical rollers. As these par+ 
ticles may vary considerably in regard to their purity, and some 
of them may be imperfectly united together, or may enclose impuri- 

“ties between them, the iron thus produced is heterogencous in its 
Structure, a defect that is removed in the new material, which is 
rendered fusible in modern furnaces and melting pots by its quarter 
per cent, of carbon, and becomes homogencous in consequence of its 
fluidity. 

‘The reader not learned in ironmaking may ask for the origin of 
this “ multitude of particles.” They are produced in the puddling 
furnace, where crude and very fusible pig iron (i.¢. a compound of 
fron with silicon, carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus) {s melted, and 
the impurities which reader it fusible are oxidised and washed away, 
leaving the iron itself precipitated in the midst of the liquid impurities 
as small granules. These are gathered by the puddler into a pasty 
yellow-hot ball, which is hammered and squeezed until the particles 
of iron cohere ; the residual liquid impurities that lie between them 
‘arc then squeezed out from the spongy mass. 


A Naw Attoy. 


N the preceding note T described the modem soft cast iron or 
mild steel as practically a new metal. Something newer still 
is now promised. 
M, J. Garnier asserts in the “ Comptes Rendus” that yj, per 
cent. of phosphorus added to nickel remedies Us Wheres, win 
VOL, CCLV: 10, E834 FE 





Setence Notes, 4ir 


nickel should be not only of vast utility but very beautiful, if we may 
judge by the effect of nickel when alloyed with other metals; it 
should combine the beauty of silver with that of polished steel, and 
afford a splendid basis for the highest efforts of artistic design in 
metal work, 


PeA-STALKS AS FoppER. 


NSILAGE is progressing generally, but least of all in England. 

‘The reason of our backwardness is doubtless that which 
Jassigned in a previous note (January last). A successful and very 
important experiment has been made in the western part of the 
State of Savannah, and the results officially recorded, 

The proprietor of a dairy farm packed during the summer some 
tons of pea-vines, and on oper:ing it at the end of November, found 
that it had formed excellent forage, It was given to the cows, and 
they preferred it to any other food, 

Some years ago analyses were made (by Lawes and Gilbert, if I 
recollect rightly) of the constituents of pea-stalks and Ieaves, and they 
were found to contain a large amount of nitrogenous flesh-forming 
material, but the great drawback to their use as forage is that when 
the peas are mature the stalks have become woody and indigestible, 
Now this is exactly the defect that is remedied by ensilage, which 
effects a slow cookery or semi-digestion of the packed vegetable 
matter. 

I know by vexatious experience that cattle relish pea-vines, 
having had all the peas growing in my garden demolished in a single 
night by an errant epicurean cow that perpetrated its trespass in spite 
of having rich pasture under its fect in its own field. In this case 
the vines were in the blossoming stage and succulent. In their last 
stage, after the maturing and gathering of the peas, they would have 
offered but small temptation, This is well known to our farmers, 
but they know nothing about the value of the same fodder after a 
few months of ensilage. 


W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS. 


4i2 The Gentleman's Maguzruc. 


TABLE TALK. 


M. Revas axp’THE Prostex or THE VaLce or Lire. 


ACROSS olen Se Me Bocas, resthes, eens to grasp the 
responsive palm of Milton. In his noble epic the English 
poet asks :— 
‘Who would lose, 

Though full of pais, this intellectual being, 

These thoughts that wander through eternity, 

To perish rather, swallowed up and lost 

In the wide womb of uncreated night, 

Devoid of sense and motion ? 
To this clarion utterance has succeeded a wail over the worthlessness 
and sadness of life to which most modem poets contribute something. 
Mr. Swinbume is, of course, the laureate of thisschooL He it is who 
has given to the world in “ Atalanta in Calydon ” the solemn arraign- 
ment of Deity, to which in its way nothing in modem poetry is 
quite equal. He, too, it is who says :— 

‘We know not whether death be good, 
But life at least it will not be. 

Modem youths and maidens echo the curse or the complaint, and 
the question, Is life worth living? is constantly discussed in the ball- 
room in the intervals of the dances, or in the smoking-room when a 
series of festivous influences have predisposed the mind to meta- 
physical speculation. If only as a restatement of an old belief it is 
pleasant to find M. Renan, in his address to the pupils of the Lycée 
Louis le Grand, maintaining that existence is a benefit, encouraging 
the young to make the most of the life through the portals of which 
they have not long entered, and dwelling with pleasure upon the 
enjoyment life has brought to him. Apart from all question of 
speculation, such teaching is healthy for us. I do not know where 
it is that Gocthe says that speculations on subjects to which no 
answer is obtainable are fitted only for the dileftante. He had, how- 
ever, a full belicf not only in the present life, but in that to come, 
and he would have rejoiced heartily to hear this declaration af the 
foremost critic of France, 


F Table Talk, 413 


Ottver Mapox Brown, 


N the short memoir of Oliver Madox Brown which has been 
published by Mr. John H. Ingram,' some insight {s afforded 
into the character of one who had he lived would have been a 
voice and notan echo. Nineteen years constitute a short period 
in which to build up a reputation as a painter, a novelist, and a poet, 
and to manifest a striking individuality. Those who knew best the 
shy, strange youth with his solemn yet inspired face, his mysterious 
sympathy with whatever in the animal creation is regarded by men 
with least favour, and his profound enthusiasm for the workers he 
met at his father’s table, foresaw a career of signal brilliancy which 
but for preventible discase must have been fulfilled. As it is, the work 
Oliver Madox Brown has accomplished, marred as it is by the con- 
ditions attendant upon publication, constitutes solid and remarkable 
accomplishment, That Brown did not “ beat his music out,” but died 
before he had disclosed his full capacity, is a subject for deep regret, 
He was not, however, of the race of men who are snuffed out by an 
article, and the complaint from which he suffered was purely physical. 
Some contenspt for the “Philistines” who sat in judgment on youth 
ful effort asserts itself through his. letters, but the tone of his mind 
was robust, and unfavourable criticism would in the end have stirred 
‘him to higher effort. From such slight materials as the life of a boy 
can furnish, we get the idea of a very striking and interesting indivi- 
duality. 


Tue Taunton Bust of Frecpinc, 


'O few are English memorials of any form of greatness not con- 
nected with such dominant professions as statesmanship and war, 

that the erection of a bust to Fielding in the Shire Hall of Taunton 
must be held to reflect high credit on the western capital of the 
Sumorswetan. With some grudging, I think that Fielding, had he been 
born in France, would have had a statue worthy of the name, and 
would have been celebrated in Paris as well as in the country town 
which chooses to associate itself with his name. Glastonbury has in 
fact a betterclaim to Fielding than Taunton, Still, the lesson has to be 
Tearned now, as in the time of Molitre: “Quand on n'a pas ce qu'on 
aime, il faut aimer ce qu'on a;" and I am thankful for the recognition 
‘Taunton has paid to the man whom Byron called “ the prose Homer 
of human nature." With characteristic readiness to associate hims 
self with any honqurable work, the United States Minister under- 

\ Elliot Stocia, 





Table Talk. 415 


the letter of Pope Leo to Cardinal Petra and his associates, to obtain 
access to the treasures, and the world is at length to learn whether 
the existence of the See of Rome has been a blessing or the reverse 
to Ttuly and to Europe. If the men thus skilled in history are to be 
the mere agents of the Church, the value of the contribution will be 
signally diminished, Caution with regard to those who are admitted 
is, however, not only to be pardoned but to be counselled, Those 
in charge of our national MSS. are well aware that many important 
documents haye been tampered with, and know that men of high 
position have not been above inserting deliberate forgeries in works 
which one would suppose every cultivated man would regard as 
sacred. If practices like these are conceivable when the motive is 
simply a little personal vanity, the desire to back up the authority of 
a view, or to establish the value of a discovery, what might not be 
expected when theological rancour is brought to bear, and when 
evidence in fayour of an obnoxious dogma, or against it, might be 
brought to light? That the danger is real is proven by the fact that, 
under past conditions even, forged documents of the utmost im- 
portance concerning ecclesiastical matters have obtained circulation 
and eredit. In the Yatican itself is a manuscript of the forged de- 
cretals of the so-called Isidore Mercator, a collection which during 
seven centuries took in a large portion of Europe, and was quoted 
again and again as authoritative by successive popes. To the 
opening of the archives of Simancas, in which Sefor Gayangos has 
made invaluable researches, and those of Venice, the able explorer 
of which, Mr. Rawdon Brown, is just dead, we owe it that much 
of the history of England has to be rewritten, It will be curious 
‘but not surprising if our histories of the Papacy have to undergo 
a similar reconsideration. Meanwhile, we may at least accept with 
gratitude the opening out of the great and all-important archives, the 
contents of which are at length to be brought to light. 


Aw “Orun SPACE” TO BE MAINTAINED. 


MONG the objects to which the Charity Commissioners and 
the Assistant-Commissioners assigned them are allowed to 
devote the immense sum to be derived from the Act dealing with 
the City parochial charities, is the maintenance of open spaces in 
London. Already many suggestions have been made as to the 
spaces it is desirable to secure. I wish to put forward a view of 
my own, and, as Tam very earnest, I hope I shall inspire some in- 
terest in the subject Of all the lungs of London Lregard Vamped, 


mas.7 s7ey mcmumos of youd. se 
Es sm ye tome a 
pried ot: trowa mm te 


slow he “ami in mescen > 
tommbie scactures tow 

e ule’ iow, Ia sent 
eat case tray crciest I 





THE 
GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. 
November 1883. 


THE CAPITAL OF THE GREAT 
NORTH-WEST, 


© one can fully realise the concentrated essence of satisfaction 
in receiving home-letters, or the dull disappointment of 
knowing that the long-looked-for monthly mail has come in, and has 
brought nothing for us, till he has lived for a while on some remote 
island or in an almost equally inaccessible inland zegion in some far 
country, If only all dwellers “at home” could remember this, how 
much oftener would the letters (so freely lavished on friends and 
acquaintances to whom they come as momentary interests in the daily 
budget) be rather despatched to the kinsman or kinswoman whose 
Jot is cast in some distant land, and to whom good news from the old 
home is, in truth, precious as cold water to a thirsty soul! 

So I thought many a time when sojourning on beautiful isles, 
where the extreme uncertainty of receiving any letters at all made 
‘their possible coming a matter of general excitement to the whole 
community, as keen as the result of any Derby or Epsom Day to its 
pleasure-seeking crowds. 

So, too, | thought, during a prolonged stay in the beautiful 
Californian Sierras, where the coming of the daily coach, and the 
sorting of its mail-hug, was the one point of breathless interest in 
each day’s life, when every soul from farand near assembled, crowding 
around to see whether any distant friend had perchance sent some 
kindly token of remembrance in the form of letter or precious news~ 


Never shall 1 forget my own pleasure in thus receiving home- 
letters which were evfy a month old! I carried off my treasures to 
be read undisturbed in the luxurious solitude of my favourite Forest 
Sanctuary "“—an enchanting nook, where several boulders, moss-grown 
and fringed with ferns, lie in a little glade of greenest qast,encxded 


VOL, CCLY, NO, 1835, 6G 4 








aeeateaued to face danger and death without shrinking. Twelve 
hundred dollars, equal to two hundred and forty pounds, was the 
monthly wage of an express rider. Of course, under such circum- 
shiners, postage was high; the charge for a quarter-ounce letter being 
five dollars in gold, equal to one sovercign, ‘The total weight carried 
wasten ponnels, As a commercial speculation, the experiment proved 














The Capital of the Great North-West. 419 


a failure, and, after rinning steadily for two years, the Express Com- 
pany was found to have lost two hundred thousand dollars, at which 
period it collapsed, leaving no trace of its existence, save a few 
ruinous log huts. ‘The telegraph being then completed, its continu- 
ance was no longer deemed necessary, : 

On the east, the railway was already constructed as far ns St. 
Joseph, which, consequently, was the first pony station on the New. 
York side, ‘The vast expanse of the prairie and mountain lying 
between St. Joseph and San Francisco had to be traversed in 240 
hours, which was reckoned “good timey’ and no mistake about it, 
the distance being fully two thousand miles. 

Once a week, a messenger started from cither shore of the Great 
Continent. Spurring his steed to its utmost capacity, he galloped 
over hill and dale for sixty miles at a stretch, till he reached his! des- 
tiation, where the next express-man was waiting, ready to startwithout 
the delay of onc moment—the incomer not waiting even to dismount, 
but tossing the precious letter-bag to its next guardian. ‘Then man 
and beast enjoyed a well-earned rest till the arrival of the messenger 
from the other direction, wher they started on the return journey. 

So marvellously punctual was this mail service, that the last man 
generally delivered up his charge within a few moments of the time 
fixed, notwithstanding all the troublous chances it might have 
encountered on its journey of two thousand miles, of what might 
truly be called a * great lonely land.” 

‘The general post, with heavier bags, reached California wd the 
Isthmus of Panama, to which point steamers ran twice a week, from 
New York and San Francisco, From one city to the other was a 
whole month’s journey. The arrival of the eastern mail was a signal 
for wild excitement in San Francisco. Merchants eager for their 
business letters, miners longing for a word from home, rushed to the 
post-office, the moment the gun was fired to announce that the 
steamer was in harbour, each eager to take up a position as near as 
possible to the post-office window. In a few moments a line was 
formed, perhaps literally half a mile long, of anxious letter-seckers, 
and late arrivals knew that hours might ¢lapse before they could 
hope to get near the window. 

‘Then a sort of auction commenced, and men who had rushed in 
and secured good places in the front of the line (often without the 
smallest expectation of a letter, but simply as a speculation,) sold 
their position to the highest bidder. Five, ten, twenty pounds were 
sometimes paid down by cager men, flush of gold, rather than wait five 
or six hours for the letters they longed for, bot which, too chen, were 

aG2 





* the harbour, the musical sound of Easter chimes pealing f 


420 The Gentleman's Magasine. 


expected in vain, and grievous was the disappointment with which, 
Gi aes tity tuted away. Some were even so anxious that they 
took up a post at the window, hours before the steamer arrived, even 
waiting through the night, and, after all, were sofupelied to.abeies 
their position and go in search of needful food. 

Perhaps at that very moment the firing of the mail. gum ealled 
them back, to find a long line rapidly forming, at the end of which 
they had to take their places, with the prospect of again waiting for 
hours, 

What a different scene from the San Francisco of to-day ; the 
busy, bustling, vast city with its intricate postal service, and daily 
mountains of mail-bags, brought from, and despatched to, all comers 
of the earth, by railways, steamers, and sailing ships t 

T do not think that in all my life J have ever felt more surprised 
than by my first week in this huge young city. I say “ week” 
advisedly, for it takes several days of pretty hard travel to form any 
idea of the extent of the wide-spread suburbs, or mther large towns 
of villas, which have sprung up in every direction, all around the 
business centre, like chickens clustering round the maternal hen, 
Such are Brooklyn, Oakland, Sancelito, Alameda, Belmont, Milbrae, 
Redwood City, San Miguel, San Bruno, San Mateo, San Lorenzo, 
San Leandro, San Pablo, San Rafael, and various others, all of which: 
lie within about an hour by steamboat or rail, and are the homes of 
‘a great multitude of men, whosc business requires their daily attend 
ance in San Francisco, but whose wealth enables them to create 
exceedingly luxurious homes amid far more pleasant 
Of course these wealthy homes speedily attract an army of trades- 
men of every description, so that cach of these suburbs becomes 
practically a large country town, though dependent on San Francisco 
as the great central artery. 

I suppose most people are somewhat slow to change any ides 
which has once taken a definite hold of their mind, and I certainly 
found that I was no exception to this rule, for my general impres 
sions, founded on the accounts of a very few years ago, were, that T 
should see a hastily-ran-up, second-rate, and very rowdy town, chiefly 
peopled by the ne’er-do-weels of many lands, who, having drifted to | 
California in the years of the great gold rush, had chen mae | 
or been stranded at its newly-created capital. ~- 

Great, then, was my amazement, when arriving for the ¢ 
‘on a glorious Easter morning, I heard on every side, ere 





of church bells, and on landing, found the 





The Capital of the Great North-West, 4a 


with crowds of churchgoers, chiefly remarkable for the richness of 
their attire. A traveller's instinct and curiosity led me in the course 
of that day to visit many of the principal churches of different 
denominations, and in all two features struck me forcibly—namely, 
the excellence of the admirably-trained choirs, and the wonderful 
beauty of the floral decorations, 

Never before had I dreamt of such profusion of exquisite blos- 
soms as are here lavished on every corner of every church. Indeed, 
each vies with all its neighbours in the endeavour to excel in beauty 
on this great festival, In one I saw a most fairy-like reredos of 
delicate maiden-hair fern, inlaid with lilies of the valley, while above 
‘the altar stood 2 magnificent cross of white camellias and tuberoses, 
From the chancel arch hung a gigantic cross of pure white calla 
lilies (which we call arum) in a circle of glossy green, beneath which 
(each letter separately suspended, so as to seem to float in mid air) 
hung the Angel’s greeting, “ Hic 1s Risex.” ‘This was in plain ever- 
greens, and all the more conspicuous, inasmuch as lectern, pulpit, 
organ, and walls were all profusely adorned with texts and emblems 
in roses and lilies, while for the chancel and the font were reserved 
the most precious hothouse treasures. 

‘The evening of Easter Day is the children’s floral festival, and in 
every church multitudes of little ones assemble, duly marshalled by 
their teachers, They march in procession, carrying silken banners 
and singing carols, each child laden with flowers in pretty baskets, or 
lovely bouquets, floral offerings which each little one in tum presents 
to the clergyman, to be laid on the altar, which soon is literally 
buried beneath a mountain of these fragrant gifts, all of which are then 
distributed to the hospitals and to the poorest homes in the great 
city, that they may carry their Easter message to many a sorrowfal 
sufferer in its dull, crowded streets. 

Many of the little ones bring more permanent offerings, in small 
gifts of money which they have collected during the year for various 
charitable objects, These, too, are reverently laid upon the altar, 
and then the happy children march to their places in the church, to 
take part in their special service, which consists chiefly of carol 
singing. It is a very bright and happy scene. 

‘On Easter Monday the voluminous daily papers devote several 
pages to claborate descriptions of the principal features of the deco- 
rations in all the principal churches (descriptions as minute as the 
accounts of Court dresses furnished by dressmakers after a drawing- 
room!) It certainly savours of proszic detail to find a detailed 
record of how many thousand white roses, red roses, Wes, gardctias, 





Ringe ake eee ee 
ings must be one vast flower garden, wl 
case, as every one of the n it 
it for miles, is embowered in zT 
al the reward of mot crf etaton, 
without which the whole land would ; 
condition of dry dust and sand, So ery 
‘one or more movable fountains 
HE cltyidy dongicolla. of Indla-rubbers 
these refreshing fountains (which are const 
place) play over the kiwns and flowerbeds, wh 
bestowed drink by a wealth of rich blosson 
striking contrast with the dried-up, yellow « 
corner, Of course such a water-supply is a 
expenditure, and we need scarcely wonder to lear 
who take pride in their gardens spend far n 
than on “daily bread.” Moreover, the } 
necessity be paid monthly, in advance. s 

‘The enormous supply is provided for by 
miles. Only one great reservoir lies near the 
few years ago was a quict lake, the lonely haut 
snipe and other wild fowl. 

It is indeed hard to realise, while driving ko 
the great, interminable city, that it is all a mu 
Peet years jt tbe rea eee San 
was simply one of the small stations of the old § ission 
the Indian tribes, and its only church was a | 


where only a few poor Indians built their bark huts, 1 
Peeienicccontery;isumineld ore: sebhiy aaa y 





Lhe Capital of the Great North-West, 423 


by borrowing the word to describe the centre to which, week by 
week, thousands of rough men crowded from the diggings, to waste 
in reckless dissipation the golden stores acquired with so much hard 
labour. ‘The chronicle of San Francisco in thase early days was one 
wild tale of anarchy—cvery man’s hand against his neighbour, and. 
the whole atmosphere tainted with drink and mad gambling. 

‘Ten years later a reaction had fairly set in. Vigilance committees: 
and Lynch law had cleared off the worst of the scum. Such noto- 
tious evildoers as escaped summary justice deemed it prudent to 
depart to more remote quarters Miners, weary of uncertain profits, 
‘began to settle down to more secure industries. The city assumed 
a business-like appearance. Handsome, permanent streets were 
built, where but a few years previously there had only been desolate, 
shifting sands. Land became valuable, and the fortunate owners of 
sites on the seaboard, becoming fully alive to their value, built houses 
on piles, filling up the space between them, and so reclaimed acre 
after acre of the shallow harbour, so that the sea-wall which guards 
the land, thus filched from ocean, is now built up froma depth of 
thirteen feet below high-water mark ! 

Whether such property is absolutely safe is a very doubtful ques+ 
tion. Occasional slight earthquake shocks remind the inhabitants 
from time to time that their tenure is ‘at will” of volcanic forces 
which may some day bring a swift tidal wave to reclaim the Jand. 
‘There are boiling springs at no great distance, suggesting a connece 
tion with the great volcanoes which lie to the north; and that the 
danger of earthquakes is fully recognised is proved by the fact that 
nearly all the city is built of wood. ‘The homes of the wealthiest 
citizens, on which are lavished all the gorgeous decoration that art 
can desire, or money buy, are all built of wood. To the eye they 
seem to be princely mansions, or pleasant villas of beautiful white 
stone, but on closer inspection you learn that all this illusion is pro- 
duced bya sprinkling of fine sand over cream-coloured paint, and 
then you first learn that San Francisco's “ skeleton in the cupboard ” 
15 the constant fear of possible carthquakes, 

Nevertheless this does not appear to be a very imminent danger, 
and latterly, some of the great firms, which deem the risk of fire more 
serious than that of carthquakcs, have taken courage, and built for 
themselves stone houses. But as a precaution against the acknow- 
ledged risk, hotels, warehouses, and shops have an inner skeleton 
made of strong bands of wrought iron, fastened together by iron bolts 
of immense siz¢ and strength. Over this framework is built the 
outer casing of brick or stone, which is supposed to be fire-yront. 


round the central quadrangle alone, and, above this, 
tier above tier, each with a similar row of columns, Of 


opening on Cees eis = ee 

Tcan only say “Heaven help all who have to trust to it!” Of e 
there are all manner of other staircases, besides the five “ele 
which are ceaselessly ascending and descending, to convey 
inhabitants of the 750 suites of rooms (one thousand b n 
their several apartments. These are graduated on a varyis 
luxury, “an apartment" generally including at least be 


ee and sitting-room, and as every one of the 750 

feel aggrieved were he not provided with a bay window, 
the other hotels are closely studded with these from top to } 
presenting a very curious appearance externally, 

‘The number of these gigantic hotels is one of the most surprising 
features of the great young city. A multitude of families have no_ 
other home, and thus dispense with all houschold worries, leaving ta 
paid officials all the cares of housekeeping and of servants. Byvery- 
thing is done on the most luxurious, scale, but it stands to reason 
that the cosiness of home life must be wholly wanting in such a 


system. 

How many of us look back to the : Coyaal Paco ane 
national Exhibition of 185r—the First Crystal Palace—as _ y 
never to be forgotten, a landmark in our lives, which, to some | 
appears not very remote | Is it not hard to realise that, at 
the site of this great city was a barren expanse of most desolate, — 
shifting sand-hills? ‘The friend who drove me through the city 
pointed out various busy business centres, which, in those day 
his favourite shooting haunts, and as we drove through so 
‘most important streets, he told me how often he had b 
in the harbour, above their present site. 

‘Now the gigantic mushroom city covers a space of fo 
‘miles, and has a population of 300,000 inhabitants, It hai 
chapels, and schools of every denomination, episcopal 


uw ar 





The Capital of the Great North-West. 425 


Catholic cathedrals, Jewish synagogues, and Chinese temples, excel- 
lent government schools, the free birthright of all citizens, splendid 
public libraries, free #o all citizens above fifteen ywars of age, thas a 
great city hall, theatres, and an opera house, and foremost among its 
public buildings is the great mint of the United States, which is said 
to be the most perfect in the world. Here Californian gold is coined 
into five-dollar pieces, which are the practical equivalents of English 
sovereigns, but the gold is so much purer that the British coin only 
passes at a discount—rather annoying to travellers from the east, who 
found their English gold at a premium in India and Ceylon. Unlike 
our British mint, guarded by armed sentries, and only to he seen by 
such visitors as have been provided with a formal permit, this great 
American mint is daily open to all comers all the forenoon, and 
strangers and citizens alike find free admission to inspect the whole 
process of coining. 

As to other details, the numerous markets are all that can be 
desired, offering every possible temptation to housekeepers; the 
‘Turkish baths are gorgeous ; one wide tract of reclaimed sand-hills 
has been transformed into a most fairylike park and garden, while 
another, equally attractive as a garden, forms the great “God's acre," 
where already slecp a vast multitude of once restless, eager mortals, 
attracted hither from all corners of the earth in quest of fortune, and 
who here have found a grave. 

In the great working districts of the city, every conceivable industry 
is represented ; there are lumber-merchants' yards, smelting works, 
foundries, artificial stone works, woollen factories, potteries; in short, 
everything you can put a name upon. 

OF course in a town of which so large a portion is built of wood, 
the utmost importance attaches to the perfecting of every detail of 
fire-extinguishing organisation, ‘The ever-present danger is suffi- 
ciently proven by the fact that no less than ninety-five insurance 
companies have found it worth their while to establish agencies in 
this city. 

‘These companies are obliged by the State to support a fire brigade 
of their own, to supplement the work of the City Fire Brigade, It is 
called the Underwriters’ Fire Patrol, and, so perfect is the organisation 
of these corps, that they literally move by electricity, and at any hour 
of day or night, they are warranted to start a fully equipped fire 
engine within ten seconds of the time when the electric alarm 
sounds. 

Tn a large proportion of the citizens’ houses there are electric 
signals by which the first outbreak of fire can inatanty be conan. 





The Capital of the Great North-West, 427 


as every district of the town, and indeed a vast number of private 
houses, are in telegraphic communication with the fire department, 
it is evident that little time need be lost. 

‘'Yhe method by which private houses communicate with the 
central office is a marvel of ingenious simplicity. In some handy 
comer (generally the sleeping-room of the houscholder), a small 
instrument resembling the tace of a clock, is let inta the wall; the 
uninitiated would certainly assume this to be a simple timepiece, but, 
‘ona closer inspection, he perceives that, although this little face is 
divided into sections like hours, in lieu of figures it bears such words 
as fire-engine, hackney-carriage, private-carriage, message-boy, and 
various other possible requirements, any one of which is warranted 
to appear within a few moments, in answer to a turn of the magic 
electric needle, Surely the story of Aladdin’s wondrous lantern did 
but foreshadow. the simple reality of domestic science as daily 
exemplified in California. 

Lgpoke just now of hackney-carriages as being ever ready to 
obey the telegraphic summons, For ordinary purposes, however, 
the mass of the San Franciscans invariably take “ cheap rides" in 
the excellent tramears, which run to and fro in every possible 
direction, and carry their passengers an incredible distance for 
infinitesimal cain. 

In like manner, innumerable steamers ply backwards and for- 
‘wards between all points of the great harbour, so that from dawn tll 
midnight busy crowds pass ceaselessly to and fro. The moming 
boats from the Suburban Cities (if 1 may so describe them) to their 
great busy Mother, are all densely crowded with busy business men. 
‘Later in the day, such Iadies as prefer shopping at headquarters, or 
have other pleasure or business. to attend to, follow at their leisure, 
and generally return by the afternoon boats, in time to ayoid the 
rush and crush of weary men returning to their homes. 

Of these suburban cities, the one with which I became most 
intimately acquainted is Oakland, which lies on the oppasite side of 
the harbour, which, at this point, is about seven miles in width. It 
has a population of upwards of fifty thousand persons, of whom, on 
an average, ten thousand daily cross the harbour by the splendid 
half-hourly ferry steamboats. Oakland possesses twenty churches, 
several banks, and a fine courthouse. But its especial pride centres 
in its great public schools, and its State university, which is open to 
students of both sexes, to the number of two hundred, who receive a 
first-class education gratuitously. A special law forbids the sale of 
any intoxicating liquor within two miles of the university. Cecaints, 


428 


it must be allowed that, what with free libraries and | 
Granite State takes good care of its children. ” 

Tn the way of trade, Oakland has ie ova od de baer eee 
potteries, patent marble works, tanneries, and various other large 
mercantile establishments, But its chief characteristic ( 
however, to all these “country towns”) is the multitude of pleasant _ 
homes, and pretty semi-tropical gardens, with their beautifully kept 
and continually watered green lawns, and wealth of luxuriant blossom. 
Such hedges of geranium, such fragrant roses and jessamines, Sieh 
gorgeous fuchsias climbing right over the houses and roofs, verbena: 
like tall shrubs, lilies—every flower you can think of but not grow 
ing grudgingly and with apparent difficulty, as is so often the case in 
Britain, but with a profusion and readiness which is the characteristic: 
of all vegetable life in California. 

Perhaps the most remarkable institution of Oakland is its local 
railroad, which runs right through the city—a distance of five miles, 
‘This is a free gift to the inhabitants from the great railway company. 
‘The regular through trains—both for freight and passengers—run by 
a line skirting the sea, but this city line is constracted for the special 
convenience of the inhabitants, and is absolutely free. Every half- 
hour, a train of about fifteen steam-cars, each carrying about fifty 
passengers, starts from either terminus, halting at eightstations on the 
way. But the pace being somewhat leisurely, many active passengers 
swing themselves on, or jump off, wherever it suits them. Of course 
such a boon as this is not neglected, and thousands daily travel by 
it when going about their household errands, 

One cannot but wonder at the early instinct which saves all the 
small children from being run over, for these trains (with their wide- 
funnelied engines specially constructed for burning wood) run along 
the open street, with no further precaution than perpetually ringing 
a bell, which tolls like a summons to church. ‘They run to meet the 
huge ferry steamboats, which carry us across the harbour in about 
half an hour. 

On landing in San Francisco, we find an array of street cars, 
which are large tram omnibuses, waiting to carry passengers in every 
possible direction. Far an incredibly small sur, one of these will 
take us right across the city to the Southern Railway Depdt (as the 
stations are called), whence, if we are so minded, we may “ take the 
‘steam-cars,” and go to Juncheon with friends at one of the many 


“ villa cities” on the other side of San Francisco, ‘This is an 
day phase of social life, but I confess that forme “ society” i 


Ss 


The Gentleman's Magazine. " = 


The Capital of the Great North-West. 429 


so many changes of locomotion is too dearly bought. It requires an 
amazing fund of energy. 

But in themselves, these southern cities are well worth a visit, for 
here are the wonderfully luxurious homes of the wealthiest inhabi- 
tants—men who haying realised gigantic fortunes by mining, railway, 
‘or cattle speculations, have had the good sense to place themselyes 
and their gold in the hands of first-class representatives of art in all 
its phases, and thus find themselves in possession of ideal homes, 
where comfort and beauty are most happily combined. Many of the 
choicest art treasures of England, France, Italy, Japan, and the 
Eastern States of America have here found a resting place. Valuable 
pictures, beautiful statues, fine china, good bronzes, are scattered 
with lavish hand, their beauty enhanced by rich deapery and hang- 
ings, and by the presenc: of exquisite tropical flowers in stands 
and vases ; while the windows lock down upon beautifully laid out 
gardens, broad, well-kept stretches of lawn, fine hothouses, beautiful 
shrubberies, artificial lakes, covered with water-lilies and strange 
birds. 

Some of these homes appear so substantial and so like good 
English country houses, that it is scarcely possible to realise that 
they really are only built of wood, Still more difficult is it to realise 
that all those fairy-like creations have sprung into existence in so 
short a time that a quarter of a century has sufficed thus literally to 
make the desert blossom as a rose, 

©. F. GORDON CUMMING, 


My Musical Life. 431 


I nearly starved myself outside the walls of Capua during the 
bombardment. ‘They had my brandy, and my biscuits, and my cash ; 
often too my broken-down horse, and at my Naples hotel the houseless 
and purseless ones sometimes shared even my bedroom. All day 
long, under a burning sun, I got sonked to the skin, with little get- 
atable to eat or drink, but coffee and bread In the morning and 
some wretched apology for a meal at night. Provisions were scarce, 
and every restaurant in Santa Maria was cleancd out. A light 
shawl was all I had to keep off chill, malaria, and fever raging all 
round me. I drank freely the polluted water of Naples. I ate 
freely its dangerous red melons, inhaled the pestiferous air of its 
overcrowded back streets, in that monstrously unsanitary and over- 
crowded time ; yet not once had I a touch of fever or any ailment 
whatever, except fits of exhaustion consequent upon over-heating and 
over-excitement, under-feeding and general bodily fatigue. My 
rickety constitution, which the disastrous malady of my boyhood 
had failed to shatter, must have been made of iron, and I dare 
say I shall live to the age of Methusaleh, I remember now how 
the small-pox spared me when it raged as an epidemic in my first 
parish, St. Peter's, Bethnal Green ; how the cholera spared me when 
it raged in my second parish, St. Peter's, Stepney. People who 
enjoy this kind of luck usually yet hit at last; but I cannot but 
reflect, with wonder and thankfulness, that during the twenty years 1 
have been in the Church, preaching in London on an average twice 
every Sunday, although often feeble and suffering, I have seldom been 
absent from my pulpit, and never once been unable to officiate © 
through indisposition, I think few even of the more robust of the 

London clergy can say as much, 

T was greatly struck by the nmusical poverty of Italy. Even the 
performances in the Scala at Milan were poor in comparison with the 
London and Paris opera-houses, The street music at Naples and at 
Venice was characteristic. In Florence and Pisa the guitar was 
played with a certain 4am by the young men as they walked home 
at night, trolling out some graceful love song or drinking ditty with 
Hight chorus, very different from our drinking choruses, But the 
mechanical organs, with their eternal fmgments of Verdi, were 
extremely wearisome, and the Italian pianoforte-playing, even when 
good, had little charm for ears accustomed to the inspirations of 
Beethoven, Schamana, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Mozart. Still, the 
romance school of the pianoforte in Italy is a distinct one, and not 

. to be ignored. Fumagalli was a man of real genius, who died too 
young; and Tito Mattel, now resident in England, as won way 


My Musical Life. 433 


presented me to this stranger, It was Mr. C, H. Deacon, the pillar 
of the English Church at Milan, and general friend and benefactor 
of all itinerant and homeless tourists who drifted into the English 
Church on their way through Milan, 

To Mr. and Mrs. Deacon—since members of my own congre- 
gation in London—and my good friend Andrews, I owe some of my 
happiest hours in Italy. 

On the hot nights Andrews and I, now become warm friends, 
used to make our way naturally to Deacon’s charming house, and 
there, at the invitation of Mrs. Deacon—most delightful of hostesses 
—drink unlimited tea and make music. 

1 had not brought my violin to: Ttaly—I should certainly have 
Jost it if Thad. 1 lost nearly everything that I had with me in Italy 
that year, I made no music, but I soon found that Deacon was a 
splendid pianist, and at his house | met Pezze, the violoncellist, and 
‘Sessa, the violinist. Deacon introduced me to Reynolds, who called 
himself Vice-Consul ; and 1 remember that Lord Byron's cook, who 
owas still living, served us up an admirable dinner one night at the 
Consul's residence. 

‘The heat being overpowering, and the natives having chosen that 
moment fot emptying the cess-pools at my hotel, the place became 
little better than a pest-house, and we concluded to go to the lakes, 
We went to Como. ‘There Deacon Joined us, 

Our hotel at-Carddenabbia overlooked the lake. There was a 
grand piano in the great saloon, with a marble balcony opening upon 
the water, Here, when the moon was fall upon Como, would 
Deacon play to us after dinner. ‘The music went out into the night. 
‘The white mist bathed the opposite promontory of Bellagio, I can 
just romember a face on the balcony in the twilight—and eyes, too. 
T was in my twenty-third year. I no longer sighed for Brunswick 
Square—I was reconciled to Italy. 

T had for years been an irregular student of theology, and I had 
read very carefully most of the standard theological books—Pearson, 
Butler, Paley, Hooker—and also weighted myself heavily with the 
High Church theology—Pusey, Newman, Manning, Keble, Miss 
Sewell, &e., besides reading Maurice and F. W. Robertson. This 
preparation laid me-pecutiarly open to the influence of “ Essays and 
Reviews,” which I eagerly devoured at Florence on my way home, 
and I was soon af ards further enlightened by the writings of 
Jowett and Colenso) These last are the men who gave me some 
‘hope for the future of the Church of England, The sced of some~ 
thing like an enlightened and liberal theology seemed tobe Sow. 


= FOL. CcLY. NO. 1835. ui g 


My Musical Life. 435 


it. Twas not Jeft to struggle alone. The aristocracy of my congre- 
gation were the small tradespeople. They rallied round me nobly, 
and I loved them ; they scemed to me infinitely good, and worthy, 
and staunch. J dropped into tea at the back of theshop. I cheered 
up the mother cumbered with much serving, and the daughters with 
their smiling faces and ready hands were my district visitors, and 
taught in the Sunday school. 

In those happy and hopeful days, the Jate Mr, J. K. Green, since 
famous as the author of “A Short History of the English People," 
‘was my constant companion and close friend. Hehad a sole charge 
in the neighbouring parish of Hoxton, and for some two years we 
met almost daily; we were facing the same difficulties, discussing the 
same doubts, trying to solve the same problems. 

But this is no book concerning my clerical life, I, hasten to 
recover the thin golden thread of music, which. still continued, and 
probably will continue to the end, to run through my days, hidden 
at times in the complex fabrie of the gencral life-work, but never 
really lost or broken. 

‘Thousands around me were leading dull lives of monotonous 

_ toil, with little refreshment or variety, too much shut up to the 
beerhouse or the counter, tempted by want and gin, tempted also to 
all kinds of chicanery and petty theft and sordid aims. I determined 
to try the effect of music, and good music, upon their nurrow, busy, 
overburdened lives. 

I invited Mr, C. H. Deacon, Signor Regondi—incomparable on 
the guitar and concertina—and Signor Pezte to come down and give 
a concert in the national school-room. The prices of admission were 
low—td. and 3¢. The room was crammed ; the music was a little 
over the people’s heads; the respectable element predominated a 
little too much, as I expected, but the class I aimed at was fairly 
represented, The audience was hushed, attentive, a little awed, but 
intensely appreciative, I did not play myself. No one had heard 
me play there, $0 no one expected me to; and I might have lost my 
character as general manager and president had I contributed to the 
Programme in a musical capacity. 1 confess the old war-horse 
within me began to chafe and paw the ground, impatient for action, 
when the players got well to work. I seemed to feel that my real 
place was at their side. I had been too lately weaned, but I kept — 
my feelings to myself. 

I believe in music as I believe in pictures for the masses. It 
draws people together, smoothes the way to social intercourse, and 
very much facilitates the intercourse between a pastor and Ws Koda. 


Muo | 


| 


436 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


Music is better than penny readings or lectures for this purpose, 
chiefly because penny readings, as a rule, are so badly and stupidly 
conducted. For one person who can attract attention by his reading 
or lecturing, there are a dozen who can excite” interest amongst the 
poorer classes by singing and playing; and professional musicians 
are, as anule, very kind and liberal in giving their services if only a 
fit occasion presents itself. 

‘Tea meetings, speeches, and lectures were, however, easier to 
organise, and I was not long enough at Bethnal Green—hardly two 
years—to fairly test by their frequency the good of cheap music 
for the people parochially, nor was it my own parish, nor had T 
entirely my own way. But the experiment” has been 
successful since in coffee music-halle and cheap concerts for the 
people. I am convinced that the influence of music over the poor 
is quite angelic. Music is the handmaid of religion and the mother 
of sympathy. The hymn tunes taken home by the children from 
church and chapel are blessed outlets of feeling—they humanize 
households all through the land. The Moody and Sankey tunes 
have exercised an clevating and even hallowing influence far and 
wide, over hill and dale, in remote Welsh hamlets, from Northum- 
berland to. Devonshire, in the crowded dens of our manufacturing 
centres, and in lonely seaside villages, 

‘Teach the people to sing, and you will make them happy ; teach 
them to listen to sweet sounds, and you will go far to render them 
harmless. 

Since my ordination I have, with great reluctance, and under 
considerable pressure from old friends, broken through my rule of 
never playing in public. Once at St. Peter's, Stepney, where I was 
curate for ashort time, I played at a concert, got up for the edification 
of the parish, in the schoolroom. The people, I think, were too 
much surprised thoroughly to enjoy me in so completely novel and 
‘unexpected a character. 

Again, at St, James the Less, Westminster, at another school-room 
concert, I played. There I think the feelings of the audience were very 
mixed. A good many seemed scandalised ata parson playing the fiddle 
atall. Others were shocked at his performing thus publicly, 

When invited by the Inte lamented Mr, 

President of the Royal Institution, to lecture on “Old 

before that learned assembly, I ventured to touch some ofthe mate. 
Jess violins lent me on that occasion just sufficiently to a 
Jew points, and demonstrate certain n 


! peculiarities of 1 
rE ) 
ie 








My Musical Life, 437 


to my own liking. Indeed, I keep my Strad, in a cabinet behind 
glass, There he rests unsounded and unstrung. 

Before the end of the century he will probably pass out of my 
hands, Tt is well that he should sleep awhile. T have worked him 
hard enough in my day, About a.p. 2000 he will probably emerge, 
fresh, powerful, and perhaps sweeter than ever, to tell the unborn 
generations of the twentieth century how great and magical an artificer 
was Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis, ap. 1712. 

If these famous old violins did not haye these long periods of 
rest they would soon be all worn out, and A.D. 2100 would only 
have them as museum specimens, no longer fit to be played upon, It 
is the collector who keeps them for years unstrung, the violinists 
who lay them by and neither play upon them nor lend them about 
who are the real benefactors and conservers of the Cremona gems, 
‘This thought often consoles me when T look at the kind and faithful 
face of my old violin, or take him out to pass my hand at times 
caressingly over the dear, familiar maple back, polished and all aglow, 
Tike transparent sunlit agate and so finely veined, I lookathimashelies 
mute in my hands—but not dead. Ah! how he used to sound beneath 
my bow in the crowded halls and at gay scenes that have faded out for 
ever with the“ days that are no more,” Ay! and how he shall sound 
again in other hands, and sing rapturously to other hearts, long after 
my hand has grown cold and my heart has ceased to beat. 


fl. R. HAWEIS, 


(To be concluded.) 








assured. Francis the First knew that he had no 


his great rival if once the houses of Valois and Tudor ; 


Charles the Fifth, in spite of the extensive empire which | 
master, in ignorance of this fact. With the hostile forces: 





The Field of the Cloth of Galt 439 


ways, for a time played his hand with much cunning. He was 
friendly to Francis, he did not throw cold water upon the pretensions 
of the Dauphin to the hand of his daughter the Princess Mary, and 
yet at the same time, so subtle was his tact, he failed to excite the 
Jealousy of Charles. Tn all his words and actions he was careful not 
to pledge himself to any decided course; he held the balance evenly 
between the two contending parties, and hesitated to throw the 
weight of his influence into the scale of either. For months he occu~ 
pied this neutral position ; then, worked upon by his powerful adviser 
‘the great Cardinal, who had always favoured a French alliance, he 
made a move which caused the heart of Francis to beat exultingly, 
‘He at last consented, after repeated promises and delays, to cross the 
Channel and hold an interview with his brother-sovereign during 
which they might discuss many matters for the advantage of both 
countries, He drew up with his own hand a letter fn which he 
addressed Francis in every term which cordiality could inspire, He 
despatched a special envoy to Paris with full instructions how to act 
and what to say, Francis was to be told that the king of England 
had always entertained forhim the warmest friendship, that he desired 
nothing better than that an intimate union should exist between the 
‘hwo countries, and that he was most anxious to meet his royal brother 
face to face. ‘The affection each bore to the other in his heart, said 
Henry, was the chief means “to knit the assured knot of perseverant 
amity betwixt them above any other.” Nor was this all, “For,” he 
continued, “rememibering the noble and excellent gifts, as well of 
nature touching their goodly statures and activeness, and of grace 
concerning their wondrous wisdoms and other princely virtues—as 
also of fortune, depending upon their substances and puissaunce given 
unto them by Almighty God, and wherein more conformity is betwixt 
them than in or amongst all other Christian Princes, it is not to be 
‘maryelled if this agreeable consonance of semblable properties and 
affections do vehemently excite and stir them both, not only to love 
and tenderly favour each other, but also personally to visit, see and 
speak together, whereby that thing which as yet standing upon reports 
is covered with a shadow shall be brought to the light face to face, if 
it proceed ; and finally make such impression of entire love in their 
hearts that the same shall be always permanent and never be 
dissolved, to the pleasure of God, their both comforts, and the weal of 
all Christendom.” * 

‘The prepurations for the interview were entrusted by both nations 
1 State Papers, Domenie, Feb. 21, 1520. * Instructions to Sir Richard Wing 
Beli," Edited by the Rev, J. S. Brewer, M.A, 





440 The Gentleman's Magasine, 7 


to Wolsey, the current of whose mind, as witnessed his establishments 
at Hampton Court and York Place, set naturally towards pomp and 
pageantry, and who was skilled in all the lore of precedents and the 
severe etiquette 50 dear to chamberlains Yet the task was far from 
an easy one. He had to draw up a list of the flower of the nobles 
and gentry from every shire who were to swell the retinue of the king, 
‘He had to arrange the escort which was to accompany his master 
to France, and also the escort which was ‘to ride with the King of 
England at the embracing of the two kings,” when they met at Guisnes. 

He had to sie that the chief officers of the royal household were “in 
their best manner apparelied according to their estates and degrees.” 
He had to superintend the packing of ‘the rich copes. wi 
‘vestments given to the monastery of Westminster by the late king,” 
together with the “ best hangings, travers, jewels, images, altar clo 

&c.,” which were to be borrowed for the occasion and to be ased for 
divine service across the Channel. It also fell within. his province 
to pick out the king’s guard, which was to consist of two rea 
“the tallest and most elect persons with doublets, hosen. 

man is to haye two coats, one of goldsmith’s work with the 
cognizance, the base to be scarlet and the nether part to. ree 
of cloth of gold ; the other coat to be red with a rose on the breast, 
and the crown imperial." ‘The guard was to be armed with bows 
and arrows. ‘Then it behoved him to keep « sharp eye u 

orders and movements of those who, subject to his 

to carry out the various details which were to make the int 

brilliant success. ‘The chamberlain and the ministers of the 

were to attend to the construction of the lists and galleries for 
jousts ‘half way between Guisnes and Arde,” and to 

ings house at Calais with “Arras tapestry and other 

‘The cofferer was to provide the victuals, The warden of the | 

Ports was to be entrusted with the shipping and had to a | 
who were to take part in the interview to Calais, A special | 
appointed by the king, was to provide “hobbies, palfreys, | 

greyhounds, horns, leashes, collars and other things for pr 

‘To all these things, both on this and the other side of the 7 
Wolsey had to attend. 

At last all the preliminary arrangements were completed, 
Cardinal had determined upon those privileged ones who wer 
form the retinue of the English king. His own name headed 
“with 3ooservants of whom 12 shall be chaplains, and so gentle 
with 50 horses ;" next came “our Archbishop with 70 

1 State Papers, Hoary NIV.) No. Jou. ‘Field of the Cloth of 

















The Field of the Cloth of Gold. 441 


be chaplains, and ro gentlemen with 30 horses ;” and then, in pompous 
parade, appeared dukes, marquises, earls, barons, bishops, knights, 
and gentry from every county, all with their chaplains and retainers, 
‘until the sum total of the goodly company was swelled to “3,997 
persons, and 2,087 horses," The queen had a like escort; “1,175 
persons and 778 horses.”' A retinue equally splendid and imposing 
was also to attend upon the French sovereign. 

The interview between the two monarchs was to take place upon 
the arid plain of Guisnes close to the French frontier but within the 
English pale. It had been intended that Henry and his retinue 
should have taken up their quarters within the walls of the castle of 
Guisnes, but a brief inspection of the ancient fortress showed how 
unsuited it was for such hospitality. The English commissioners 
who had crossed over to Calais to make all necessary arrangements 
‘wrote to Wolsey that ‘the master mason has advertised them that 
two hundred masons and bricklayers cannot manage the repairs—no 
facing will serve ; the keep is too ruinous to mend.”? The castle 
was indeed little better than a ruin; the elements had made sad 
havoc with its outer walls, its battlements had crumbled away, huge 
cracks like the furrows of age wrinkled around its loopholes and 
Tancet windows, whilst its moat was full of weeds and mire; it was 
evident at a glance that no building was less fitted to sérve as the 
temporary home for a magnificent monarch, ‘The castle was there- 
fore abandoned, though measures were adopted so that Wolsey 
might take up his abode in it “surely but not pleasantly.” Before 
the green in front of the dilapidated fortress, art and labour were 
striving their utmost to compensate for all deficiencies by erecting 2 
summer palace of the most gorgeous proportions, to be furnished 
‘with everything that wealth could command and luxury suggest. “The 
palace,” writes the late Mr. Brewer,* the careful and accomplished 
editor of the archives of this period, “was an exact square of 328 
fect. It was picrced on every side with oriel windows and clorestaries 
curiously glazed, the mullions and posts of which were overlaid with 
gold. An embattled gate, ornamented on both sides with statues 
representing men in various attitudes of war and flanked by an 
embattled tower, guarded the entrance, From this gate to the 
entrance of the palace arose in long ascent a sloping dais or hallpace, 
along which were grouped ‘images of sore and terrible counten- 
ances" in armour of argentine or bright metal. At the entrance, 


* State Papers, Wenry VIIL Mar, 26, 1520, 


* Hits, March 26, 1520, 
* Calendar of State Papers, Henry IW. v6. Wh. Weeoee, QE. 





Whilst these preparations were being carried 
Charles the Fifth was bent upon nullifying the: 


arige from the interview, It was not in his 
meeting of the kings of England and France, but 
that his great rival should not be allowed to 
‘entirely in the matter. He wrote to Wolsey that 
paying a visit to Canterbury, that he had long 
brother of England, and that many years had'p 
seen his aunt, the queen Katherine. He 











The Field of the Cloth of Gold. 443 


Dover to pay his homage to his illustrious visitor. The two sove- 
feigns then took horse for Canterbury, “the more to solemnise the 
feast of Pentecost; but specially to sec the Queen of England, his 
‘aunt, was the intent of the emperor,” ‘The visit lasted until the end 
of the manth, when Charles embarked at Sandwich for Flanders. Ot 
what occurred daring this interview we have no record. The two sove- 
réignewere frequently engaged in deep conversation ; no witnesses were 
ever permitted to be present, nor does Wolsey appear to have been 
taken into the confidence of ‘his master. - Itis not difficult, however, 
to immagine what was the chicf topic of discussion at this interview. 
Charles, we may reasonably suppose, was urging his own claims, and 
proving how much more England would have to gain by an allianee 
with the Empire than with France. If he did not come as a definite 
suitor for the hand of the Princess Mary, we may be sure that he 
took good care to disparage the pretensions of the Dauphin to that 
honour. Henry was left puzzled and undecided. Hewas fascinated 
by the dazzling prospect of an Imperial alliance, yet he'did not wish 
to break with Francis. He would have preferred Charles as the 
Husband of the Princess Mary, but then she had been as good as 
engaged to the Dauphin! Was it wise to be off with the old love 
before he was eure of the new? ‘There was an old English proverb, 
that’between two stools was an unsafe position, "Thus vacillating and 
insincere, the king of England crossed the Channel to meet Francis. 

Upon his arrival at the fairy structure specially erected to receive 
him, he had no reason to complain of any lack of splendour or 
supervision on the part of his master of the ceremonies. Wolsey 
had performed his task with admirable tact and accuracy. Nota 
hitch was apparent in any of the arrangements, whilst the scene 
which met the gaze of Henry as he looked out of the oriel windows 
of his “crystal palace” was one of unparalleled magnificence and 
Picturesque activity. Almost every twenty yards of the large open 
green which bordered the town of Guisnes on the south was covered 
‘with tents, many of them lurid with emblazonry, of all shapes and sizes, 
‘upon the crests of which floated banners and pennons of every huc. 
‘Threading their way through the narrow lines which separated 
canvas from canvas were prancing barbs and sluggish mules, gaily 
decked with flowers and ribbons, laden with baggage and necessaries 
forthe camp. Before ench tent of knight and squire stood a sentry, 
the bright Jone sunshine causing his bill and lance to glisten like « 
flame of silver. The peasant women from Calais in their picturesque 
caps and wimples wandered about selling their fish and fruit to all 


who looked like purchasers or, when a 

























444 


eee ane ee 

about the plain were small troops ih 
manoeuvres or engaged in mimic eters, 
vacant spots, more especially at the further 
crowds were assembled watching 

quarter staves Detween certain Josty, retainers, 

the antics of a bear brought over for exhibition b 
speculator from the neighbouring Arde. All was 


and, thanks to the fountains, “fed by secret con 
earth,” which spouted forth claret and 0 
quench the thirst of-any who craved a 


the armour of the knights and nobles, so gorgeous the d b 

heralds and pursuivants, so artistic the military display of horse and 

foot, of archers and yeomen of the guard, and su lavish and profuse 

the gratifying of all that could minister to the wants and : 

‘of man, that the quondam arid common in front of the crumbling 

castle of Guisnes had become transformed into a veritable “field of 

cloth of gold.” ee 
Siocon dalay in ths ppc beferntar pate Tous 

‘the commissariat was to be on this festive occasion. 

san estimate “for the diets of the king and peat 

at Calais and Guisnes for one month" : “yoo quarters of wineat 225, 

a quarter ; 150 tuns French and Gascon wine at sro the tun; 

6 Luus sweet wine, £27; 550 tuns of beer at 20s, ; 340 beeves at 

405; 2,200 muttons at 5; Boo veals at 5s, ; 80 hogs of grease 

at 8s, ; salt and fresh fish, £300 ; spices, £440; diaper 

cloth, £300; 4,000 Ib. wax, £200; white te Raat 

poultry, £1,300; pewter vessels, £300; brazen. pans, spits, Gey 

$200 j 5,600 quarters of coal, £280 ; tall wood and 

the stable, £200 ; costs of purveyors, £140; hoys 

conveyance of “victuals, £73- 6s Sd.; 4 pipes 

rushes, £405 2oo cook and 13 pil at ody, 49 OR 

at 6d, ; 12 brewers and 12 bakers at 8d. ; carriage of 

Calais to isnes, £130." There was therefore to 

the palace ; open house was to be kept, and all ci 

entertained, ‘The inferior officers of the household 

numerous a5 a regiment on full strength, b 


1 State Papers, July 16, 1520," Expenses ut Gulsnes for 


The Field of the Cloth of Gold. 445 


Montreuil for Arde, a town close to the English pale, and within a 
short ride of Guisnes. Arde, we are told, was “an old town long 
‘ago destroyed, of which the king had caused the fosses and castle to 
be repaired with diligence.” Determined upon not being annoyed 
by the roughs who always love to watch a pageant, Francis before 
leaving Montreuil issued a proclamation ordering that “none should 
follow his train nearer than two leagues on pain of the halter, except 
those enrolled.” Consequently some ten thousand vagabonds were 
disappointed of the pleasure they had anticipated, and returned 
sulking to their own homes. Upon arriving at Arde, Francis, 
accompanied by his retinue, set out for their tents, which were 
pitched outside the walls of the town and sloped gradually down 
until they almost touched the English quarter. Two leagues 
separated the kings of England and France—two leagues which 
were simply one mass of billowy canvas and dazzling emblazonry. 
‘The scene from the French side, as was to be expected from a 
people pre-eminent for artistic taste, was the more imposing. “As 
the Frenth," writes Mr. Brewer, “had proposed that both parties 
should lodge in tents erected on the field, they had prepared 
numerous pavilions, fitted up with halls, galleries, and chambers 
ornamented within and without with gold and silver tissue. Amidst 
golden balls and quaint devices glittering in the sun, rose a gilt 
figure of St. Michael, conspicuous for his blue mantle powdered with 
golden fleur de Jys, and crowning a royal pavilion of vast dimensions 
supported by a single mast. In his right hand he held a dart, in his 
left « shield emblazoned with the arms of’ France. Inside the root 
of the pavilion represented the canopy of heaven ornamented with 
stars and figures of the zodiac. The lodgings of the queen, of the 
Duchess d'Alencon, the king's favourite sister, and of other ladies 
and princes of the blood were covered with cloth of gold, The rest 
of the tents to the number of three or four hundred, emblazoned 
with the arms of their owners, were pitched on the banks of a small 
river outside the city walls." Among the fair visitors then under 
canvas on the slopes outside Arde was Ann Boleyn. 

With the arrival of the two sovereigns the proceedings of the 
pageant commenced. Wolsey was the first to open the ball. 
Accompanied by a splendid retinue of princes and nobles, he 
rode his mule down the tented plain, to pay his royal master’s 
respects to Francis, He was preceded by fifty gentlemen of the 
household, barcheaded and bonnet in hand, cach with a great gold 
chain worn searf-ways, and mounted on horses richly caparisoned 
with crimson velvet. ‘Then followed his ushers, also hiy yeuanen, 








The Field of the Cloth of Gold. 4az 


Christendom. It was the purpose of this interview to show him to the 
world surrounded hy all those accessories to which the imagination 
‘of nine-tenths of mankind at that time lent itself a willing: prisoner, 
Railway scrip, or a supposed balance at a man's bankers, effects that. 
object now,” 

Next day this visit of ceremony was returmed by the representa- 
tives of Francis, who were received by the English king in his summer 
place, “ very honourably, amid great noise of artillery and music,” 
‘So boisterous was the hospitality of our nobles that they permitted 
no refusal, and, when necessary, even used force to compel the 
Frenchmen to accept the entertainment put before them, ‘The lords 
of England, we are told, feasted the French lords in their tents 
maryellously from the greatest to the least—'‘et jusques i deschirer 
leurs robbes quand ils n'y voulaicnt entree pour les festier,’* These 
preliminaries settled, the day was fixed upon for the interview 
between the two sovereigns. Francis, in consequence of Henry 
having crossed the Channel, had agreed to be the first to pass the 
frontier and greet his royal brother. Early on the morning of 
Thursday, the seventh of June, being theday of Féte Dieu, he quitted 
his tent amid the roar of the neighbouring guns, accompanied by his 
retinue of marshals of France, pensioners, archers, Swiss and yeomen 
of the guard all clad in cloth of gold and silver. Before Francis rode 
the constable “in cloth of gold frieze set with jewels, and his horse 
barded with the same, bearing the naked sword chased with gold 
Hleurs-de-tys:' Mounted upon “a beautiful horse covered with gold- 
smith's work,” the French king, escorted on cither side by the princes 
of the blood, wended his way slowly down the incline to the frontier, 
where between two hillocks was set up a gorgeous pavilion, bright 
with the varied emblazonry of England and France, in which the wo. 
sovereigns were to confer. 

A shot fired from the fort at Arde had given the English warning 
that Francis had made his move. Henry was not slow to follow his 
rival's example, and with Wolsey by his side, rode his powerful stallion 
towards the pavilion... At the. border-line betwen the English pale and 
the French territory the two monarchs halted, at about two casts of a 
bowl from cach other.” For the moment a deep silence prevailed, 
and the escorts of the two nations were quick to compare the respec- 
tive merits of the two chiefs. The Frenchman presented a marked 
contrast to his English brother. Slight of figure, somewhat effemi- 
nate in face, with the languishing eyes of his house and the carefully 
trimmed moustache and pointed beard then worn by most of his 

1 Stede Papers, June 11, 1520, “The Field of the Cloth of Gala? 





and short for perfect beauty, the full lips and 
auburn hair, he was, as Hall writes, “the most gr 
ever reigned over the realm of England.” — 
figure was apparelled in cloth of silver damask, 
cloth of gold and studded with gems, whilst his chai 


Jong rivalry of the past? Suppose the arranged in 

ruse and a prelude to some evil scheme? ‘The Frenchman 
‘the escort in attendance upon Henry and trembled for 
the head of the house of Valois, The Englishman saw 
rounded by his archers and his cavaliers, and was in Hi) 
tion, "Sire," cried Lord Abergavenny, running up: 
majesty was about to spring in the saddle to ride do 

“Sire, ye be my king and sovereign, wherefore, 

bound to show you the truth and not to let for none, 

in the French party and they be more in number 


tijacl Rare bees there andthe Prenchoben be morbid 
your subjects than your subjects be of them. 
worthy to give counsel, your Grace should march 








The Field of the Cloth of Gold. 449 


yards separating them. The silence which respect had inspired as 
the two kings neared the limits of their dominions was but moment- 
ary, and was instantly succeeded by a burst of music, ‘Then, 
as if each were in haste to make the first advances, Henry and 
Francis put spurs to their horses, and, bonnet in hand, galloped 
one towards the other, As they met they warmly grasped hands and 
three times embraced ; then, on dismounting, they again embraced, 
and walked arm linked in arm towards the pavilion, No one 
accompanied the august pair into the tent save Wolsey and the 
Admiral of France, who followed in the rear of their masters. Whilst 
the interview was taking place strict ward was kept outside by the 
Constables of France and England, with their swords drawn and 
heldat the salute. As the two kings, after a brief parley, emerged 
from the tent presentations were made ; the French and English 
escorts fraternised; barrels of wine were brought forward and 
broached, and each toasted the other, repeating several times “‘ Good 
friends, French and English.” The inferiors followed the example 
of their betters, and the first day of the mecting was passed in much 
revelry. When night cast its shadows there were many glad to seize 
the opportunity to sleep off the effects of debauch. 

‘The next two days—the Friday and Saturday—were passed in 
the exchange of civilities between the French and English, and in a 
careful examination of the spot where the tournament was to take 
place, and of the rules laid down by Wolsey and the Constable of 
France, with-the assistance of the nobles and knights, as to the 
regulation of the combat. The jousts were to be held in a park on 
the high ground between Arde and Guisnes, which was enclosed and 
fenced round bya sunken ditch. Long galleries, hung with tapestry, 
were erected on cach side of the lists for the use of the spectators, 
whilst “a chamber, well hung with tapestry and glazed,” was specially 
fitted up as the box for the two queens. At each entry to the park 
were triumphal arches, and bencath them was stationed a guard of 
twelve French and twelve English archers, who, however, had orders 
not to refuse “entry to any person honourably apparelled.” Planted. 
at the foot of the lists was " the tree of noblesse " bearing “the noble 
thorn (the sign of Henry) entwined with raspberry" (framboise, the 
sign of Francis), on which was to be hung the shields of those about 
to engage in combat. ‘The trunk of this artificial tree was swathed 
in cloth of gold and green damask, whilst its leaves were cut out of 
green silk, and the sham fruit it bore was made of silver and Venetian 
gold. Upon the hanging of the royal shields there arose the jealous 
question of precedence. Was the shield of Frands tobe howe sy, 


VOL. CCLY. NO. 1835. wy | 


450 The Gentleman's M 


during the day, If the horse of a comer 
yet ran the course, it was to be counted as a course,“ 
seca French and English churches shall 





The Field of the Cloth of Gold. 451 


Aan Boleyn among them?—and amused himself by critically inspect- 
ing its ranks "Il alloit tout A son aise pour les veoir 4 son plaisir,” 
we are informed. At the end of the corridor he was met by the 
mother of Francis “dressed as a widow,” who did him reverence 
and led him to the apartments of her daughter-in-law. The Queen 
of Etance, whose gown of gold frieze was one mass of gems and lace 
rose from her chain of state to meet her illustrious visitor and 
extended her hand, which Henry, knecling on one knee, reverently 
kissed. Then he sate beside her and talked with her and her ladies 
until dinner was announced. The‘ banquet was held in a chamber 
“hung with cloth of gold from top to bottom,” but the medieval 
reporter who can describe with no little effect the furniture of the 
apartment, the music that was played and the dresses that were 
worn, candidly confesses his incompetence to touch upon the viands 
thatwere eaten, and the magnificence of the plate upon which they were 
served. ‘The table ran down the length of the room, and the dishes 
were only placed on one side of it, consequently no guest had a 
wisd-wls. Henry sat at the head, next him was the Queen, then the: 
Duchess of Alengon and Madame de Vendéme, Each of these 
distinguished personages had a service apart in vessels of gold. 
Among» the entremets were dishes shaped as leopards and sala- 
manders supporting the house of Valois, ‘qui cstoit une chose 
triumphante,” At the third service largesse was cried by the herald, 
and then came music, songs, and dances to fill up the interval whilst 
digestion was waiting upon appetite. At five o'clock Henry took 
his leave, and as the fair ladies of the court came to see him off, he 
indulged ina little of the swagger of the circus for their benefit. 
‘We read that “on sounting his horse he gave it the spur, and made 
it bound and curvet as valiantly a3 a man could do,” Upon his road. 
to Guisnes he met Francis returning to Arde ; the two sovereigns 
embraced, and each asked of the other What cheer?” We are 
told that the reception given by the Queen of England to Francis 
‘was in cvery way cqual to that with which Henry had Been enter- 
tained.$ 
_) The following: day the jousts commenced, and were continued. 
throughout’ the: week, with the’ exception of Wednesday, when they 
had.to be put off owing to an unusually high wind. On the Monday 
and ‘Thursday the Kings of England and France with their aids held 
the list against all. comers. The skill and prowess of Henry were 
specially remarked. He wielded swords which the comparatively 
puny Francis essayed in vain to raise or to sweep in swift circles, 
© State Pagers, Domestic, 12 Hen. VILL. + Lordonnance et ordce da veers 
ata 








tow and the erect, yet easy seat h 
‘the ficld when he rode to hounds, the 


almost always too severe for deem n so: 
after saddle was emptied before the pa 
to Henry in the opinion of the crowd was. 
Bestar Doh of Satoh hove ee i 
the honours of the tournament, “The King. 
we read, “did marvels.” On the days when 
monopolise the lists the gay crowd were a1 
matches between the French and by tl 
barriers, by wrestling, and by the antics of 1 
invariably wound up the sports of the day. At these 
the Queens of England and France were always present, 
Jadies richly dressed in jewels and with many chariots, 
hackneys covered with cloth of gold and silver and ; 
thelrarms” They looked down upon the lists below { 
glazed gallery hung with tapestry, and were often 
in conversation. ‘The ladies in waiting 3 

the example of their mistresses, but the difficulties 
in the way, and much of their telk, we are informed, | 
on through the somewhat chilling mediumiof in 

At the commencement of the interview between 
much suspicious fear was excited in the breasts of 
to the possibility of any treachery being practised. 
entered the English pale unless Henry was also 
territory, Each monarch was therefore the hostage of | 
the English seized upon Francis,'the French could eapture Hi 
thus the success of an infamous ruse would be invali 
the intimacy between the two monarchs ripened, this susp 
good faith of either side began to be regarded as un 
needlessly offensive. One morning Francis, with the 
politeness of a Frenchman, and to prove that he had n 
play, rode over to Guisnes whilst Henry was at b 
embraced him, and laughingly. cried, “Here you s 
prisoner!” After this exhibition of confidence all 
the two peoples was finally set at rest. Henry crossed 
when he so chose with or without escort, and 1 i 
same freedom. The French and English nobles, 
‘mingled unrestrainedly with each other, and 


+ State Papers, Domestic, v2 Wen. NIU * 120 









The Field of the Cloth of Gold. 453 


antagonism when they met in the lists to run a tilt or to fight with 
their heavy two-handed swords at the barriers. During the whole 
time when the open plain between Guisnes and Arde was one mass 
of emblazoned canvas, nothing was more complete and harmonious 
than the earente cordiade which then existed between the two peoples, 
We do not read of a single quarrel, a single dispute, or of any 
differences of opinion calculated to disturb the graceful concord 
which characterised the occasion, On the contrary, Frenchman and 
Englishman vied with one another in the performance of acts of 
courtesy and good feeling. ‘Yo the long rivalry of the past had 
‘succeeded, it woukl appear, unison and warm friendship. 

On Sunday, the 24th of June, the lists closed with a solemn mass 
sung by Wolscy in a chapel crected for the occasion on the field. 
It contained an altar and reliquaries, and at the side were two 
canopies of cloth of gold, with chairs for the legates of England and 
France and the cardinals of France, whilst the seats below were 
placed for the French bishops. Opposite sate the ambassadors 
of the Pope and the King of Spain. ‘The English bishops stood 
round the altar, acting as deacons and subdeacons, with the 
exception of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who sat apart near the 
French bishops. Here as in the conflict of the lists the spirit of 
courtesy prevailed. When the Cardinal de Bourbon, according to 
the fashion of the time, brought the Gospel to the French king to 
‘kiss, Francis declined the honour and commanded the book to be 
offered first to the king of England, an act of precedence which, 
however, Henry was too well bred to avail himself of, Atthe Agnus 
De when the Fix was presented to the two queens, the same 
graceful hesitation was repeated. Each declined to kiss it first, and 
as neither would be turned from her purpose, the two dames, “after 
‘many mutual respects, kissed each other instead.” At the close of the 
‘service a sermon in Latin was delivered by Pace, Wolsey’s secretary, 
enlarging upon the blessings of peace ; this ended, a great fire-work 
was shot up into the sky. “There appeared in the air from Arde a 
great artificial salamander or dragon four fathoms long and full of 
fire ; many were frightened, thinking it « comet or some monster, as 
they could see nothing to which it was attached : it passed right over 
the chapel to Guisnes as fast as a footman can go, and as high as a 
bolt shot from a cross-bow." Mass celebrated, a splendid banquet 
concluded the festivities of the “Field of the Cloth of Gold” We 
Tearn that it was not the custom for royalty an these occasions to 
partake of the dishes placed before it ; “as the kings and queens 
always dined at home before coming to the bangues, ad oy 


v permitting E 
and put his empire in jeopardy. "Avie all 
the effect of the interview before it had taken 


by 
initated the ambition of the King of England by 
the spoiling of France and the regaining of lands 


English dominions, and he again appear 


guise of a suitor for the hand of the Princess 
foe, but he knew how to overcome the ant 
ecelesiastic to a Spanish alliance, p 
hats should’ a:Lrecancyuasiselin the capaci 
interest to have the English cardinal raised to 
was accepted, and Wolsey set himself to c 
bargain, And so within a brief month of t 
and the good cheer which had recently: 
between Arde and Guisnes, England had | 
over Francis and identify herself with the « 
sequel to the “Field of the Cloth of Gold" 


* State Paper, Domest 12 Men. VIEL. Lio 
ee LHe IN 14s 15 “* Heads of a Treaty betn 

















455 


MORE THOUGHTS ABOUT 
FRELAND: 


HE question between Irish landlords and Irish tenants has 
been overpowered with some so-called principles which do 
not touch the rights of the case. It has also been enveloped, well- 
night to suffocation, by many actual facts, which confuse rather than 
simplify a reasonable grasp of it by Englishmen, A primary and 
continuous fallacy almost invariably runs from end to end of the 
theory that the poor tenant is all that is odious, and that the rich 
landlord is all that is admirable. Tt is this ; that the tenure of land 
in Ireland is identical with, or comparable to, or even may be treated 
legislatively as, the tenure of land in England, 

Tristoo late in the day of active politics to attempt to disprove such 
aradical delision in theary. ‘Those who still cling to the idea that any 
Teal similarity exists between the ancient feudal and tribal systems 
of the tenure of land, its rights and its obligations, and their modern 
results and developments in the sister kingdoms respectively, will be 
unaffected by reiterated arguments to show the distinct antagonism 
of the two systems, But it is not too late to indicate that, whilst 
this untenable position js abandoned argumentatively, it is retained 
in sentiment, in prejudice, in practice, It is not too late to prove 
that the larger part of popular hostility on the side of English upper- 
clase society towards the tenant farmer in Ireland is really based 
upon a foundation which has been irrevocably yielded by all well- 
informed persons, In relation to the tenant farmer, in the majority 
of cases in which he has cither inherited his tenure or has purchased 
his tenant-right, or by his own industry has improved or actually 
created his holding—in each case the nominal owner, and, as 
English people think, the legal owner of the land, is not, and never 
has been, its absolute, sole, and only proprietor. The landlord is 
merely a part proprietor, even if, argumentatively, he possess greater 
fights than the tenant. The tenant is—the tenant always has been 
—part owner of the land, though he be the lesser owner, or, so to 

+ See Ginticman's Magasine for Angwr VES. 


eeaey cu thé one hand nar Seer WERE 

of eviction by the over-lord. Once eradicate the fount 
hension which ensues from a denial of these fac 

the mind as well as from the tongue, and arg 
principles of the Irish landlord and tenant question a 
rational, 


But, granted a true apprehension of the p 





“expecially the larger proprietors who reside on their esti 
absentee grandces who own so vast an extent of the 


may be fairly said of an entirely opposite ata BAERS 
may here be candidly admitted that such evidence, in n 


land, either by word or deed, are to be condemned, But, 

‘this be a truth about certain Irish landlords, it is by no. 

truth, or nothing but the truth, Anda single sentence is 

to suggest a rejoinder, If there be some good landlords in 

there are some who are not good ; and in a country 

land is situated, a few bad landlords do more harm 

‘excellent owners of land do good, Moreover, the lat h 

‘Not all that they ought to be are not few, they are manifold. 

this question deserves close examination, but it cannot be made 
If there be good, benevolent, Just, loveable ” 








‘Yolent and just ; ‘who are hard, getng, ined, eras 
who, with scarcely a redeeming element in theie cha 


ki si 


More Thoughts about Ireland. 457 


tenant point of view, are undeniably bad landlords. ‘There ate 
landlords who do in the present day, or within the memory of man 
have done, acts and deeds of which no gentleman nor man of 
honour could have been guilty, and which if so much as attempted 
in England would in these times lead to social revolution. And it is 
these bad landlords which are the curse, or onc of the curses, of 
unhappy Ireland. Go into any part of the country you may list, and 
you will find, perhaps you will see, landlords who are what landlords 
‘ought to be, emphatically good. But, in every part of the country 
also which you may visit, you-will hear of, but probably not see— 
for if not absent from the country, they live under police protection— 
landlords whom even their upper-class neighbours and acquaintance 
declare to be indescribably and emphatically bad. It is not only the 
presence of these bad landlords, their injustice and their vices, 
throughout the country ; it is not only their persons and their deeds, 
even if (which I do not allow) they be but thinly scattered over 
Treland, which result in the disaffection of the Irish people. It israther 
the English-made law which tolerates the existence of such landlords, 
and makes it possible for them to act as they have acted, that to a 
Targe extent causes the present deplorable state of the country, And 
is the combination of the two evils which is felt, and is rightly 
felt, to be intolerable to the Irish tenantry. In England a single bad 
Jandiord is considered and treated as an exception. A single crime 
by such an one is promptly punished either by public opinion or by 
statute law. In due time, one or both are forgotten, and the neigh~ 
‘bourhood recovers itself or lives down the ill-doings or the ill-doer. 
But in Ireland, especially in time past, with no public opinion to 
touch the well-born sinner, with a scanty and impoverished and 
almost enslaved population, with almost unlimited power of evil on 
‘the one hand, und the almost powerlessness of victims on the other, 
‘it was different. One cruel, tyrannical, vicious, rack-renting, hard- 
hearted landlord in any given district is taken as a specimen of 
what all owners of land may become, as suggestive of what some 
owners in every part of the country will become. His crimes and 
tyrannies are not only remembered, but they remain unforgiven. 
Whilst the law, made by England and enforced by England, which 
shields such an one and fails to defend the injured, naturally, 
necessarily, and in my judgment rightly, becomes abhorred. 

Putting aside for a moment both the indisputable fact of the 
existence of many good landlords, and the now undisputed principle 
‘of the diversity between the English and Irish tenure of land, let us 
consider certain relations between landlord and Yenany im Tne Seseex 


i 





— 
458 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


kingdom which are not gencrally estimated. The soil of Ireland is 
said to have been confiscated three times over, As a rule, to which 
there may be and I believe are exceptions, the great estates of 
Ireland are now held by their owners under a title of Confiscation. 
It is a principle of law, as well as of equity and of common sense, 
that confiscated property cannot be returned to the original owners 
without restoring also, so far as may be and equally all round, the 
position of affairs which obtained at the date of confiscation. After 
the lapse of centuries and jn default of claimants even to proprietor. 
ship, the restoration of the soil of Ireland to the original over-lords of 
the land is impossible, But this concession by no means ends the 
controversy. Indeed,-it intensifies the difficulty ; for it introduces a 
new element which cannot be so summarily dismissed, ‘This element 
is the tenant, And the Irish tenant is one whose ii 
#0 much as considered in the original process of oni 
have been equally ignored in the later 
taken place—of subsequent bequeathal and inheritance, purchase 
gale, And the tenant's claims, though his consent to former changes 
was neither asked nor yielded, have at last forced argues 
imperial consideration. 

‘At is admitted that, in the last resort, the State is the foun oes 
and origin of all rights in the ownership and disposal of land. Yet, 
the State occupies a somewhat different position towards those whom 


in historical times it has summarily rhade new proprictors of lar 

the cost of confiscation, and those who have quietly and: 
inherited their estates time out of mind. ‘The forcible peer 
ownership, in the case of confiscation, was made onlf, oF mainly, 
on the plea that, under then existing circumstances, it was more 


punishment to the Fee ES ee new. 


general good of the commonwealth was, presumably, the genuine 
moving cause of the proprietary change. a eee 


if not by their own positive deserts, at least from 
eee Te ee 
good. The latter are clearly bound, by every 

feet fui, abd cone dake Sey ey 
















More Thoughts about Ireland. 459 









‘One element in such duty regards the peasantry whom misfortune, 
rather than their own wrongdoing, and apart from their assent or 
consent, has placed under the dominion of the new landed 
proprictary, has placed under new conditions, new relations, new 
terms of tenantry. And one feature in this element is that which 
recognises the inherent right of humanity—a right enforced also in 
civilized countries—viz,, that men should live of the soil which gave 
them birth. The new owners, therefore, at the least, are bound, in regard 
to the old occupiers of the lands of which they have become the over- 
lords, as well as in the interests of the State at large, not only to “live,” 
but to “let live.” "This is the very lowest ground on which modern 
proprietors of broad Irish acres can legitimately claim « continuous 
‘eccupancy of confiscated property. If they should ever fail, and 
when they obviously do fail, to perform their portion of the contract 
underlying, by which they first obtained and now enjoy estates not 
inherited from: former ages and not lawfully purchased ar not 
purchased from the lawfal owners—then, surely, the commonwealth 
is not only at liberty, but is bound to reconsider the terms on which 
confiscation and transference were originally effected. It is not too 
‘amich to say of the Irish cultivator of the soil, be he small tenant or 
farm labourer—i.c. of the cultivator whose wrongs have produced 
the present hopeless chaos in Ireland—that he was and is unable to 
live of the land which gave him birth. It was this fact that produced 
and justified the Land League organisation. The present proprietary 
in Ireland, in whatever way it may itself have “lived,” has not 











_ fulfilled the other and co-ordinate portion of the adage—it has not “Jet 


live" the Irish land-cultivating classes. Hence, it has practically 
signed its own death-warrant. The English Government was not 
only at liberty, it was bound to attempt a reorganisation of existing 
relations proved to be bac. It was morally forced, it was politically 
obliged, to reconsider the relative positions between the descendants 
of the ancient cultivators of the soil of Ireland and the new 
Proprietary which dates from the confiscation of Trish land by 
England. And the Irish Land Act of 1881, however faulty, is in my 
Opinion @ genuine and honest, even if an imperfect, effort made in 
‘that direction. 

~ What may be the position of a typical cultivator of the soil of 
Ireland, who lives under the sway of one who claims proprictorship 
under a preseriptive right of confiseation? [ reply from ocular 
evidence, from oral evidence mken on the spot, from trustworthy 
‘testimony derived from books and persons, The typical Irish culti- 


‘yator is one who either by hereditary ee 


SSE 


460 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


of tenant-right, tills the soil which he or his predecessors have re- 
claimed, orhe and his children have improved. Except in the case 
‘of bad and neglectful farming—cxceptions often caused by the state 
‘of the Iaw—and sometimes in spite of both, there is perhaps no 
tenant-farmer who has not materially and permanently improved the 
‘monetary value of his holding, Whether on the whole, or in a por- 
tion of his estate, he has by himself, by his children, by his ancestors, 
‘cut, dug, burnt, drained, planted the bog-land. He has levelled in- 
equalities, razed hillocks on the flat, filled hollows on the hill-side, 
‘He has drained his patch of land and perhaps planted a portion of it, 
He has fenced his fields and divided them from his neighbours’ and 
made them accessible to himself by gates and palings. He has built 
and furnished his cot, built and thatched his out-house, He has 
gradually enriched his tenement by manure, made or purchased 5 by 
seaweed gathered by his own hand ; by sea-sand carried on his back 
or brought, perhaps, ascore of miles by his horse and cart ; and these 
are facts. Or, again, he has collected the rocks and stones into walls 
and heaps on the low grass lands, or taken soil upwards to any level 
bit of ground to grow a sack of potatoes—for all the world like the 
industrious Swiss, whom English tourists profess to admire as the 
most hardworking of men. All—and this is no fancy picture, it, 
again, is a record of facts—has been effected by those whom the 
English, who do not travel in Ireland, hold to be the laziest of 
mortals, by the tenants themselves asa rule, independently of any 
aid from the landlord, 

T do not say that cases may not be quoted in which the landlord, , 
in part or wholly, may not have helped with money or money's worth: 
in some form these improvements—stone for the walls, timber for 
doors, windows, and roof, materials for draining or for enriching the 
land. But, as a rule, the tenant has acted alone. 
rancously with these improvements, it not unfrequently happens that 
his immemorial privileges, if not rights, have been circumscribed or 
withdrawn ; such as pasture for his cattle on the wild, freedom of 
access to the shore for his land, claims to cut and stack bog for his 
hearth. Subsequently to these improvements, the land having 
now become more fruitful, and its market value of greater worth, his: 
rent is raised and raised, is gradually doubled, made threefold, even 
quadrupled. From being possibly under or at Griffith's valuation, it 
kas risen above the poor-law valuation, above the 
supposed to indicate market rent, up to the actual level of rack~ 
renting ; so that the land which, if not rented at a“ prairie value," 
was once Jet at half-a-crown, five shillings, or half-a-sovereign an 


_ > 


More Thoughts about Ireland. 461 


acre, DOW Pays one or even two poends, the tenant not only being 
pot reimbursed, bet actually being arerced for such evidences and 
such results of the well-known Irish characteristic (on Saxon lips) of 
idleness, incapacity, and neglect of his farm. 

Tam not unconscious of the argument, and acknowledge its 
relevancy, that in the improvement of land and in the rising of 
rents, a certain proportion of increased value adheres of right to the 
owner of the soil If the soil were not capable of improvement, the 
tenant's efforts would be valueless. And in the same proportion as 
the land bas 4 capacity for being improved, to the like extent has the 
‘over-lord a right to certain results of such improvement. Inall cases 
there iement of truth in this theory, and in some there is much 
justice. For instance, if land requires only to be roughly dmined to 
become nich and fruitful ; or if it only need to be lightly manured to 
be made profitable; or if by any simple process, which requires 
neither much time nor much labour, the soil may be made to render 
A monetary return speedily and rernuneratively, a proportion of the 
benefits may fairly be credited to the present owner of the property. 
Bat, if land be let at 2 market rental, in anticipation of the tenant's 
improvements ; or if land be worthless to the owner, and is only 
made of valuc by the ceascless and hard work of the tenant ; or if 
the proportion of the tenant's labour to the productive capacity of 
the landlord's property be large—and in most cases under discussion 
it is enormously large—then, in cither case, or in similar cases, the 
owner has no just claim to benefit by the labour of his tenant. And 
hone can travel in Ireland and see the results of labour in turning 
bog land, or mountain land, or waste land, or rocky land into crop- 
bearing and food-producing land, without first a sense of admiration 
for the industry of the honest tenant, and next a sense of indignation 
when he learns that such labour has only or mainly conduced to the 
benefit of an exacting and tyrannical landlord. Moreover, it must 
be remembered that this theory holds good only on the principle of 
part proprietorship in the soil of Ircland between landlord and 
tenant ; a principle which, if admitted, would go a great deal further 
than some of its advocates are prepared to go. If the theory be 
admitted, when landowners set upa claim toan increased rental upon 
the score of an inherent clement of improvement, which the tenant 
developes from the property of his copartner in a common agricultural 
business ; the joint proprietary theory must also be enforced, when 
the junior partner in the land company is unable, by causes beyond 
tman’s control, to pay his yearly contribution of rental. 

‘The typical Irish cultivator of the soil, and the man whose 





462 


sree maces tent: bev bight le 
fics end i snen sng 


peasantry of Ireland, and upwards of a 
the present moment occupy holdings. upon n 





million—whose-distress is even greater 
than that-of the small tenant-farmer, Rati heen 
families who have holdings under fifteen 
families who bave holdings under £ 10-valuration, is 
to demand special attention, As a mile, these: 
improved their holdings either by their own’ labour or by the labour 





cruel or immoral, But ollowing the custotn of: d | 
taking advice of his agent, desiring, in these hard times for c 

to obtain a good percentage from his property, whether 

bought, his rents are raised. They are gradually ; 
tenant's own improvements, until they are twice, thrice, or evenfour 
times as much as they stood at SE A Ee ee 
‘That this is no exaggerated statement, any one 

or reads the papers, may be conscious of. And more than-this may 
be said. If any one be at the pains to.read the records) of travels 
in Treland, or other Trish literature, at intervals ftom the -middle-or 
the last: century downwards, he will find that nearly every author int 
succession declaims against the rise of rents. Mr. Young’s “Travels” 
in the last century, and Sydacy Smith's “ Essays and Speeches" in: 
this century, are cases in point. Indeed, if we were toadd together 
the recorded advance of rent in historical times in Ireland, we shoukd 
perceive some justification in the claim of Mr. Parnell to a-retum to 
the “ prairie value” of the soil, Cases have been brought’ before the: 
new Land Court in which the rents have been raised nearly 300 per 
cent. j and many cases have occurred in which, outside the Court, land= 
lords have reduced their rent toa greater deztee than Judges inside the 


respected priest, a diocesan administrator in the South 

the rent of whose father’s farm had been saised, on his nd hi 
sons’ sole improvements, nearly 400 per cent, or J 
times the original sum. Indeed, 200 per cent. is not 
rise, and 100 per cent. may be said to be very common, 


¥ 
















More Thoughts about Ireland. 463 
‘What may be the real effect of an advance of rent upon the 










tenant's own improvements to the extent of even 100 per cent. for a 
period of twenty years ? The answer to this question is of impor 
tance in considering the condition of the typical Irish tenant-farmer. 
Tt is onewhich is not usually entertained by English politicians. 
However, the effect is this : ‘Taking the original rent as the fair value, 
‘on which the “live and let live” principle may be formed, and taking 
a period of twenty years as the average number of years’ purchase for 
land, a petiod which is far beyond the price in many cases secured, it 

that im somewhat less than a generation the tenant will have 
paid his landlord not only the fair value of his rental, but also, by 
yearly instalments, the fair value of the fee simple of the soil. In 
other words, upon a rent which has been only doubled, in twenty 
years! time the tenant-farmer will have paid the nominal, and, as 
Englishmen hold, the legal owner of the land both the annualrentand 
the purchase money of the property. We have heard a loud and bitter 
cry mised for compensation. We might lustily and heartily join in 
the plaint But to whom, under these conditions, would compensa- 
tion be justly due? Certainly not to the rack-renting Irish landlord. 
At the time of writing these lines—early in the days of the new 
Tand Act—the reductions made by the sub-commissioners of the 
‘Land Court have averaged about five-and-twenty per cent. on the 
rental exacted from the typical tenant-farmer of Ireland. Hereupon 
the Jandlord interest, and their allies on this side of Su George's 
Channel, declared itself within a measurable distance of being ruined. 
Several answers may be made to this assertion. Firstly, out of a 
class of 600,000 members, the cases of four or five hundred tenants 
(or even double or treble these numbers) are utterly insufficient on 
which to found any such wide-sweeping and extreme result, Whilst, 
‘ifthe cases which have been judicially decided to be cases of rack- 
renting be typical of Irish landlord terms with Irish tenantry, the 
complaint of the ruin of landowners which has arisen should be 
allowed only upon the gravest consideration. Next, a matter 
of fact that the reductions which have been of late years voluntarily 
made in England by landed proprictors who do not usually avail 
themselves of their tenants’ improvements gratis and then double 
‘their tenants’ rents, are considerably higher than 25 percent, Henee, 
the Land Act and its results do not appear to be the dire engines of 
‘confiscation which fervid imaginations would cause on-lookers to 
believe. ‘Thirdly, within the last few months—this was written, 1 
repeat, early in the career of the new Land Court—the reductions 
voluntarily offered by many Trish landowners independem. ci 


ry 


lord cry for compensation. For, aking aad 
it, amongst even Irish landlords, is it too much 
terms be voluntarily offered under the near prosp 
settlement of fair rent, that the rates at which:the 1 
‘been raised of late years could amount to a less ratio 
above figures? And, lastly, the opinion has been | 
grows stronger by lapse of time and experience, in 
the landed interests on both sides of the 
upon existing rents, which és less than Irish 
‘own free will, and whic) is less than English proprietors 
made on their own estates, is also less than the fair and 
mentwhich ought to have been made, In other words, the: 
reductions upon Irish rack-rented estates ought to have 
many cases, considerably larger. ~ 
If there be common sense in this reply, the 
ably due in cases of long continued and mercilessly 
renting would rightfully pass from the pocket ot eee 
that of his tenant. In the place of a Mansion House Fund 
help of Trish owners of land, which has proved a 
fiasco, a fond for recouping the Trish tenantry for the 
their landlords might fitly be undertaken by a Lord 
of London—he being a Liberal—in anticipation of his 
tenure of civic office, in some future year, 
Here, an impartial observer would probably be struck | 
considerations, in regard to landlord and tenant i 
On the pait of any landlord, specially of one who is ia | 
of landed estates largely encumbered not by his own fault, 
rental hag been largely raised not by his own act and 
sible and sudden reduction in his income, even if it be: 
quarter, is a serious blow. Not to take the case ofa great | 
whose household reductions, in consequence of judicial lo 
rent, would amount, perhaps, to the dismissal of an und 
‘a second footman, or’. young lady's’ riding: horse, there i'ma td 








More Thoughts about Ireland. 465 


depression and trial; that Treland is emetging from 2 real, though 
bloodless, revolution ; that for many a long year the landowners hare 
been absolutely supreme ; and that if bad times are in prospect it 
would be well not to forget the many years of prosperity. Moreover, 
it is yet within the power of Parliament to provide—not compensa+ 
tion to landlords, by which they may pay to the full all inherited 
charges upon the property—but legislative authority for paying only 
a certain amount of such charges, in proportion to the reduction made 
upon their rent-roll under the decisions of the Land Court. Some 
such device would spread the actual or threatened loss to the owners 
of land and to those more or less dependent on them over a larger 
area; and hence, every portion of it would feel the diminution of 
income lessseverely. Such reductions would, of course, be made under 
‘the provisions of the Land Act. They would, therefore, assist the 
bad landlords as well as the good. But this result it is impossible 
to avoid, although it tends to aggravate the moral disturbance under 
which, as at the present time, the good are suffering for the bad, 
Whilst, if the recipients of such hereditary charges deem themselves 
injured because they too are made to feel the pinch of poverty, 
they may remember that their proportion of the charges on the 
estate was originally settled upon a basis and by a principle that was 
in itself immoral and unjust ; upon one that caused to others in a 
humble sphere privations against which they now, not unnaturally, if 
somewhat impatiently, rebel, 

‘On the other hand, and in regard to the tenant, this point must 
be bome inmind. As a rule which has its exceptions—and the mle 
hasbeen admitted to me by landlords and agents who are nowsimply 
rabid against tenants—for years past, when times of fimine did not 
‘make payment impracticable, the Lrish tenant-farmer has paid his rent 
both honestly and punctually, to the pound and tothe day, For 
years past, but also with exceptions, the rent which he has paid has 
been, on one plea or another, raised and raised, until at last it has 
been impossible to pay in full, and to pay with punctuality, the rack- 
rent which was demanded. For years, again, and contemporaneously 
‘with the improvement of the land by his own exertion and the advance 
of rent, the condition of the tenant has not improved, but rather the 
reverse. This may sound paradoxical, but it is true. To this extent 
it is true: that, in many thousand cases, the question of rent has 
become indifferent, as only making more or less complete a social 

which was inevitable, When people cannot live of the 
‘produce of their lifelong occupation, and are powerless, from causes 


beyond their control, to turn to any other, it is of no qt 
¥OG, CCLY, NO. 1835. KEK 








Savensnee keels, aoe saeea Se 
dues unpaid under bad harvests, but also of ji 


the local shop, of Jew-like interest to the local 
This is too wide a question to be more than. 


is this: the question of Griffith's valuation, This) 
to have been made on behalf of local rating. It 
decliberately gauged some go per cent, below the 
land. It would be difficult to substantiate 

after years it was said by the valuator that, under 
adi eveerianplacan, ach. a paccntiaentreiaat 
local assessment, But that Sir R. Griffith, at the mt 
hadi definitely in his. mind the valve af 1 dide 
the rate 30 per cent, lower than the rent, 

‘nor any other person duly accredited on his bebalf, Indeed 
said that which almost falsifies the statements ma 
And. it must not be forgotten (1) that the 








| 





More Thoughts about Ireland. 467 


such rating were made to represent rental, the tenant's improvements 
were accredited, not to himself, but to his landlord, ‘This latter fact 
of itself destroys the value of Griffith's valuation as a just gauge for 
rental. 

Moreover, on the tenant-farmer’s behalf, these elements in his 
position must not be overlooked, though they can only be in this 
place summarily stated. The diminution of the population of the 
country, contemporaneously with the still congested state of many 
portions of it, specially in the poorest districts, has had a perceptible 
effect on the tenantry. The falling away of markets ; the failure in 
the fisheries ; the abandonment of several important industries—eg., 
the growth of flax and manufacture of linen in the South ; the diffi- 
‘culty of transit for market produce, the paucity of country roads, and 
the heavy charges of railway companies ; and, not the least, the com- 
ain ere only in agricultural and pastoral Jabour, but in trade 

of wood and leather—these elements ought to 
be Tee And if the Irish tenant be now relieved of a fractional 
portion of a heavy and cruel imposition, patiently borne for a long 
series of years ; if he be relieved of a tax upon his own honest labour, 
by the natjonal sense of right and justice as expressed by the British 
Parllament—it becomes none who in any way feel responsible for the 
‘existing confusion of affairs, whether by inherited responsibility in 
the past or by their active participation in politics in the present, to 
complain. 

» ‘This, then, is the aspect of the question between the landlord 
‘and tenant in Ireland to which I desire to draw special attention in 
this paper. A‘large proportion of the land-owning class in the sister 
Kingdom owe their position directly to confiseation ; the residue, 
with exceptions, owe their position to the like cause, indireetly, 
With the exceptions Tam unable to deal here and now; nor need 
the case of those be considered who own land by the means of con. 
fiscation indirectly. It may be freely admitted that many persons, 
and some amongst the best of landlords, have suffered and will have 
‘t6 suffer much apparent injustice under this heid—especially by the 
contrarient action of inconsistent, if not of antagonistic Acts of Par- 
lament. But, sweeping away all such abnormal considerations, let 
‘me endeavour, in conclusion, to state this one view of the Trish ques- 
‘tion, which has not received, perhaps, the thought which it deserves, 

“A large proportion of the soil of Ireland is ‘possessed at the 
‘present moment, to use English modes of expression, by those 
‘whose title to possession is one of confiscation. ‘Their broad acres, 
theif huge estates, their noble demesnes and parks, Yoar sayare 


nf 4 


ma. 4 


463 The Gentleman's Magazine 


miles and leagues of land, dotted with villages end se 

riched with country towns, have descended 

Governmental title of confiscation. Other owners 

and they were installed in their place, In the meanwhile, the 

‘antry, as a rule, were handed over with other live 

Suse sppuraaencon or ena3ished ps oS 

proprietor. On whatever grounds the original or the 

the properiy were ejected, the new landlords were 

Imperial Government by ties peculiar and special, which do not 

appertain at all, or do not appertain so closely, to any other form of 
. At the least, they were bound to the nation to this 

extent ; that if they failed to act in accordance with 

the State, the State would not be bound to deal more tenderly with 

them than with the owners who had been in their favour previously 

dispossessed, And if the pew proprietors were more or less bound 

politically to the State who stood towards them in the relation of 

patron, d fortior® they were emphatically obliged to act rightly, to 

do justly, and to rule benevolently those to whom they now stood as 

overlords. The new owners were bound to goveri well their estates. 

But who can truthfully say that for the last two centuries the Insh 

peasantry have been treated by the Irish gentry? It were 

tedious to recount the evidence which may be gathered to prove 

that the Irish people have been treated as mere chattels, as an 

inferior race, as rent producers, even as slaves, Such being the case, 

and the estates having been mismanaged to an unexampled extent, 

to one which has simply depopulated the country by millions, im- 

poverished the people by untold amounts, and brought the a: 

within 2 measurable distance and almost to the brink of : 

the State has clearly the right to call to account those whom it 

newly, and within historic times, entrusted with the rights 

perty, in order that they might fulfil tk. obligations also of « 

‘The call has been made for many and i sany years, and 

forms and ways and manners of speech, in Parliament, by the press, 

through private and public representation, But all in yain. The 

condition of the people—who, with no figure of speech, 

the finest peasantry in the world—is a disgrace to England, 

undoubted bog ea et eam toher 

other nationalities. Rents have 


are evicted and dic on the toad-side ot in the 


= 








More Thoughts about Freland. 469 


Nemesis is at hand, England awakes from her delusion. Jn spite 
of every effort from those chiefly interested, a measure of relief, not 
perfect—not even, some say, adequate, certainly not final—passes the 
House of Commons, The owners of confiscated property are told 
that they are not irresponsible agents ; that they have duties as well 
as rights ; that their tenants are not altogether forgotien—that they 
too have rights as well as themselves. They are shown that the 
Government which gave them their oyer-lord position can make 
them, and will make therh, use their position for the benefit, not of 
themselves only, but of the commonwealth, And although the 
interference of the State to ensure for the future a fair rent to the 
tenant, with fixity of tenure and freedom of sale, be merely the 
beginning of a social reformation to Ireland ; yet it is a basis, I firmly 
believe, sufficiently broad to found in the future measures of greater 
political significancy, which, including the inestimable boon of self- 
government, will eventually, and by the blessing of God, bring peace 
to that distracted country, and make her again take a foremost 
position amongst the kingdoms of the world, 


Nore—The following letter, written nearly two years afler the 
above pages were in MS., so largely confirms and illustrates certain 
parts of the latter, that I venture to reprint it Ar extenso :=- 


THE STARVING PEASANTS OF DONEGAL, 
Reprinted feom the Darx Cxmonrerx, Fune 8, 1883. 


Stm,—My attention has been drawn to report in the Tims of tast Tuesday, 
ions that o spirit of lawlessness seers still to turk in certain ports of Ireland. 
that a prooess-server, sent by Captain Hill with warrants of ejectment to his 
tenants at Gweeore, was met by a body of disguised men and women and forced 
to turn sek and.eat his processes. As I have only Jast returned from visiting, 
with my husband, Gweedore and the other distressed districts of Donegal, 1 
shonld be glad If you would allow me to say a few words as to the actual condition 
‘of the peasants in that part of Ireland, Last year the potato crop was lost 
throughout the whole af Donegal, and, to aiid to this disaster, following ax it did 
‘on four successive bad harvests, « terrible storm swept over Nonegal on October r, 
‘unroofing and levelling the cottoges, and sweeping away the whole of the.onts 
and hay, The people thus found themselves obliged to face the winter with no 
‘store of food for their families and stock, and no seed potatoes for the following 
‘spting. Enormous exertions have been made by Dr. Logue, the [Cathotic] Bishop 
‘of Raphoe, ond his clergy, to find funds wherewith to feed the people and to buy 
seed potatoes, and in these efforts they have becn aided by the Society of Friends: 
and by Mrs Power Lalor, Owing to their exertions a great eatent of Donegal 
‘has been re-sown with potatoes, and up to the present time tenant-furmers and 
thei families have been kept from aciunl starvation by selling thelr stock, amt 
by tecelving gifts of Indign meal, ‘The {wns in Whe handy of oq egy 


Move Thoughts about Ireland. 470 


public charity out of a population of 4,509, and throughout Donegal the distress 
Is most. acute, about 14,000 persons requiring food. Will the wealthy inhabi- 
tants of London allow thousands of their fellow-countrymen to dic of starvation 
‘or be reduced to pauperism without making an effort to save them? ‘The cost of 
keeping « person alive in Donegal is but Fu. aweek. A hardy people, who do 
not know the taste of meat, do vot shrink from living and working on a penny: 
worth of Indian meal a day. While thousands of pounds are being squandered 
in clinner pasties and feasts in London, ¥ am sure ¥ shall not ask in. vain for meal 
for the starving. And I ask not for a lawless, bratalised, or pauperised race ; for 
with all their suffering, outrage has beca almost unknown in Donegal, rents have 
boon on the whole regularly pail, and the biand of the pauper is dreaded more 
than death. The peasants for whose lives 1 plea are an independent, self 
reliant, industrious, sober, purp-living nace, Surely each people are worth saving, 

Contribstions to the Donegal Famine Fund will be received by me, and trans- 
ferred without delay to the responsible persons now engaged in feeding the 


people. 
Tam, yonr obedient servant, 
38 Wont Srener, W., Fune 2. . ALICE M. HART, 


Tn a letter to the Timer of July 23, 1885, Mx, Emest Hart sup- 
plies further contemporancous evidence which supports facts and 
opinions stated or implied in the above paper. The following is an 
extract ftom his letter, from which I omit both names of persons and 
names of places. Both can be seen by a reference to the paper 
whence the quotation is made : 

_ In 1855 Mr. — took 2,000 acres of commonnge grazing land from his 
tenants in —-, Altogether 19,000 acres of this land were taken away from the 
tenants at —-on a total area of about 47,000 acres. As to the ralsing of the 
rents, of which I have all the detalls in Mr. ——'s — property, the rents have 
been raised on the strength of the tenants’ improvements, first from 12. Br. bts 
aes and then to £57. 42. Gis [4 to nearly fire timer the original 
rent 

I take the opportunity to remark, that whilst these pages were 
passing through the press, a statement has appeared in the Zimes on 
the reduction effected in rents in Ireland in the last two years. The 
‘average of reductions in all the cases which have been decided by 
the New Land Court would scem to be 20 per cent. The question 

many English landlords, without their country having 
been brought to the brink of starvation and rebellion, have volun- 
tarily reduced or returned a proportion of their rents to the like or 
to a greater extent? 


Luther in Politics, 473 


suffered a decisive defeat in the remainder of southern Germany, by 
the battle of Daffingen: August 23, 1388, That event sealed the 
fate of the Towns’ League there, to the harm of freedom—even as 
Anglo-Saxon independence fell before the Norman onslaught near 
Hastings. It was through the treachery of Count Henneberg, the 
leader of the Nuremberg contingent, who had made common cause 
with the citizens, but allowed himself to be bribed by the enemy, 
that the battle of D6ffingen was lost to the champions of national 
freedom. When Konrad Besserer, the valiant burgomaster of Ulm, 
sank—like another Winkelried—covered with many wounds, on the 
blood-spattered hexd-banner of the Civic Confederacy, the days of 
lope for the Eidzenossen cause in Germany were gone. In Switzer- 
Jand that name triumphantly survived. ‘To this day, the Switzers, 
asa people, designate themselves as “Kidgenossen," and their 
Republic as “ the Swiss Zidgenossensehaft.” 


Bia 


In Luther's time a fresh upheaval took place. What we now call 
the spirit of the Reformation, was at first not simply a craving for 2 
theological change, but a combined religious, social, and political 
movement tending towards Reform, and at last, in the absence of 
timely concession, bringing forth a Revolution. Only the religious 
part of the programme triumphed in the end, albeit at the price of 
a political disruption. The popular rising for the redress of social 
grievances, and for the reconstitution of the German Empire in a 
more Liberal sense, was drowned in blood. Anyone fully conversant 
with Luther's extensive works must, however, know that the latter 
himself had often uttered the strongest views possible on princely 
and aristocratic misrule, and that he only drew back when the 
revolutionary tempest filled his mind with deep anxiety. 

Though no statesman, Luther so well understood the signs of the 
‘times, when he began his work, that he foretold the outbreak of the 
armed rising two or three years before it happened. In 1522, he 
literally said that he saw “a general Revolution ia German lands" 
coming, He thought the people were ‘taking the Gospel in a 
camal way;" hence the uprising would follow. Himself sprung from 
the ranks of the people, a poor miner’s son, and, in spite of his 
stormy and pugnacious character, full of kindly fecling for the 
ground-down masses, he was the last man to deny thcir sufferings, 
‘Often he warned their rulers; urging them forward on the path of 
amelioration, economical and political, 


jailors, hangmen." He maintained they “have cr 
heads of brass.” He advised them to go to a p 
sonage that usually remain unnamed, but whom ] 

in-the habit of fighting, that on one © 

at him, or at least is said to have 

‘on the Wartburg, he heard the Devil erac 

kept in a chest of his room. The cracking made a 
like a hundeed tons rolling about. This 

self; but his head was then often swin 


language 
tyranny of Pope and bishop, of noble and p 
characteristic of his own dislike of all mealy-mou 
the whole rather a custom of his epoch. He hil 
principle shat in times of public danger it is a duty to 
‘trumpet-tongued, at all risks and hazards, even though 
to ears polite, or to a purple-born king. His o 
Henry VIL. of England, on account of a libel the: 











Luther in Politics. 475 


the Faith !"—he exclaimed—“ah, ah! my worthy Hal! I who have 
taken the Pope by the horns, that great idol of Rome, I shall not be 
frightened by his scales and peelings. Oh, my lord Henry! You 
have reckoned without your host! You shall hear truths that won't 
amuse you. King of England though thou be, I brand thee as a 
driyeller of falsehoods and of poisonous calumnics.” And so on, in 
very unceremonious style, 

Some of Luther's attacks against German princes are to be found 
in his treatise On Secular Goverament. He there discusses the 
question as to whether it is allowable to offer resistance to tyranny. 
He preaches submission ; but he says of the princes :— 

“They profess to be good Christian rulers, obedient to the 
Kaiser, What a farce! As if one did not sce the rogue behind 
their face! Why, if the Emperor took 2 castle unjustly from them, 
they would quickly resist him. But when they want to fleece the 
poor man, and to make light of the Word of God, they give out that 
they are acting under the Emperor's orders. Such men, of yore, 
were called knayes. Now, forsooth, we have to call them good, 
dutiful, Christian princes’ . . But 1 advise these misguided 
persons to think of a small little sentence in Psalm 107, where it is 
written ; ‘He (the Lord) poureth contempt upon princes.’ 1 promise 
our princes, that, if this sentence once passes round against them, 
all their fury will avail nothing. Aye, the sentence is already passing 
round ; for there are few princes that are not looked upon as fools 
and wretches, proving themselves, as they do, to be such, whilst the 
common folk have come to understand things and to despise. their 
rulers.” 

As late as a year before the revolutionary rising, Luther thus 
delivered himself :—" The labouring man, tried beyond all endurance, 
overwhelmed with intolerable burdens, will not, and cannot, any 
longer tamely bow down ; and he has doubtless good reasons for 
striking with the flail and the club, as Johnny Pitchfork threatens 
todo," Then Luther adds;—“Iam delighted, so. far, to see the 
tyrants quake.” 

In the same Sincere Lxhortation, as the Appeal is entitled, whilst 
warning against the spirit of rebellion (which yet his own language 
was apt, incidentally, to encourage), he admonished the Imperial 
Government and the nobles to put their hands to the work of doing 
away with grievances, as “ that which is done by the regular powers 
(these are his wise words) cannot be looked upon as sedition.” 
Clearly, he thought there was danger ahead in haying a class of half- 
enslaved agricultural labourers divorced from freehold youseuion ch 








he had sympathy with it; yet he could not p 
the one side or the other. Nevertheless, 
darts, off and on, against Government and the p 
classes in State and Church, The thunders | 
bl i Ral Mendip kr Sy tu 


Tisrarimichv eras wars oo Bene Foe 


though ye beat them all-they still remain unbeaten, 
them to the ground ; but God will raise up fresh 


Ina more besecching tone, so a3 to avoid 
tinued :— 

“Sce you not that, if I wished for revenge, Ts 
stand silently by, laughing in my sleeve, and look 6 
carrying out their work? I might even, by m 
with them, gash still deeper your wounds 
now, from such thoughts! . dale Dear lords, 








Luther in Politics. 477 


Articles,’ some of which contain demands so plainly just that the 
mere fact of their having to be brought forward dishonours you 
before God and man. I myself have many articles—even still 
weightier ones, perhaps—that I might present against you in regard 
to the government of Germany, such as 1 drew up in my Address fo 
the German Nobility, But my words passed unheeded by you, like 
the soughing of the wind.” 

‘The “Twelve Articles,” so famous in the history of the German 
peasantry, to which Luther here refers, were the first programme of 
the suffering agricultural class, And most moderate demands did 
they embody. The peasants asked for a Reformation of the Church 
by allowing the parish to choose its pastor; for a lessening of tithes 
and soccage services; for the abolition of villeinage and of the harsh 
game-laws and fishery-laws; for the giving back, to the communes, 
of fields and grass-linds that had wrongfully been taken from them 
‘by the priesthood or the nobles; for the diminution of imposts; the 
passing of a law-reform bill; and the doing away with legacy-taxes 
oppressive to the poorer classes, with the custom of heriot, as it is 
called in older English, and other impositions which acted to the 
special injury of widows and orphans. 

‘The twelfth article simply said:—" If it can be proved from the 
Gospel that any of our demands are not founded in justice, we shall 
‘withdraw such demand." 

Now, on these grievances of the insurgent population, Luther 
nobly said in his “Sincere Exhortation to Peace, addressed to the 
Princes and Lords of the Empire":— 

“As to the first article, you cannot refuse them the free election 
of their pastors. ‘Ihey wish that these pastors should preach the 
Gospel to them. Now, authority must not and cannot forbid this, 
‘seeing that, of right, it should allow every man to teach and believe 
‘that which to him seems good and fitting, whether it be Gospel, or 
whether it be false. All that authority is warranted in prohibiting is, 
the preaching up of disorder and revolt. Again, the Articles which 
bear upon the material welfare of the peasants—the imposts, legacy: 
‘taxes, the illegal soccage service, and so forth—are equally just; for 
Gowernment was not established for its ewn ends, nor to make use of 
the persons subject to its authority for the gratification of its own 
whims and cyil passions, but for the interests and the advantage of the 
people. Now, the people have become fully impressed with this 
conviction, and will no longer tolerate your shameful extortions, Of 
what benefit were it to a peasant that his field should grow as many 
florins a5 it does grains of corn, if his aristoceiic wuker way to 


Luther in Politics, 479 


among the leaders of the Evangelical uprising, with the Land Law 
Reform movement. The recognised maxim with almost all of them 
was, that the fetters of bondage or semi-bondage were to be struck 
from the lower agricultural class. On this latter point of serfage 
Luther unfortunately held wrong views. 

Again, in the view of a great many German Reformers, parlia- 
‘mentary representation of the people had to be made a reality by 
larger enfranchisements ; for the German Reichstag was then—as 
Parliament was in England before the Reform Bill—a mere house of 
princes and lords, spiritual and temporal, with a sprinkling of depu- 
ties from a small number of enfranchised towns. Lastly, the most 
advanced group—all of them, be it well remembered, proceeding on 
Gospel lines—strove for the total abolition of a petty dynastic rule. 
Some of them were found under the Imperial flag of a German 
Monarchy one and indivisible, headed, according to the old Consti- 
tution, by a King or Kaiser owing his life-tenure of power to an 
election, and holding that power only on condition of his carrying 
out the decrees of Parliament. Others aimed, in Swiss fashion, at 
& Democratic Commonwealth. 

Many learned men, vast numbers of the middle class, many ex- 
Priests too, even a small section of the nobility, and the mass of the 
peasantry, were in the movement—either as moderate Reformers, or 
as levelling, anti-feudalist adherents of an elective Monarchy on a 
Liberal basis, to the exclusion of all minor princely power ; or as 
champions of a Republic, with 2 more or less Socialist tinge. 

Wherever we look in the pages of German history, in the early 
part of the sixteenth century, we find men of note in politics, or 
distinguished in the domain of literature and art, pronouncing for the 
cause of general reform. I will only mention that learned Alsatian 

and master of satire, Scbastian Brandt, a German Rabelais, 
who died in 1521, shortly before Luther rose to eminence, and who, 
though no enemy of the Roman Church, struggled against its abuses, 
at the same time recommending political improvements; Albrecht 
Diirér, the renowned painter, and patriotic lover of his semi- 
republican native town of Nuremberg ; and last, but not Jeast, Hans 
Sachs, the chief of the Master-singers and Father of the German 
Drama, whose influence was one of the most extensive among the 
middle and working classes, With his widely propagated poems, 
‘Hang Sachs accompanied the triumphant march of the Reformation. 
‘He, too, strongly inclined towards great changes in the Empire, in 
the sense of. that civic self-government which free, industrious, 
valiant, and art-loving Nuremberg enjoyed. Ax the same Yue ne was, 





Luther in Potities. 48r 


reform were disseminated broadcast. Wandering minstrels brought 
them to the door of the artisan and the peasant. ‘The invention of 
the art of printing—so bitterly fought against, at first, by the monks 
as “Devil's and soreerer’s work"—had given a powerful impetus 
to the popular aspirations. A great many satires in the style of 
“Reynard the Fox" were current—biting satires against priesteraft, 
aristocratic and royal misrule, 

In the midst of all this excitement the Emperor Maximilian died 
—a well-meaning, personally brave man; of an adventurous dis- 
position ; very romantic; who has been styled “the last of the 
chivalry," but whose endeavour to ameliorate the Empire was made 
with a feeble hand. He once fought with a lion in the arena; and 
he got himdown, Whena French knight, coming to the Diet at 
Worms, boastfully called out the whole German nation, Maxi- 
tailian quietly stepped forward to accept the challenge, and in a 
tournament, with a few well-aimed Jance-thrusts, ran the swaggerer 
aground on the sand. But, though a warrior, he was not the proper 
man for “times out of joint.” The few reforms he attempted for 
Stopping the increasing disintegration of the national unity of 
Germany proved of no avail. That kind of tournament required 
even stronger nerves than the fighting a wild beast in the arena. 

After Maximilian’s death Charles V, was elected “King of the 
Germans.” He was very young then—barely twenty. The dawn 
of morn lay on his brow ; and for a moment men may have hoped 
that the new King would have done as Henry VIII. of England, 
that bitter foe of Luther, and Defender of the Old Faith, afterwards 
did, in spite of his precedents, 

Ulrich von Hutten, at the moment of the election of Karl, stood 
at the height of his fame. He was the Agitator, the Orator, the 
Champion, aye, the Poet Taureate of Germany. Maximilian, with 
his own hands, had crowned him as such with the laurel-wreath, for 
his Latin poems. During the session of the Reichstag at Augsburg, _ 
when Maximilian sought to bring about a declaration of war against 
the Turks, who were then the great danger to Europe, Hutten made 
& patriotic speech before the German princes, which even now 
reads a3 a masterpiece of eloquence. The whole country had its 
eyes fixed upon this bold Reformer, who was certainly one of the co- 
authors of that gigantic squib upon monkhood—the Litter Obscu- 
rorum Virorum, or “Letters of the Men of Darkness ”—in which 
the shayeling crew were made to describe themselves in dog-Latin 
(or kitchen Latin as we call it), to the amusement of the enlightened 
classes of the nation. 

VOL. CCLY. NO. 1835. LL 


? Luther in Politics. 483 


Ye nobles proud ; stand by the Right! 

‘Ye valiant towns; rise in your might! 

©, let not straggle me alone! 

“Dake pity on the Fstherland, 

Ye Germans brave, with strong-armed hand ! 
Now grasp the sword—do not sit still 

For Froedom's sake it is God's will 

When Hutten wrote this Appeal, he was but thirty-two years of 
age. Yet he occupied already the most prominent position as a 
Jeader in the national and religious movement. Luther was not yet 
thirty-four when he put up his famous “ Nincty-five Theses” on the 
Castle Church at Wittenberg, where they are now to be seen east 
in metal. Thomas Minzer, a revolutionary preacher among the 
insurgent peasants, who was a Rienzi and Savonarola combined, 
achieved fame as an agitator ata much earlier age even. Charles V., 
however, who was quite a youth, remained inaccessible to Hutten’s 
appeals. ‘The mind of that prince was cast in the narrow mould of 
Spanish bigotry—on the verge of mental unsoundness, as his later 
withdrawal to a monkish cell showed, 

Of only half German descent, and brought up abroad, Charles 
‘was not even able to speak our tongue properly. He chiefly spoke 
the Low German of the Flemings, among whom he was born, or 
Spanish ; but the Spaniards themselves declared he was not really 
master of their own language, At all events, he was not influenced 
by German thought and feeling. ‘The bright light of a popular 
Reformation had no attraction for his gloomy temper, Thus he 
missed one of the greatest historical opportunities ; and the nation 
had to suffer for it. 

VL 

Spurned by the Emperor, Hutten issued his poetical appeal ; 
An Admonition to alt Free Imperial Cities of the German Nation, 
‘He urged them to make common cause with the nobility, as against 
the princes, whom he accuses of having “betrayed and sold the 
Empire," broken their oaths, attacked German freedom, converted 
the meeting of the National Parliament into occasions for “ gluttonaus 
banquets, where in onc day the taxes wrung from the poor are shame 
Jessly squandered.” No ‘Turk, nor heathens—he says—are such 

oppressors. “ Among foreign nations, our good name goes down, I 
now I shall yet be driven from the country ; but silence they shall 
‘me not ; I tif speak out for Truth and Right.” He teas driven from 
his country. He afd die in poverty, an exile on Swiss soil, in 1523. 
But from his ashes, avengers rose, in acconlance wits oor ds 





cred lemany win dicod: siowmmg even in zs 
3 decsetes che jonuar mumanom cor 1 neil md 
Sr i -eizows. Zetorm ‘md Yee 
scons Hemd uni ‘eilow-warke: Framz von 
‘¢ Tem=oned. wo ied m che same vem, a ew 
=. Ze wes: jecmam Chevalier Bayar Indeed, 
cersomuly ‘ed che Geman amy sgzimt 
French coumermrr, Sickingen, im 
Jome Jones was : Bayer on che eopies ade In -hose xoubloas 
jays. ie smeumes ‘cok “he aw mo us awa lands; amd im some 
mal asert s Sificut m ns iistnes of ime. 20 say whether be 
is uaste towever. vas jonuimiy mailed -he Hierierge str 
‘get, “ne Yancmary w lusncs. che Retuge af che Oporemed. 
Houten ance soni sefuge here. 
ckingen cied, -vonnded. ater ‘ns sronghoid tad Seen stormed 
; Hatem tad Jeena an ‘necpient Join Hampden, 
Sicxingen te maicme of am arsweratic, moderate 





























sachin. Erasmus of Rotzer- 
tiers. Ther cendency cowards istel- 
he thevlogical scope of 
vai cf the stzdy of 
sccty acd ast amracted them Men 

“d gadly bave accepted a 
im above. instead of from 
Erasmzs at List behaved towards 
Hitter, was typical of not a few of this highly enlightened class 
which unfortinately lacked the energy of will necessary for a great 
change in State and Cherch, 

‘Shere was no lack of such energy among some leaders of the 
peaasntry, such 23 Wendel Hipler, Friedrich Weigand, and Florian 
Geyer von Geyersberg; the two former sprung from the people's 
ranks, the other of noble descent. ‘They were Democratic statesmen 
of considerable strength of character, energetic in action, wise, and 
of large practical vie 

"The snore fanatic fervour of a highly wrought enthusiasm was 
represented by ‘Thoinas Miinzcr. We was the pastor alternately of 





















of won 
strong wate 
below. I 







fe 


outa Revs 














Luther in Politics, 485 


Zwickav, Allstedt, and then of the free Imperial city of Mihlhausen, 
im ‘Vhuringia. He had had contact with the Hussites at Prague. 
Tn religion he preached, though under mystic forms, a rather ad+ 
vanced Deism. A man of no mean ability, he strongly inclined, in 
his political creed, towards Socialism, In temper, he was of a very 
revolutionary, not to say terroristic, turn of mind. All these men 
took their cue from their interpretation of the Bible—even as, some 
years later, the Anabaptists under Knipperdolling and Bockhold did 
during their shortlived reign at Miinster, in Westphalia. 

The central figure of the Reformation was the ex-monk who had 
made the powerful assault against the edifice of Papal supremacy and 
Romish infallibility, and who, in so doing, had at first expressed 
much sympathy with the social and political grievances of the masses, 
Had Luther joined, or rather gone on keeping company with the 
political Reformers, he would have given a grander impress to the 
whole movement. He would have rallied the more cautious and 
timid classes to the cause of progress. He would have been able to 
check the excesses of some of the minor leaders lacking responsi- 
bility ; and the twofold or threefold aim of the Reformation, as at 
first conceived in the popular mind, and even in the mind of nota 
few men of the upper classes, would no doubt have been carried. 


VIL 


However, Luther for a time wavered, tacking to and fro in 
politics, Charles V., on his part, was deaf towards all patriotic 
voices, Not he alone ; there was a general deafness among the 
princes subject to the Imperial crown. ‘They carelessly whistled to 
the wind—and the storm came. 

Like sheet-lightning announcing the thunderstorm, there had 
‘been peasant tumults all over the country ever since the end of the 
fifteenth century, The old leaven of the £idyenossen movement had 
never wholly ceased to ferment, Deeply had the people’s fancy 
been struck by the achievements of the German Switzers, Peasant 
conspiracies now became frequent. One of the earliest called itself 
the Bundschuh, or “ Laced Shoe"; the peasants mostly wearing 
shoes, whilst the nobles wore high boots. 

‘The aim of this secret Peasant Union may be gathered from its 
parole. On a member asking: “ What d'ye think i' the main?” the 
answer was to be: “ Priests, nobles, and princes are the people's 
bane I" (Princes, Filrsten, then’always meant only the higher terri- 
torial aristocracy who had gradually risen to perry dynadds. yews, 


Luther tn Politics. 487 


“Germany stood in need of a political Luther, but that he was 
afraid they would get a Miinzer.” “‘Therefore"—he said—*I will 
not even indulge in a hope that they shall get a Luther for bringing 
about a great change in the secular government. All I can counsel 
is, that those who are able to do so may just mend a little the defects 
of the Empire by piccing on, and patching and botching here and 
there. . , . . Nay, it i¢ better to suffer wrong altogether.” 

‘The theologian, the nature of the former monk, came up too 
‘strongly in Luther, as cyents tended towardsa violent solution, He 
himself has related at various times how, after having been “ axabid, 
insensute Papist, quite drowned in the Pope's doctrines," he once 

such a free-thinking stage that (he said) “I could 
only check myself by throttling and strangling my reason.” He cer- 
tainly applied that process to his reason in State matters. 

In the impressive “Exhortation to Peace” from which I have 
before quoted, he speaks of the tyrannic princes, lords, and bishops, 
Tike a People’s Tribune, but then suddenly turns round against the 
peasants. He first, “in all kindness and charity,” calls them: “ My 
dear fricnds”; then; “You madmen.” He threatens them with 
destruction, because—* he that takes the sword, shall perish by the 
sword.” He declares that he “will wrest ftom them the name of 
Christ, which they are using, by any effort of which I am capable; 
sacrificing, if need be, the last drop of my blood.” And he asks 
them to “endure all the wrongs done unto them, so as to earn the 
title of real Christians." He even defends serfdom because Abraham 
had had serfs! He says to the peasants: “ You wish to apply to 
the flesh the Christian liberty taught by the Gospel; but I would 
ask you, Did not Abraham and the other Patriarchs, as well as the 
Prophets, keep bondmen? Docs not St. Paul himself tell us that 
the empire of this world cannot exist without the inequality of 
men?” 

Yet, between all this he repeats : “I do not wish to Justify the 
deeds of the Governmental authority. The wrongs it has committed 
sre endless, immense ; I readily avow it... . ‘The demands you 
have drawn up are not in themselves contrary to natural law and to 
equity, but they are made so by the violence with which you seck to 
force them from the hands of authority.” 

At the same time he could not deny that every petition for 
peaceful reform; however humble and loyal, was addressed to 
obstinately deaf cars, 





The Gentleman's Magazine. 


VIL. 


to say, Luther was no match for one of the most com- 
I situations. All he could advise in such cases was 
ns must expect nothing better than to be despised, 
wn, made to walk in the mire and the dirt, to be slandered, 
nay, driven from this world. Christians roust suffer 
suffer wrong ; suffer, suffer. They must bear 

Phat is their right ; they have no other!” In 
of speaking, the elliptic force of which it 
ch, he spoke of Christians as a flock of 


















































Ke to be slaughtered—quickly away with 
: it Weideschafe—Schlachtschafe ; nur 
aie Humanists, nor of the advanced 
. shed. moreover, with Luther's own 
; sour Sabbatarian, no maw- 


in his soul, and, aye, in his 
¢ good things of life. ‘The 
rovable from his writings 






; i song, remains a fool his 
ae . no injustice. To the 

race declared that, if anyone 
Per ee Ss hion, the people 


2 on a Sunday, just to show 
are the Lord's, 

more and more 
naturally grated 
and the powerful 
mes charged with 
z flesh,” without 
‘These attacks far 
. he went wrong 
ndence, or of 
‘A time-server 
¢ Pope had 
n otherwise? 
Koln, Munich, 
new doctrine? 
¥ dt. were 











¢ contradicted 


Luther in Politics. 489 


his own past, Thus—to mention but one example bearing upon 
recent occurrences ; for his utterances have been appealed to by some 
Promoters of the present anti-Semitic movement—he certainly, in 
Tater years, gave some horrible advice in regard to Jews, their syna- 
gogues, and houses, Yet, in the earlier years of the Reformation, he had 
‘strongly pronounced against those haughty theologians who treated 
the Jews as the slaves of the Christians, setting the hearts of the 
faithful against the Israelite, whilst hoping that the latter would, 
nevertheless, become a convert. 

“They have treated the Jews"—he wrote—“‘as if they were 
hounds, and not human beings ; doing nothing but scolding them. 
‘They (the Jews) are, however, blood relations, cousins and brothers, 
of our Lord. Therefore, if flesh and bjood is something to boast of, 
the Jews are nearer to Christ than we, Hence my counsel is, to treat 
them decently, But now that we use violence against them, lyingly 
accusing them of having shed Christian blood, and preferring similar 
foolish accusations against them, forbidding them also to work and to 
trade among us,and to have other human community with us, so that 
they are actually driven into the usurer's business : how can you ex- 
pect them to come to us? If you mean to help them, the law of 
Christian Jove must be applied to them, and they must be received 
in friendly manner. ‘They must be allowed to compete and to work 
with us, 80 that they may have cause and proper opportunity to be 
with us and among us.”"—(Luther on Jesus a Born Jew ; 1523.) 

Unfortunately, he afterwards unsaid all these noble and humane 
sentiments, in words reflecting the greatest discredit upon him. 

In the course of the political events, he began to write denun- 
ciations against the more advanced men ; for instance, in his Letter 
to the Princes in Saxony against the Spirit of Rebellion. We pur 
his hope im some Prince that would carry through the cause of 
Church Reform, Whilst in Germany, until then, all governing power 
had been held to repose on a covenant with the people, and the 
appointment of the head-King, or Kaiser, himself depended on the 
vote of an Electoral Council, Luther preached the doctrine that all 
authority was by “right divine”; wherefore the ordinary citizen was 
not entitled to oppose active force even to undoubted despotism, 
This new tenct was very acceptable to those minor Princes who, 
under the garb of religion, strove to establish separate sovercignties 
alike independent of Pope and Kaiser. 

The people's cause being spurned by the young King-Emperor 
‘Charles, and forsaken by a number of its natural leaders, there came 
at last, between 1524 and 1525, a vast revolutionary outbreak—the 





THE NEW ABELARD. 


A ROMANCE. 


By Rowser Bucs 
AUTHOR OF “THE SHADOW oF TIE swoRD,’ 





NAN, 
GOD AND TIE MAN,” FIC, 





CHarrer XXYIL 
THE SIREN. 


Weave a cirele round hin t 
For he on honey-dew hath fod, 
And drunk the milk of Parad 











Kubla Khan, 
RADLEY’S first impulse, on quitting Boulogne, was to hasten 
‘at once on to Italy, seek out Alma, and tell her all that had 
oceurred! ; but that impulse was no sooner felt than it was conquered. 
‘The man had a quickening conscience left, and he could not have 
stood just then before’ the woman he loved without the bitterest 
pain and humiliation. No, he would write to her, he would break 
the news gently by letter, not by word of mouth; and afterwards, 
perhaps, when his sense of spiritual agony had somewhat worn away, 
he would go to her and throw himself upon her tender mercy. So 
Jnstead of flying on to Italy he returned by the mail to London, and 
thence wrote at length to Alma, giving her full details of his wife's 
death. 

By this time the man was so broken in spirit, and so changed in 
body, that even his worst cnemies might have pitied him. The 
trouble of the last few months had stript him of all his intellectual 
pride, and left him supremely sad. 

But now, as ever, the mind of the man, though its light was 
clouded, turned in the direction of cclestial or supermundane things. 
Readers who are differently constituted, and who regard such 
speculations as trivial or irrelevant, will doubtless have some difi- 
culty in comprehending an individual who, through all vicissitudes 
of moral experience, invariably returned to the one set purpose of 
spiritual inquiry. To him one thing was paramount, exer ayer a. 





ll 
492 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


his own sorrows—the solution of the great problem of human life 
and immortality. ‘This was his haunting idea, his monomania, s0 to 
speak. Just as a physiologist would examine his own blood under 
the microscope, just as a scientific inquirer would sacrifice his own 
life and happiness for the verification of a theory, so would 

ask himself, even when on the rack of moral torment, How far does 
this suffering help me to a solution of the mystery of life? 

‘True, for a time he had been indifferent, even callous, drifting in 
the vague current of computable agnosticism, he knew not whither ; 
but that did not last for long ; the very constitution of Bradley saved 
him from that indifferentness which is the chronic disease of so many 
modern men, 

Infinitely tender of heart, he had been moved to the depths by 
his recent experience ; he had felt, as all of us at some time feel, the 
sanctifying and purifying power of Death. A mean man would have 
exulted in the new freedom Death had brought ; Bradley, on the 
other hand, stood stupefied and aghast at his own liberation, On 
a point of conscience he could have fought with, and perhaps 
conquered, all the prejudices of society; but when his very con 
science turned against him he was paralysed with doubs, wonder, 
and despair. : 


He returned to London, and there awaited Alma’s answer. One 
day, urged by a sudden impulse, he bent his steps t6wards the 
mysterious house in Bayswater, and found Eustasia 
sitting alone. Never had the little lady looked so strange and 
spirituelle, Her clfindike face looked pale and worn, and her great 
wistful eyes were surrounded with dark melancholy rings. But she 
Tooked up as he entered, with her old smile, 

“1 knew you would come,” she cried. “I was thinking of you, 
and I felt the celestial agencies were going to bring us together, 
And I'm real glad to see you, before we go away.” 

“ You are leaving London?” asked Bradley, as he seated himself’ 
close to her. 

“Yes, Salem talks of going back home before winter sets in 
and the fogs begin. I don't seem able to breathe right in this air. 
If stopt here long, I think I should die.” 

As she spoke, she passed her thin transparent hand across her 
forehead, with a curious gesture of pain. As Bradley looked at her 
steadfastly she averted his gaze, and a faint hectic flush came into 
her cheeks. ~~ 

Guess you think it don’t matter much," she 4 

sharp nervous laugh peculiar to her, “ whether 1 live or die. 


— — \ 


The New Abelard. 493 


Mr. Bradley, I suppose you're right, and I’m sure I don’t care much 
how soon I go,” 

“You are very young to talk like that," said Bradley, gently ; 
“ but perhaps I misunderstand you, and you mean that you would 
gladly exchange this life for freer activity and larger happiness in 
another?" 


Eustasia laughed again, but this time she looked full into her 
questioner’s eyes. 

“ L don't know about that,” she replied. “ What I mean 4s, that 
I'm downright tired, and should just like a good long spell of sleep.” 

“ But surely, if your belief is true, you look for something more 
‘than that?” 

“Tdon't think I do, You mean I want to join the spirits, and 
go wandering about from one planet to another, or coming down to 
earth and making people uncomfortable? That seems a stupit sort 
‘of life, doesn't it ?—about as stupid as this one? I'd rather tuck my 
head under my wing, like a Little bird, and go to sleep for ever !” 

Bradley opened his eyes, amazed and a lite diseoncerted by the 
lady's candour, Before he could make any reply, she continued, in 
a low voice : 

“You see, I've got no one in the world to care for me, except 
Salem, my brother. He's good to me, he is, but that doesn't make 
up for everything. 1 don't feel like a girl, but like an old woman. 
Vd rather be one of those foolish creatures you meet everywhere, 
who think of nothing but millinery and flirtation, than what I am, 
‘That's all the good the spirits have done me, to spoil my good looks 
and make me old before my time. I hate them sometimes; I hate 
myself for listening to them, and I say what I said before—thar if 
T'm to live on as fey do, and go on in the same curious way, I'd 
sooner die!" 

“ Twish you would be quite honest with me,” said Bradley, after 
a brief pause, “I see you are ill, and I am sure you are unhappy. 
Suppose much of your illness, and all your unhappiness, came from 
your acquiescence in a scheme of folly and self-feception? You 
already know my opinion on these matters to which you allude, If 
T may speak quite frankly, I have always suspected you and your 
brother—but your brother more than you—of a conspiracy to decewe 
the public ; and if I were not otherwise interested in you, if I did not 
feel for you the utmost sympathy and compassion, I should pass the 
matter by without a word. As it is, I would give a great deal if 
I could penetrate into the true motives of your conduct, and ascer- 
tain how far you are self-deluded." 








© # Guess.T do}" retumed the lady, w 
mires sone oh sew 
“Tf you ask me, { think life ix a foo 
"has why 1 Het be dane wiht 
ii ecirtoaleniaeas coepted fact, 


“Tah you woulda talk about ig” ahe sd 
about yourself, Mr. Bradley. You've been in t 
told me. I’ve liked you ever since Siacsciny: 
could give you some help.” 

‘Hod Bradley been a different Kod: of, max, f 
have misunderstood the look she gave him | 
passionate admiration which she took no care 
and the warm touch of the 
a curious thrill, Nor did she withdraw the hand 

“T've only seen one man in the world like you. 
is. But you're his image. I told Salem so the day I 
‘Some folks say that souls pass from one | 
almost believe it when I think of him and look 

As she spoke, with tears in her eyes, and 
cheek, there was a footstep in the room, and 








The New Abelard. "495 


we haven't done much good by sailing over. The people of England 
are a whole age behind the Americans, and won't be ripe for our 
Teaching till many a year has passed.” 

“When do you leave London?" 

“Tn eight days. We've takén our ras in the ‘ Maria,’ whieh 
sails to-morrow week." 

“Then you will give no more séancer? Iam sorry, for I should 
have liked to come again.” 

Eustasia started, and looked cagerly at her brother, 

“Will you come /o-night?” she asked suddenly. 

“ Tonight |" echoed Bradley. “Is a stance to be held?” 

“No, no,” interrupted Mapleleafe. 

“ But yes," added Eustasia. “We shall be alone, but that will 
be all the better, I should not like to leave England without con- 
vincing Mr, Bradley that ‘there is something in your solar biology 
after all.” 

“You'll waste your time, Eustasia,” remarked the Professor 
dryly. “You know what the poet says? 


A man convinced against his wil, 
Ts of the sume opinion atill 


And I guess you'll never convert Mr, Bradley.” 

“Yl try, at any rate,” returned Eustasia, smiling; then turning to 
the clergyman with an eager wistful look, she added, ‘“ You'll come, 
won't you? To-night at seven.” 

Bradley promised, and immediately afterwards took his leave. 
He had not exaggerated in expressing his regret at the departure of 
the curious pair; for since his strange experience at Boulogne, he 
was intellectually unstrung and cager to receive spiritual impressions, 

_ even from a quarter which he distrusted. He unconsciously felt, too, 
the indescribable fascination which Eustasia, more than most women, 
knew how to exert on highly organised persons of the opposite 
sex, 

Left alone, the brother and sister looked at each other for some 
moments in silence ; then the Professor exclaimed, half angrily: 

“You'll kill yourself, Eustasia, that's what you'// dol I've fore+ 
‘seen it all along, just as I foresaw it when you first met Ulysses S, 
Stedman, You're clean gone on this man, and if I wasn't ready to 
protect you, Lord knows you'd make a fool of yourself again.” 

Fustasia looked up in his face, and laughed. It was curious to 
note her change of look and manner; her face was still pale and 
elfin-like, but her eyes were full of malicious light. 





The New Abelard. 497 


“Think better of it!” persisted her brother, “You promised 
me, after Ulysses S. Stedman died, to devote all your life, strength, 
and thought, to the beautiful cause of scientific spiritualism. Nature 
has made you a living miracle, Eustasin! I do admire to see onc 50 
gifted throwing herself away, just like a school-girl, on the first good- 
Jooking man she tneets 1" 

“T hate spiritualism,” was the reply. “ What bas it done forme? 
Broken my heart, Salem, and wasted my life I’ve dwelt too long 
with ghosts ; T want to feel my life as other women do, And I tell 
you I wilt!” 

The poor Professor shook his head dubiously, but saw that there 
‘was no more to be said—at any rate just then. 





At seven o'clock that evening Bradley returned to the house in 
Bayswater, and found the brother and sister waiting for him. 

Eustasia wore a loose-fitting robe of black velvet, cut low round 
the bust, and without sleeves. Her neck and arms were beautifully 
though delicatcly moulded, white and glistening as satin, and the 
‘small serpent-like head, with its wonderfully brilliant eyes, was sur- 
mounted by a circlet of pearls. 

Bradley looked at her in surprise, Never before had she seemed 
‘80 weirdly pretty. 

, The Professor, on the other hand, despite his genius-like brow, 
appeared unusually ignoble and commonplace. He was ill at ease, 
too, and cast distrustful glances from time to time at his sister, whose 
manner was as brilliant as her appearance, and who scemed to have 
cast aside the depression which she had shown during the early part 
ofthe day. 

After some little desultory conversation, Bradley expressed his 
impatience for the rence to begin. ‘The landlady of the house, 
herself (as the reader is aware) an adept, was therefore summoned to 
give the party, and due preparations made by drawing the window 
blinds and extinguishing the gas. Before the lights were quite put 
‘out, however, the Professor addressed his sister. 

“ Bustasia, you're not well! Say the word, and I'm sure Mr, 
Bradley will excuse you for to-night. 
‘The appeal was in vain, Eustasia persisting, The séance began, 
‘The Professor and Mrs, Piozzi Smith were vér d-wis, while Eustasia, 
Ther back towards the folding doors communicating to the inner 

chamber, sat opposite to Bradley. 

‘The clergyman was far less master of himself than on woe former 
occasions. No sooner did he find himself in rotal darkness than is 

VOL. CCLY. NO. 1835. uM 








The New Abelard. 499 


“Ttisacheat!” he gasped, “ It is no spirit that is speaking to 
me, but a living woman,” 

And he clutched in the direction of the voice, but touched only 
the empty air. 

“Tf you break the conditions, T must depart !" cried the voice 
faintly, as if from a distant part of the room. 

© Shall I break up the séamce ?” asked the Professor, 

“No!” cried Bradley, again joining his hands with those of his 
neighbours to complete the circle. “Go on! go on 1" 

“ Are our dear friends still present ?" demanded the Professor. 

“Tam here,” returned the voice of Eustasia. “I see the spirit 
of a woman, weeping and wringing her hands ; it is she that wears 
the shroud. She speaks to me, She tells us that her carthly name 
‘was a word which signifies holy.” 

“ In God’s name,” cried Bradley, “what does it mean? She of 
whom you speak is not dead 2—no, no |” 

Again he felt the touch of a clammy hand, and again he heard 
the mysterious voice. 

™ Death is nothing ; it is only a mystery—a change. The body 
is nothing ; the spirit is all present and all powerful. Keep quiet ; 
and I will try to materialise myself even more.” 

‘He sat still in shivering expectation ; then he felt a touch |ike 
breath upon his forehead, and two lips, warm with life, were prest 
loss to his, while at the same moment he felt what seemed a human 
bosom heaving against his own. If this phenomenon was super- 
natural, it was certainly very real ; for the effect was of warm and 
living flesh. Certain now, that he was being imposed upon, Bradley 
determined to make certain by seizing the substance of the apparition, 
He had scarcely, however, withdrawn his arms from the circle, when 
the phenomenon ceased ; there was a loud cry from the others 
present; and on the gas being lit, Eustasia and the rest were seen 
sitting quietly in their chairs, the former just recovering from a state 
of trance, 

“ T warned you, Eustasia,” cried the Professor indignantly. "I 
knew Mr, Bradley was not a fair inquirer, and would be certain to 
break the conditions." 

“Tt is an outrage,” echoed Mrs, Piozzi Smith. “The heavenly 
intelligences will never forgive us.” 

Without heeding these remonstrances, Bradley, deathly pale, was 
Een intently at Eustasin. She met his gaze quietly enough, but 

her heightened colour and sparkling eyes betokened that she was 


labouring under great excitement, 
Pees 





The New Abelard. 5OI 


“ How can I tell you?” answered Eustasia. ‘I was tranced, 
and my spirit was far away. I don’t even know what happened.” 

With a contemptuous gesture, Bradley released her, and walked 
from the room. All his soul revolted at the recent experience ; yet 
mingled with his angry scepticism was a certain vague sense of dread. 
If, after all, he had not been deceived, and something had happened 
to Alma ; if, as the séance seemed to suggest, she was no longer 
living! The very thought almost turned his brain. Dazed and 
terrified, he made his way down the dark passage and left the house. 

No sooner had he gone than Eustasia uttered a low cry, threw 
her arms into the air, and sank swooning upon the floor. 

Her brother raised her in a moment, and placed her upon the 
sofa. It was some minutes before she recovered. When she did so, 
and gazed wildly around, there was a tiny fleck of red upon her lips, 
like blood. 

She looked up in her brother’s face, and began laughing hysteri- 
cally. 

“ Eustasia! For God’s sake, control yourself! You'll make 
yourself downright ill!” 

Presently the hysterical fit past away. 

“Leave us together, please !” she said to the grim woman of the 
house. “I-I wish to speak to my brother.” 

Directly Mrs. Piozzi Smith had retired, she took her brother by 
the hand. 

“Don’t be angry with me, Salem!” she said softly. “I’m not 
long for this world now, and I want you to grant me one request.” 

“What is it, Eustasia?” asked the Professor, touched by her 
strangely tender manner. 

“ Don’t take me away from England just yet. Wait a little while 
longer.” 

“ Eustasia, let me repeat, you're following a will-o’-the-wisp, you 
are indeed! Take my advice, and never see that man again! ” 

“T must—I will 1” she cried. “O Salem, I’ve used him cruelly, 
but I love him! I shall die now if you take me away !” 


The New Abelard. 503 


* Haye me taken to the house she occupied when here,” Bradley 
ordered, and he was driven to the house Alma had dwelt in, 

‘There also he failed to learn Alma's address. All that was known 
was, that she had gone to Rome; that her departure had been 
sudden, and that she had said she would not return to Milan. 

Dismissing the carriage that had brought him, he walked back to 
his hotel. 
~ “It was night; the cool breeze from the Alps was delightfully 
refreshing after the sultry heat of the day the moon was full and the 
falr old city was looking its fairest, but these things Bridley heeded 
not. Outward beauty he could not see, for all his mind and soul was 
datk—the ancient palaces, the glorious Cathedral, the splendid Car- 
rara marble statue of Leonardo, and the bronze one of Cavour, were 
passed unnoticed andaineared for. One thing only was in his mind— 
to get to Rome to find Alma. One thing was certain ; she had left 
‘Milan in good health and must surely be safe still. 

“Ah!” he said to himself; “when did she leave Milan? Fool 
‘that Tam, not to have learned,” and, almost running, he returned to. 
the house and inquired, 

He was disappointed with the information he received. Alma 
ad left Milan some time before the stan in London had been held. 

Entering a restaurant, he found that he could get a train to Rome 
at midnight. He returned to his hotel, ate a morsel of food, drank 
‘some wine, and then went to the railway station, 

Tt was early morning when he entered the Eternal City, and the 
lack of stir upon the streets troubled and depressed him. It accen- 
‘tiated the difference between his present visit and the last he had 
made, and he cried in his heart most bitterly that the burden af his 
“Sorrow was too great. 

‘He was about to tell the driver of the fiacre to take him to his 
old quarters on the Piazza di Spagna, when he changed his mind. 
“If he went there he would be in the midst of his countrymen, and 
in his then mood the last being he wished to see was an Englishman. 
Sovhe asked the driver to take him to any quiet and good boarding: 
house he knew, and was taken to one in the Piazza Sta Maria in 
Monti. 7 
In the course of the day he went out to learn what he could of 
Alma. 

He met several acquaintances, but they had neither seen nor 
heard of her; indeed, they were not in her circle, and though they 
“had seen or heard of her, they would hardly have remembered, 
‘Bradley well knew the families Alma would be likely to visit wor toe 





504 The Gentleman's i 


shrank from inquiring at their houses ; he of 
several and tarned away without asking to be a 

Byand-by he went Pits eee 
the papers, but found no mention of Alma in them. 
of young Englishmen and Americans Petey 
at last that he caught the name of Miss Craik mentioned in their 
conversation. 

He listened sith pein stint, ant eee ee CH 
speaking of someone the Jesuits had “ hooked,” as they put 

“ And by Jove it was a haul!” one young fellow said. “ Any 
amount of cash, I am told." 
“That is so,” replied one of his comrades; “and the gitl is 
wonderfully beautiful, they say.” 

Bradley started at this, and listened more intently than 

“Yes," the first speaker said, “she is beautiful. 
pointed out to me in Milan, and I thought her the 
woman I had ever seen.” 

“ Excuse me,” said Bradley, stepping up to the speakers, @1—1 
would like to know the name of the lady you refer to?” 

“Oh, certainly ; her name is Miss Alma Craik,” 7 

“Alma living!” Bradley shricked, and staggered, like one in 
drink, out of the caffe 

Dazed and half-maddened, he found his way to the lodging. He 
locked the door of his room, and paced the floor, now 
hands together, then holding his forehead in them as if to still its 
Bounding pain, 

“Taken by the Jesuits!" he muttered. “Then she is dead 
indeed—ay, worse than dead ! 

He paused at length at the window and ooked out, The next 
instant he sprang back with a look of utter horror on his face. 

“ What if she is over here! he gasped, and sank into a chair. 

By over there he meant the convent of the Farnesiani nuns. 
From the window he could see down the en/desae that led to the” 
convent. He knew the place well ; he knew it to be well deserving 
of its name, Sepolte Vive, and that of its inaee tet ee 
daily die and dig their own graves. ~ | 

If Alma was indeed in there, then she was cae 

Bradley shook off as far as he could his fecling of helplessness 
and hopelessness, and with frenzied haste he rose from the chair, 
Jeft the house, and went over towards the convent. . 

He knew that the only way to communicate with 
to mount to a platform above the walls of the houses, 


Pros 














The New Abelard. 505 


a barrel projecting from the platform. He had once been there and 
had been admitted. He forgot that thea he had proper credentials 
and that now he had none. 

He was soon on the platform, and’ not only rapped, but thundered 
‘on the barrel, 

A muffled voice from the interior demanded his business. 

His reply was whether an English woman named Craik was 
within the convent. To that question he had ho answer, and the 
voice within did not speak again. 

He stayed long and repeated his question again and again in the 
hope of obtaining an answer, and only left when he had attracted 
attention and was invited by the police to desist. 

‘What was to be done? he asked himself as he stood in the street, 
Do something he must, but what? 

“have it!” he said, “I will go to the Jesuit headquarters and 
demand to be informed?” and putting his resolve into action he 
walked to the Via del Quirinale. 

He was courteously received, and asked his business. 

“ My business is a painful one,” Bradley began. “I wish to know 
if an English lady named Craik has joined your church?” 

“She did return to the true faith,” replied the priest, raising his 
eyes to heaven, “and for her return the Holy Virgin and the Saints 

~ be praised 1” 

“ And now, where is she now?" 

With painful expectancy he waited for the priest to answer. 

“ Now ! now, Signor, she is dad!" was the reply, 

Bradley heard, and fell prone upon the floor. 


(Zo be concluded.) 


Science Notes. 507 


than those wow technically classed as rotifera are also wheel bearers — 
fe, they have mouths fringed with ¢//éa, or minute lashes that move in 
‘such succession as to give the whole ring the appearance of rotation. 

"That some of these lower creatures should rise from the dead in 
‘the manner described, is no more'than might be expected from an 
@ prior? stady of their structure and habits, The bodies of the mature 
animals contain visible ova which are liberated by the death of the 
parent, and thus their drying and dying, a3 in the case of Mr, Hogg’s 
specimens, would be a very favourable condition for the production 
of a family, 


AucIN. 


‘HIS name has been given by Mr. C. C. Stanfofd to a kind of 
jelly he has extracted from sea-weed by first macerating and 
washing it in cold water to rot and remove the useless material, then 
bleaching with chlorinated lime water, and finally dissolving out the 
algin by means of carbonate of soda. From the “tangle weed” 
(éaminaria) as much as 35 per cent. of the jelly is thus obtainable, 
and 10 per cent. of cellulose suitable for paper making. 

‘This jelly, when dry, rescmbles gum, but can be obtained in thin 
transparent flexible sheets. Many uses are suggested, such as mixing 
with starch as stiffener of fabrics, or alone as a dressing material, 
orasamordant. Also for food, for preventing boiler incrustations, 
for insulating electrical apparatus, and for replacing hom in the 
manufacture of yarious moulded articles. ‘The purest fonn of algin 
is obtained by precipitating the carbonate of soda solution by mineral 
acid. ‘This dries to a hard horny substance. 

Some of my readers will probably remember that about thirty 
years ago a great deal was spoken and written, and alittle was done 
in order to introduce “Carragreen" or * Irish Moss" as an article of 
food. 1 have frequently eaten a preparation of this” sea-weed in the 
form of blancmange at the house of the late George Combe, in Edin- 
burgh, where it formed a common element of the family light supper. 
‘It was very good and we deemed it nutritious, but it had a slight 
savour of the sea, or rather of the du/se which was sold and eaten in 
the streets of Glasgow, and of which, in the pursuit of knowledge, 1 
‘once purchased and partly consumed a bawbee’s worth, 

‘The basis of this blancmange was evidently the same as Mr. Stan- 
Yord’s “algin,” and its digestibility without discomfort by Mr. Combe, 
then a delicate invalid, as well as by others, supports Mr. Stanford's 
‘anticipations of its usefulness for food, and removes any grounds for 
fearing to test it practically, ‘The alaria escWenta, anorwex Vand i 


Science Notes. 509 


Earruquasr Waves. 


N my last month’s notes 1 contended that the great waves which 

accompany certain carthquakes and eruptions, and are so 

destructive along the coasts exposed to them, are not sea waves but 
earth waves. 

Since writing these I have carefully looked through the further 
teports of the Java eruption, but can find no account of ships out at 
wa witnessing the progress of the supposed sea wave. 

A detailed account of later date than those available when I wrote 
(see “ Nature,” October 11th) says: “The subsidences and up- 
heavals we have alluded to, caused a large wave about roo feet in 
height to sweep down on the south-west coast of Java and south of 
Sumatra. This wave swept inland, doing great injury to life and 
property, We are here only twelve miles away from one of the 
points on which the wave spent its fury. ‘The whole coast line to the 
south-west has changed its configuration. ‘The inhabitants of the 
Island of Onrust tere only saved from the flood which swept over 
the island by taking refuge on board two steamers, At Merak 
Government establishment the inhabitants took refuge on a knoll 
‘0 fect high, but were all swept off and drowned, with the exception 
‘of one European and two Malays, who were saved.” 

‘To sweep the coasts of Java and Sumatra as described, a sea tuave 
starting from Krakatoa must have traversed fully a hundred miles of 
clear sca-way in the Sunda Strait. To be roo feet high at the end 
of this journey it must have been more than double that height at 
starting. Such a wave could not have passed under a ship unper- 
ccived, and we have accounts from ships that were in its course at 
the time. They describe the terrible destruction they witnessed on 
reaching the main coasts and the small island, but say nothing of 
any wave out at sea. 

The supposed sea wave has been described as “tidal,” a very 
deceptive word, utterly inapplicable to such a wave, even if it were a 
water wave produced hy shock communicated to the sea, Such a 
wave would be renewed and transmitted by gravitation, the upraised 
portion of the water descending by terrestrial gravitation in accordance 
with laws of falling bodies. The monstrous difference between such 
an undulation and the tidal deformation of the ocean is displayed by 
the fact that the return of the water from the summit of the tidal pro- 
tuberance to mean level occupies above six hours. 

‘The mean height of the tidal deformation in mid-ocean is about 
58 inches, though exaggerated on certain shores by heaping up in 


‘converging channels, 


Science Notes. 51L 


distance from land. According to this view, the present high Alps 
or similar back-bone must have been there to supply the material, 
and must have formerly been much larger than now, since the 
material of Pilatus and all the country round was derived from it. 


Depression or Octans 7, Urunavat or Mountains. 


‘HIE old geological theory of alternation was based on the 

assumption that mountains were formed by “ upheaval,” 

which was rather vaguely associated with volcanic action, in spite of 

the fact that the structure of mountains of known voleanic origin is 

very different from that of such ranges as the Alps, the mountains of 
Scandinavia, the Grampians, &c. 

Most geologists now regard downthrast rather than upheaval as 
the primary cause of the differences of level hetween mountain tops 
and the ocean depths, 

It will be at once understood that the relative elevation of dry 
fand and sea-bottom, mountain and valley, may be the same whether 
produced by the upheaving of the high ground or the depression of 
the hollows, In cither case the water would fill the lowest basins and 
valleys. 

estiee this, the downthrust of a material capable of yielding at 

all and transmitting pressure, must exert some elbowing action or 
tidge-forming side-thrust on the boundaries of the depressed region, 
Abundant evidence of the exertion of such side-thrust is afforded by 
the condition of the strata on the flanks of great mountain ranges, 

Many theories of the cause of the unequal pressure have been 
proposed ; the one most generally accepted being that of Mallet, who 
has elaborately and skilfully worked out the problem of the physical 
consequences of the shrinkage of a globe like ours that is slowly 
parting with its internal heat by radiation into space. He concludes 
that the interior must contract more than the outside shell, and, 
therefore, that the shell must crush inwards and become like the skin 
of an apple which has similarly followed the shrinking of its interior— 
due in this case to evaporation of juices. 

‘The inequalities of a shrivelled apple are ona very much larger 
relative scale than those of the earth. Taking ten miles to roughly 

the perpendicular difference between the lowest depths of 
ocean and the highest mountain summits, it amounts to ;}j, of the 
diameter of the globe. 

As 1,600 pages or 800 leaves of the Gentleman's Magazine, 
closely pressed together, would present a thickness equal to the 


Science Notes. : 513 


slight increase of density due to the cooling of the rock in immediate 
contact with the sca bottom would not compensate for the lesser 
pressure of the water itself, as compared with that of the material of 
the dry land, the average density of which is above two and a half 
that of sea water, 


My own Tweory ov Ocranic Depression 


‘$ simply that the actual deviations from the true sphericity of the 

earth's crust (excluding that produced by rotation) are fully 

accounted for by the known variations of the density of the materials 
forming that crust. 

Referring to a table of specific gravities, I find that the granites 
‘vary from 3°00 to 2°619; porphyritic rocks, from 3728 to 2676; 
Timestones, from 3°179 to 1'858 ; slates from 3°50 to 2°186; marble, 
from 3'284 to 2°649 ; sandstones, from 2'690 to 2'r43, and so on 
‘with all the massive rock material of the earth. The extreme range 
from pumice deposits to those of baryta compounds is as 1 to 5. 
‘This, of course, is exceptional, but the previously quoted are fuir 
examples of ordinary or general variation. 

‘A large area covered with a thick crust of granite, or any other 
rocks having a specific gravity of 3000 or thereabouts, would of 
necessity sink to a lower level than surrounding regions covered by 
rocks of 2°500 and less. A smaller difference than this would ac- 
count for existing variations of level, not only for their origin, but 
also for their permanency, the éroad primary cause having a con- 
stancy corresponding to the observed dread effect. 1 say “ broad” 
‘because I do not put forth this theory as an explanation of the minor 
variations of terrestrial surface configuration. It does not touch 
yoleanic disturbances at all, nor earthquake phenomena, All these 
subsequent deviations from the primary surface deformations are, I 
think, better explained by Mallet’s theory. 

Admitting a certain degree of plasticity of the crust of the earth, 
which plasticity is proved wherever it is tested either naturally or 
artificially, every theory fails to explain the origin and permanency 
of the ocean depressions and land elevations which docs not supply 
acause that has remained as permanent and invariable from the time 
of its first action to the present moment, as the effect it has produced ; 
that is, it requires to be as permanent as the ocean depths them- 


A temporary suspension of the action of the force that originally 
pilfected the depression would enable the mountains to settle down 


VoL, CCLY. NO, 1835. NN 


Science Notes. 515 


sure of 6,500 atmospheres (97,500 Ibs. per square inch), the block 
so obtained powdered, and the pressure repeated. Tn this manner 
chemical combination was effected, and the following sulphides 
produced: magnesium sulphide, zine sulphide, resembling natural 
blende, bismuth sulphide, lead sulphide, silver sulphide, copper sul- 
phide, stannic sulphide, and antimony sulphide, Only a partial 
combination between aluminium and sulphur could be effected. 

‘This great pressure imitates artificially that to which such mate- 
tials are subjected in the interior of the earth, and indicates the 
probable condition of such substances there, where they must be 
similarly transfused and combined, and, as I said before, proves the 
necessary fluidity of the inner materials of the earth. 

If we divest our minds of hypothetical preconceptions of ulti- 
mate atoms and molecules, and their supposed internal gyrations, 
‘oscillations, and other kinetic antics, and thereby descend from the 
regions of mathematical poetry to those of physical fact, we have 
only to conceive that the actual constitution of matter corresponds 
to that which it presents to our senses, in order to understand easily 
enough the rationale of this liquefaction by such great pressure. 

‘A liquid differs from a solid in holding itself together by such 
‘weak cohesion that it cannot sustain its own weight, or, otherwise 
stated, it yields to the pressure of its own weight, and consequently flows, 
or “finds tts level,” in response to the moderate pressure effectad by ss 
own gravitation, 

A solid holds together more firmly than this, but still with only 
a limited degree of resistance. Thus, if an iron bar, having a sectional 
area of one square inch, be pulled with a force of about 50,000-lbs,, 
it becomes clongated and contracted in sectional area, like a piece of 
putty or indiarubber, and then it breaks asunder; steel docs the 
like in obedience to a greater strain; silver, copper, gold, tin, lead, 
‘&c, to much smaller strains. In like manner they flow, or yield to 
pressure, as truly as water does, provided the presgure is sufficient to 
overcome their cohesion, as the pressure of its own gravitation over- 
comes that of water. 

If any reader questions this, let him take from his pocket a penny, 
a shilling, or a sovereign, contemplate her Majesty's portrait thereon, 
and ask himself how it came there? 

A little reflection must convince him that it fowed into all the 
very delicate channels of the die when it was struck thereby. As cvi- 
donce of the degree of its fluidity at that moment let him observe the 
initials of William Wyon, the engraver, on the sovereign Gf his visian 
is sharp enough to find them), and consider how =a 

SNa , 


515 Tic Guitlemsn’s Magazine. 


Deer che ising of cae mete! fn onder that it should run into the 
waimne ani cia: sipag Gacnme's of the “W.W.” 

Ar che Mir =s Sowing of the metal is momentary, lasting 
onty docing he emer of ; im Mr. Spring’s experiments the 
pressire was csocc sus zn te dakfity continued accordingly, with 
sive interSow of he muetinis when their self-cohesions are balanced 
by che expaasire energy of best, 





A Bs Rive 
A TELEGRAM Soc New York. dated October gth, makes 2 
va starting geograpéica' satement. It tells of an exploring party 
im Alaska that bas tareDed no less than two thousand miles down the 
stream of the Yoksa siver, which they report to be one of the largest 
in the workd, more 15 seven miles broad in some places, and dis- 
charging fiity per or: more wazer than the Mississippi. 

As few of us learned anything about this river in the course of 
our school lessons oa geostapby, I may mention that, according to 
my atlas (an old one, pabiished by the Society for the Diffusion of 
Usefal Knowledge, this river commences in the northern part of 
British Cotumbdia abozt 3 ttle to the E. of the Island of 
Sitka, or New Archange!. and proceeds N. ard W. to Behring’s Straits, 
but its length, as there represented, is Little more than half of that of 
the Mississippi, with not one-twentieth of the number and magnitude 
of its tributaries. 








W, MATTIEU WILLIAMS. 





S17 


TABLE TALK, 


Puysicat, DEGENERACY, 


T is to be regretted that no accurate statistics concerning the 
average dimensions of Englishmen at different epochs have 
been transmitted to the present generation, Such evidence as we 
possess, consisting in the armour wom by the warriors of former 
days, the monuments to be found in churches, and the like, is 
delusive, as it applics principally to the well-nurtured and the gently 
born. Not much more valuable as a basis for argument is the fret 
that the standard of size in the army hasbeen diminished. Increased 
wages and the improved conditions of artisan life take from the 
working classes the inducements formerly subsisting to join the army. 
‘The testimony of literature is meanwhile untrustworthy. Writers 
earlier than Homer speak of the degeneracy of the existing race when 


compared with its forefathers. It is indeed a curious and significant” 


fact that what is known as the “ Papyrus Prisse,” a work preserved 
in the Bibliothéque Nationale of Paris, which may claim to be the 
most ancient of existing books, is occupied with a wail over the 
degeneracy of the days in which the writer lived. In the work in 
question, which is older by many centuries than the time of Moses, 
and is assumably older than the date ordinarily assigned to Abraham, a 
sage deplores the deterioration of the age, and laments the good old 
times passed away.' Since the days of this earliest of jeremiads, the 
same note has been incessantly struck, The reactionary process that 
has been described would, if there were any foundation for these 
statements, have sufficed to reduce men from the dimensions of 
giants to those of pigmies, While laughing at such testimony, 
however, I cannot shut my eyes to facts, A walk on a fine Sunday 
‘will, I think, serve to convince the most optimistic that under the 
various degrading influences of city life our working population is 
growing terribly stunted. It may be that I share the delusions of 
earlier and wiser men, but I am of opinion that the average bulk of 
‘our working population is undergoing serious diminution, 

* The Alphaiet, By Tsoac Taylor, M.A., LInD. Kegan Paul, Tronch, & Co. 
Vol. i, p. 96, 











Table Talk, 519 


scholar, that Hamlet preaches the very opposite lesson when he says 
to Horatio— 

Absent thee from felicity awhile, 

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, 
Dr. Richardson has, however, discovered some aids to felicity, most of 
which may be summed up in the old Latin idea of the mens sana in 
carpore sano, “That good health furnishes an indispensable preliminary 
to happiness, and that the means which contribute to health are 
indirectly aids to felicity, may be conceded. That happiness any 
more than pleasure can be found by search is a more cheerful doctrine 
than Tam as yet prepared to adopt. I would almost go so far as to 
maintain that the pursuit of wisdom, in which Solomon tells us is 
‘mitch sorrow, is, on the whole, as likely a means to the end Dr, 
Richardson sets before him, as the pursuit of sanitation. 


A Jouxson Centenary, 


EXT year will be the centenary of the death of Samuel 
Johnson. The propriety of commemorating the occasion 
by some form of ceremonial has already begun to be discussed. It 
is to be hoped that something more than a local celebration such as 
‘Staffordshire appears to meditate will be attempted. If Johnson was 
born in Lichfield, he lived and died in London. In London his 
work was done, and Westminster Abbey holds his remains. 
Fortunately for England, there is rarely a year that may not claim 
to be the centenary of some man great enough to deserve a 
monument. To an extent not casily paralleled, however, Johnson 
is a representative and typical Englishman, We are not lucky in our 
efforts to erect statues to men of letters ; witness the fiasco in which 
the atiempt to celebrate the tercentenary of Shakespeare resulted. 
Johnson is, however, a promising subject for a sculptor, and I cannot 
‘but think that the genius of 2 Woolner could be put to no better 
purpose than enriching London with a statue worthy of the name, 
‘The site of this should not be far from the Fleet Street which John- 
ton loved. Should the proposed alterations involving the removal of 
St. Clement’s Church be carried out, space might be found for a 
bronze statue looking eastward, A new cause for removing the 
civic Griffin might then be furnished. It is very satisfactory to hear 
that the loyalty of New South Wales has led to the order for statues, 
heroic size, of the Queen and the Prince of Wales, I own, however, 
to being weary of the monopoly of monuments accorded the 
governing and fighting classes, 





THE 


GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. 


Decesper 1883. 


KITCHEN GARDENS, OLD AND 
NEW, 


mt GARDEN,” said Bacon, “is the purest of haman pleasures ;"" 

‘and the pleasure of the ordinary kitchen garden is indeed so 
pure that there is no profit mixed with it, Healthy exercise and the 
placid joy of contemplating the queer results of his own back-aching 
Tabours is all that an ordinary mortal ought to expect from the ground 
which he lays out in vegetables. No sordid element of commercial 
speculation, rio gastronomic greed, should be allowed to enter into 
his calculations, else he will be sorely disappointed. After six 
months of hocing, sowing, weeding, pegging down, tying up, thinning 
out, and irrigating, the amateur as he walks abroad among the relies 
of his own horticulture may. regard himself either as 2 peripatetic 
philosopher with an admixture of the tenets of the Stoical school, or 
a miscrable lunatic, according to the modesty or extravagance of his 
disappointed anticipations. A kitchen garden is probably so called 
because no kitchen is small enough to Le regularly supplied from it, 
‘The fruit-rees on the wall blossom enthusiastically, it is trae, in 
spring; but the fruit drops off precociously, and neighbours’ children 
‘and the birds of the air divide between them such as perseveres till 
autumn. Wasps and ants exploit the peaches. Earwigs domesticate 
themselves inside the artichokes, Placid slugs and caterpillars dwell 
in the cool shade of the leafy vegetables. What the earthworm 
spares the wire-worm eats ; and the celery-worm, the onion-worm, 
the turnip-fly, and the cabbage-moth have cach their special province 
of botanical study. Cocks and hens, too, have impertinent 
scientific tendencies, with an especial weakness for investigating the 
upper strata of the earth's surface and the roots of flowering planta. 
Tt is also wonderful, as an American writer has july Soserred oe, 

Vor, CCLY. NO. 1836, oo 











Kitchen Gardens, Old and New, 523 


rendezvous where they can interchange information with the country 
members of their party, a shady grove of four-foot-high eclery has 
few equals. The cabbage too—in appearance the most unsephis- 
ticated of vegetables—has a misctly way of shooting up unexpectedly 
into walking-sticks, marked off into six-inch lengths by large solitary 
Teaves of open lattice-work through which the slugs and caterpillars 
peep at one another with mutual respect. Radishes and carrots, 
again, demoralise each other. ‘They appear to know when they have 
only to deal with an amateur, and deliberately conspire to puzzle 
him as to their identity by exchanging outlines—the carrots 
developing a small one-inch bulb, and the radishesstriking downwards 
4s thin as whip-cord. A solitary peck of potatoes, and undersized 
‘ones at that, seems a poor output from a quarter of an acre of 
lwxuriant foliage and blossom. But, as a rule, amateur potatoes 
prefer to make a great show above ground, with fibrous roots that 
are as difficult to follow as the roots of Sanskrit, and end in nothing 
ora wire-worm. For some reason the blackbirds and thrushes 
that sing so sweetly when their day’s labouris ended never seem to care 
to eat those wire-worms. They prefer to hunt among the ripe cherries 
for caterpillars ; and when strawberries are in season they are always 
among the strawberry-runners—looking for snails. 

Peas are often more satisfvetory than anything else. With a 
plentiful supply of imeand soot, a few hundred rags tied to strings, and 
aboy hired to shoutall day among the rows, it is possible for any one to 
secure n retiirn of at least fifty per cent. of the outlay upon the bean- 
poles for them to climb up. Bue from some vegetables so much 
must never be expected. Cauliflowers, for instance, all stalk, leaves, 
and no blossom ; or rhubarb, all blossom, leaves, and no stalks ; or 
parsley, all blossom and stalks and no leaves—are neither remunera- 
tive nor ornamental. Such, however, is the normal result of domestic 
yegetable-raising. As a healthy outdoor exercise it is excellent ; as 
@ commercial speculation unsatisfactory, ‘The introduction of foreign 
breeds of vegetables, and the evolution of * prize strains" of cabbages 
and cucumbers, is what has ruined old-fashioned horticulture. ‘The 
pampered plants have grown constitutionally necustomed to scientific 
treatment with superphosphates and chemical * top-dressings," and 
for want of them at critical moments will either become stunted with 
disappointment, or else fling out their starved arms in all di 
and undermine each othcr's roots in search of them, 
changed since Mayer's “Survey of Berkshire” was published, re- 
cording, for the encouragement of husbandry, how a family of aged 
persons named Ann, near Steventon, dweltin compaaixe oyslencs om, 

e048 














healing withered limbs ; garlic preserved | 
thunder; and parsley that was planted on G 
innumerable healing properties :— 
What heart could t] yhat tongue: 
Reva afi spend os 


and as for sage, 

‘Cur morletar homo cui salvia creseit 
Divers sorts of apples, too, had such inesti 
legendary refrain of “ Pippin, pippin, paradise" c 
best judges to savour of tautology, Peonies cured | 
John’s Wort, “gathered on a Friday in the ho 
comes to his effectual operation (that is, about 
so gathered and borne or hung about the 
madness ;” an ailment which, according to 


according to Jason Pratensis, numbered some 
made a quaint collection ; and perhaps it was only 
the loss of so many ready remedies that led him, in 
Society,” to deplore the disappearance of the 
that used to surround the cottages of the poor 
Macaulay more suo scornfully tore to mgs. 
(pea shal clear pe) 





Kitchen Gardens, Old and New. 525 


is concerned, Macaulay might just as well have transposed his 
substantives and cjaculated, “ Rose-bushes and independence rather 
than steam-engines and Poor Rates. Health and long life in cottages 
with weather stains, rather than mortality in edifices which time cannot 
mellow” because they are built of shoddy, and will not stand long 
‘enough. Southey, it is to be feared, thought that the ancient cottage 
garden was to be regretted simply because it was ancient ; and for 
‘that very reason Macaulay considered it worse than worthless. The 
truth of course lies between these two extremes, “Whatever is,” 
the poet should have said if it had fitted into his metre, “ is better 
on the whole than what has becn ;” but an innovation, however 
salutary, always takes away something that we would rather keep— 
“ever,” a3 Lord Bacon wisely said, “it mends some, and pairs other,” 
Nevertheless I am half inclined to agree that “ Father Time never 
made a more cruel scythe-stroke than that with which he mowed 
down the sweet-scented crop of our old-fashioned kitchen garden,” 
Only here and there, in the outlying comers of the byways of rustic 
civilisation, are some few stragglers still to be met with—rue and 
rosemary, basil, golden-rod and fennel, with 

Primes and parvitik, 

Mint, feverfoy and eglenterre, 

Columbin and wother-wor, 
A kitchen garden must have been a real pleasure in the old days of 
monkish horticulture, before the reckless hand of his most gracious 
Majesty King Henry VIII. had thrown down the monastery walls, 
without first providing another home for all the quaint herbs and 
simples that had taken refuge there during the Wars of the Roses. 
‘The lingering fragrance of those humble kitchen herbs seems still 
redolent of the good old days in which they flourished. Like the 
sterling deeds of bygone times, they still smell sweet and blossom in 
the dust. “Honesty,” with its plain pale-tinted flowers, “heart's 
ease,” and the bee-haunted “ traveller's joy” appear as typical of 
the humble, homely, honest, hospitable virtues of our ancestors, as 
erodiums, pelargoniums, and calccolarias of the show and splendour 
‘of modera scientific wealth, 

‘The comparison is not, however, nearly so one-sided as it appears, 
Notwithstanding Burton's boast that “ many an old wife or country- 
woman doth often more good with a few known and common garden 
herbs than our bombast physicians with all thelr prodigious, 
sumptuous, far-fetched, rare, conjectural medicines,” the curing of 
diseases was in those days somewhat empirical ; and Burton's own 
mother, Mrs, Dorothy Burton of Lindley in Leicestershire, weed to 


ee 
Kitchen Gardens, Old and New. Say 


comeliness, and all kinds of virtues,” we cannot do better than revert 
to the forsaken order of things at once, for cauliflowers and 
cucumbers have no such elevating tendencies, ‘The revival of one 
extinet fashion in vegetable-raising would indeed be especially suitable 
to the needs of the present day, Oscar Wilde, when informed 
recently that a tribe of North American Indians lived upon sunflowers 
—only the roasted seeds, however—exclaimed ecstatically, “ Oh! the 
preciousness of it!" But he would be incomparably more delighted 
if bis own countrymen should revert to the practice of Evelyn’s days, 
when the bud of the suntlower was “ drest like an artichoke and eaten 
for a dainty.” But for the rest of the world, not being sesthetes, the 
kitchen garden as it existed in the days of our fathers would chiefly 
recommend itself on the ground that most of the plants, being almost 
wild themselves, used to require little time or trouble. Like the 
‘uncultured manhood of that age, they needed no artificial cramming 
for competitive prizes with superphosphates and scientific rotations, 
‘There were no fourth, filth, or sixth standards for the sickly little 
common plants to be forced up to. Where they were planted, there 
they grew sturdily ; and if any weeds contested the ground with them, 
so much the worse for the weeds. In those days a man might hang 
‘up his hoe upon the branch of a mossy tree of pippins and take his ease 
in the shade of his own pear-tree, and, as he inhaled through every pore 
the beauty and the fragrance of his garden, might * bring to his mind 
the remembrance of honesty, comeliness, and all kinds of virtue.” 
There was toom for a philosopher of the Garden Sect in those days. 
He had not always to be getting out of the way of the wheelbarrow 
and dodging the bired gardener’s double-barreled Latin names— 
“ Hocus-pocus absquatolaria,” and the like—which are inimical to 
Philosophy. 
& KAY ROBINSON. 





Mititary Reprisals. “529 


due regard being paid as far as possible to the laws of humanity, 
when it shall have been unquestionably proved that he laws and 
customs of war have been violated by the enemy, and that they have 
had recourse to measures condemned by the law of nations.” 

7o. "The selection of the means and extent of the reprisals 
should be proportionate to the degree of the infraction of the law 
committed by the encmy, Reprisals that are disproportionately 
severe are contrary to the rules of international law.” 

71. “Reprisals should be allowed only on the authority of the 
commander-in-chief, who shall likewise determine the degree of 
their severity and their duration.” 

‘The delicacy of dealing with such a subject, when the memories 
‘of the Franco.German war were still fresh and green, led ultimately 
to an unanimous agreement to suppress these clauses altogether, and 
to leave the matter, as the Belgian deputy expressed it, in the domain 
of unwritten law till the progress of science and civilisation should 
bring about a completely satisfactory solution. Nevertheless, the 
majority of men will be inclined, in reference to this resolution, to 
say with the Russian Baron Jomini, the skilfol President of that 
Military Council: “I regret that the uncertainty of silence is to 
prevail with respect to one of the most bitter necessities of war. If 
the practice could be suppressed by this reticence, I could not but 
approve of this course ; but if it is still to exist among the necessities 
‘of war, this reticence and this obscurity may, it is to be feared, 
femove any limits to its existence.” 

‘The necessity of some regulation of reprisals, such as that con- 
tained in the clauses suggested at Brussels, is no less attested by the 
events of the war of 1870 than by the customs in this respect which 
have at all times prevailed, and which, as carlicr in time, form a 
fitting introduction to those later occurrences. 

‘That the fear of reprisals should act as a certain check upon the 
character of hostilities is too obvious a consideration not to have 
always served as a wholesome restraint upon military licence. When, 
for instance, Philip 11, of Spain in his war with the Netherlands 
ordered that no prisoners of war should be released or exchanged, 
‘nor any contributions be accepted as an immunity from confiscation, 
the threat of retaliation led to the withdrawal of bis iniquitous 
Proclamation, Nor are other similar instances far to seek, 
~ - Nevertheless, it is evident that, a little as war itself is prevented 
by consideration of the forces in opposition, will its peculiar 
‘excesses, which constitute its details, be restrained by the fear of 
retaliatory measures ; and inasmuch as the primary offence is move 








Military Reprisals, 53t 


instead of retaliating, released’ some of his prisoners and thereby 
brought the foe to regard him with favour, We read in Froissart 
that the Lisboners refrained from retaliating on the Castilians, when 
the latter mutilated their Portuguese prisoners; and the English 
Government acted nobly when it refused to reciprocate the decree 
of the French Convention (though that also was meant a8 a measure 
of reprisals) that no English or Hanoverian prisoner should be 
allowed any quarter.' But the best story of this kind is that told by 
Herodotus of Xerxes the Persian. ‘The Spartans had thrown into 
a well the Persian envoys who had come to demand of them earth 
and water. In remorse they sent two of their nobles to Xerxes to be 
killed in atonement ; but Xerxes, when he heard the purport of their 
visit, answered them that he would not act like the Spartans, who 
by killing hhis heralds had broken the laws that were regarded as 
sacred by all mankind, and that, of such conduct as he blamed in 
them, he would never be guilty himself? 

But the most curious feature in the history of reprisals is the fact 
that they were once regarded as justly exacted for the mere offence 
of hostile opposition or self-defence. Grotius states that it was the 

_ almost constant practice of the Romans to kill the leaders of an 
enemy, whether they had surrendered or begn captured, on the day 
of triumph. Jugurtha indeed was put to death in prison; but the, 
more usual practice appears to have been to keep conquered poten- 
tates in custody, after they had been led in triumph before the 
consul’s chariot. ‘This was the fite of Perseus, king of Macedonia, 
who was also allowed to retain his attendants, money, plate, and 
furniture*; of Gentius, king of Illyria‘; of Bituitus, king of the 
Arvernians. Prisoners of less di 
Kept in custody till their friends paid their ransom. 

~ But in the medieval history of Europe, in the so-called times of 
chivalry, @ far worse spirit prevailed with regard to the treatment of 
captives, Godfrey of Bouillon, one of the brightest memories of 
chivalry, was responsible for the promiscuous slaughter of three days 





| Villinuené (2°Exprit ole hw Guerre, 71) gives the following version : “En 1795 
‘et en 794, le gouvernement anglais ayant. violé le droit des geos contre Ia 
‘République Francaise, la Convention, dans un accés de brutale colére, décréta 
tes verait “Ue aucun pritonnier anglais oa hanovrien, c'est-A-dire que 
‘serajent mis en mort, encore quills se rendissent. Mais ce décret fut 
Loe pemal comminatoire lo Comité de Salut-Public, sachont tréybien que de 
misérables soldats n'aient point coupables, donna Vordre secret de faire grice 

tnaee tons Tes vainens.”” 

4 Herodotus, vii 136. * Livy, xiv 42. 
4 2B. sly. 43. 


inl a 








Military Reprisals, 533 


of its bravest defenders should be delivered up to justice, four of 
whom were beheaded at Paris, and its commander at once hung to 
a tree outside the walls of the city (1422)! When the castle of 
Guetron surrendered to Sir John de Luxembourg, all its defenders 
‘were made prisoners, and “‘on the morrow, by orders from Sir John 
de Luxembourg, they were all strangled and hung on trees (except 
four or six), one of their companions serving for executioner,” 

Not that there was any special cruelty in the English mode of 
warfare. They simply conformed to the customs of the time, as we 
may sec by reference to the French and Burgundian wars into which 
they allowed themselves to be drawn. In 1434, the garrison of Chau- 
mont “was soon so hardly pressed that it surrendered at discretion 
to the Duke of Burgundy (Philip the Good), who had upwards of too 
of them hanged ;” and as with the townsmen, so with those in the 
castle? Boumonville, who commanded Soissons for the Duke of 
Burgundy, aud whom Monstrelet calls “the flower of the warriors of 
all. France," was beheaded at Paris, after the capture of the town, by 
order of the king and council, and lis body hung toa gibbet, like a 
common malefactor’s (1414) When Dinant was taken by storm by the 
Burgundians, the prisoners, about 800, were drowned before Bovines 
{1456)® When the town of Saint-frou surrendered to the Duke of 
Burgundy, ten men, left to the disposal of that warrior, were beheaded ; 
and soit fared also with the town of Tongres (1467). After the storm- 
ing and slaughter at Litge, before the Duke of Burgundy (Charles the 
Bold) left the city, “a great number of those poor creatures who had hid 
themselves in the houses when the town was taken and were afterwards 
made prisoners, were hanged" (1468).7_ At Nesle, most of those who 
were taken alive were hung, and some had their hands cut off (1472). 
After the battle of Granson, the Swiss retook two castles from the 
French, and hung all the Burgundians they found in them. ‘They 
then retook the town and castle of Granson, and otdered siz 
Germans whom the Burgundians had hung to be cut down, and as 
many of the Burgundians as were still in Granson to be suspended on. 
the same halters (1476). In the skirmishes that occurred in a time 
of truce on the frontiers of Picardy, between the French king’s forces 
and those of the Duke of Austria, “all the prisoners that were taker 
‘on both sides were immediately hanged, without permitting any, of 
what degree or rank soever, to be ransomed" (1481), And as a 


| Monsirelet, |. 259, * Phitip de Commins, thy te 





* Lh tie 4s 
* BA. y 





owe 


Military Reprisals, 535° 


one of the laws of war; and is not even at prevent totally exploded. 
What an idea! to punish a brave man for having performed his 
duty.” ! 

Nor (what is more remarkable) is the maxim even yet definitely 
expunged from the unwritten code of martial etiquette, ‘The original 
Russian project, submitted to the Brussels Conference, proposed to 
exchide, among other illicit means of war, “the threat of extermi- 
nation towards a garrison that obstinately holds a fortress,” The 

was unanimously rejected, and that clause was carefully ox- 
cluded from the published modified text! But as the execution of a 
threat is morally of the same value as the threat itself, it is evident 
that the massacre of a brave but conquered garrison still holds its 
place among the laws of Christian warfare! 

‘This peculiar and most sanguinary law of reprisals has always 
heen defended by the common military sophism, that it shortens the 
horrors of war. ‘The threat of capital punishment against the governor 
‘or defenders of a town should naturally dispose them to make a eon- 
ditional surrender, and so spare both sides the miseries of a siege. 
‘But arguments in defence of atrocities, on the ground of their shorten- 
ing a war, and coming from military quarters, must be viewed with 
the greatest suspicion, and, inasmuch as they provoke reprisals and 
so intensify passion, with the greatest distrust, It was to such an argu- 
ment that the Germans resorted in defence of their shelling the town 
of Strasburg, in order to intimidate the inhabitants and drive them to 
force General Uhtrich toa surrender. “The abbreviation,” said a 
German writer, “of the period of actual fightingand of the war itself is 
anact of humanity towards both parties ;"? although the savage act 
failed in its purpose and General Werder had to fall back, after his 

litous destruction of life and property, on the slower process of 
a regular siege. If their tendency to shorten & war be the final justi+ 
fication of military proceedings, the ground begins to slip from 
under us against the use of aconitine or of clothes infected with 
the smallpox. ‘Therefore such a pretext should meet with prompt 
condemnation, notwithstanding the efforts of the modern military 
school to render it popular upon the earth. 

In respect, therefore, to this law of reprisals, the comparison is 
‘not to the credit of modern times as compared with the pagan era. 
‘The surrender at discretion, which in Greek and Roman warfare 
involved as a rule personal security, came in Christianised Europe 
10 involve capital punishment out of+motives of pure vindictiveness, 

V Motley's Lite Nerhertnls, Wi, 8 143. 
' * Borbetacd!, Frenco-Germon War (srannerion), ia. 


Land 





| 


Military Reprisais. 537 


along the shore," perhaps in reprisals for a violation of the laws of 
war—for Quintus Curtius declares that the Tyrians had murdered 
some Macedonian ambassadors, and Arian, who makes no mention 
of the crucifixion, declares that they slew some Macedonian prisoners 
and threw them from their walls—but more probably (since there 
‘were evidently different stories of the Tyrians’ offence) on account 
simply of the obstinate resistance they had offered to Alexander's 
attack, 

The Macedonian conqueror regarded his whole expedition 
against Persia as an act of reprisal for the invasion of Greece by 
Xerxes, 150 years before his own time. When he set fire to the 
Fersian capital and palace, Persepolis, he justified himself against 
Parmenio’s remonstrances on the ground that it was in revenge for 
the destruction of the temples in Greece during the Persian 
invasion? ; and this motive was constantly present with him, in 
justification both of the war itself and of particular atrocities 
connected with it, In the course of his expedition, he came to a 
city of the Branchidw, whose ancestors at Milctus had betrayed the 
treasures of a temple in their charge to Xerxes, and had by him 
been removed from Miletus to Asia. As Greeks they met Alex- 
ander’s army with joy, and at once surrendered their city to him. 
‘The next day, after reflection given to the matter, Alexander had 
every single inhabitant of the city slain, in spite of their powerless- 
ness, in spite of their supplications, in spite of their community of 
language and origin. He cven had the walls of the city dug” up 
from their foundation, and the trees of their sacred groves uprooted, 
that not a trace of their city might remain.? 

Nor can doubt be thrown on these deeds by the fact that they 
are only mentioned by Quintus Curtius and not by Arman, Both. 
those writers lived many centuries after Alexander, and were depend- 
ent for their knowledge on the then extant writings, long since lost, 
of contemporarics and eyewitnesses of the expedition to Asia. ‘That 
those witnesses often gave conflicting accounts of the same event we 
teve the assurance of either writer; but since it is impossible to 
determine the degree of discretion with which each made their 
__selections from the original authorities, it is only reasonable to regard 
‘them both as of the same and equal validity. 

Cruchty, i in fact, is revealed to us by history as the most conspicuous 
trait in the character of Alexander, though not in his case nor in others 
inconsistent with occasional acts of magnanimity and the gleams of a 
higher nature, This cruelty, however, taken in connection with his 

* Quintus Curtlus, iv. 15." Arrian, fil, 8, * Quintos Cumias, wey. 

FOL. COLY. NO. 1335. re 















of modern civilisation, did not unfortunately 
in the customs of war, For in ancient 
as slaves operated to restrain that ‘indis- 
wighter which has been, even to cases 
‘ked feature of the battle-field, and more 
or places have been taken by storm. Avarice 
as it once did, in favour of humanity. In one 

ition of Magdeburg, taken by storm, was reduced from 
2,700; and an English eye-witness of that event thus 
it: “Of 25,000, some said 30,000 people, there was not a 
to be seen alive, till the flames drove those that were hid in 
‘rmults and secret places to seek death in the streets rather than 
Faieesipa be tre; of these miserable creatures some were killed too 
licrs, but at last they saved the lives of such as 
-out of their cellars and holes, and so about z,000 poor de- 
were left."!_ There was little shooting, the execution 

cutting of throats and mere house murders. , , . We could 
poor people in crowds driven down the streets, flying fram 
of the soldiers, who followed butchering them as fast as 

j, and refused mercy to anybody; till, driving them’ down 
edge, the desperate wretches would throw themselves 





éteisumpicion arising in the mind that a sheer thirst for blood 
murder isa much more potent sustainer of war than it is 
ble to believe. ‘Phe narratives of most victories and of 


from the Venetians in 1512, it is said that 20,000 0f the 
to only so of the former.* When Rome was sacked in 
y the Imperialist forces, we are told that “the'soldiery threw 
‘upon the unhappy multitude, and, without distinction of 
x, massacred all who came in their way. Strangers were 
as Romans, for the murderers fired indiscriminately 

¢, from a mere thirst of blood.” * 
‘of blood was checked in the days of slavery by the 


Regn 


in Ge 
‘Mitchell's Blagrapdéer af Eminent Soltiee, 2. 
era 





Military Reprisals. 539 


1 of them in the better periods of pagan antiquity ; 
and that is the change that has occurred with regard to slavery. 

_ The abolition of slavery, which in Western Europe has been the 
greatest achievement of modern civilisation, did not unfortunately 
tend to greater mildness in the customs of war, For in ancient 
‘times the sale of prisoners. as slaves operated to restrain that indis- 
ctiminate and objectless slaughter which has been, even to cases 
within this century, the marked feature of the battle-field, and more 
especially where cities or, places have been taken by storm, Avarice 
ceased to operate, asit once did, in favour of humanity. In one 
day the population of Magdeburg, taken by storm, was reduced from 
25,000 to 2,700; and an English eye-witness of that event thus 
described it: “Of 25,000, some said 30,000 people, there was not a 
soul to be seen alive, till the flames drove those that were hid in 
vaults and secret places to seek death in the streets rather than 
perish in the fire ; of these miserable creatures some were ‘Killed too 
by the furious soldicrs, but at last they saved the lives of such as 
came out of their cellars and holes, and so about 2,000 poor de- 
seperate creatures were left.” There was little shooting, the execution 
‘was all cutting of throats and mere house murders. . . , We could 
gee the poor people in crowds driven down the streets, flying from 
the fury of the soldiers, who followed butchering them as fast as 
they could, and refused mercy to anybody; till, driving them down 
to the river's edge, the desperate wretches would throw themselves 
into the river, where thousands of them perished, especially women 
and children.” * 

It is difficult to read/this graphic description of a stormed city 
‘without the suspicion arising in the mind that a sheer thirst for blood 
and love of murder is a much more potent sustainer of war than it is 
‘usual or agreeable to believe. ‘The narratives of most victorics and of 
taken cities support this theory. At Brescia, for instance, taken by 
the French from the Venetians in 1512, it is said that 20,000 of the 
fatter fell to only go of the former." When Rome was sacked in 
1527 by the Imperialist forces, we are told that "the soldicry threw 
themselves upon the unhappy multitude, and, without distinetion of 
age or sex, massacred all who came in their way. Strangers were 
spared as little 23 Romans, for the murderers fired indiscriminately 
at evéryone, from a mere thirst of blood.” « 

~ But this thirst of blood was checked in the days of slavery by the 
Momeirs of a Cavalier, be 47. 1h 49. 
‘Life of Bayard" in Petitot’s Atmore, xvi 
* Major-General Mitchell's BiagrapAter of Lratuent Sebsiewy, 














ca va 
— 


540 The Gentleman's Magazine, 


ciara thet 6 ancmey/s thc beige Be at Ea 
for giving quarter when a prisoner of war represented something of 
tangible value, like any other article of booty. ‘The sack of Thebes 
by Alexander, and its demolition to the sound of the lute, was bad 
cnough ; but after the first rage for slaughter was over, there remained 
39,000 persons of free birth to be sold as slaves’ And in Roman 
warfare the rule was to sell as_slaves those who were taken prisoners 
in a stormed city ; and it must be remembered that many so sold were 
slaves already.! All who were unarmed or who laid down their 
arms were spared from destruction, as well as from plunder ? ; and for 
exceptions to this rule, as for instance for the indiscriminate and cruel 
massacre committed at Illiturji in Spain, there was always at least 
‘the pretext of reprisals, or some special military motive.” 

Cleero, who lived to see the Roman arms triumphant over the 
world and the conversion of the Roman republic into a military 
despotism, found occasion to deplore at the same time the debased 
standard of military honour. He believed that in cruel vindictive- 
ness and rapacity his contemporaries had degenerated from the 
customs of their ancestors, and he contrasted regretfully the utter 
destruction .af Carthage, Numantia, and Corinth, with the milder 
treatment of their earlier enemies, the Sabines, Tusculans, and 
others. He adduced as a proof of the greater ferocity of the war- 
spirit of his day the fact that the only term for an enemy was 
originally the milder term of stranger, and that it.was only by 
degrees that the word meaning stranger came to have the oon- 
notation of hostility. “ What," he asks, “ could have-been added to” 
this mildness, to call him with whom you are at war by so gentle 
@ name as stranger? But now the progress of time has given a 
harder signification to the word ; for it has ceased to 
stranger, and has remained the proper term for an | Mersiae om 
arms,” 

Ts a similar process taking place in modem warfare with regard 
to the law of reprisals? It is a long leap from ancient Rome to” 
modern Germany ; but to Germany, as the chief military 
in existence, we must turn, in order to understand the law: 

‘Livy, amd. go. When Pelium was taken by storm, Hissar 
iaeniiasedls ibs tooae went Une cea 

#16, xsvill. 3. * Tb, xxviii, 20, xxvii, 16, 

4 De Offeils, i 12. Yet on this passage is founded the co 
‘that among the Romans ** the word which significl stranger was the 
‘that which in its original denoted an enemy" (Ward, tk 1; 
their eyes a stranger and sn enewy wee ont and the ame 

exactly the reverse, 


i 










Miktary Reprisals, 54t 


‘as itis interpreted by the practice of a country whose power and 
‘example will make her actions precedents in all wars that may oceur 
in future. 

‘The worst feature in reprisals is that they are indiscriminate and 
more often directed against the innocent than the guilty. To 
murder women and children, old men, or any one else, on the 
ground of their connection with an enemy who has committed an 
action calling for retribution, can be justified by no, theory that 
would not equally apply to a similar parody of justice in civil life. 
Itis a return to the theory and practices of savages, who, if they 
cannot revenge themselves on a culprit, revenge themselves com 
placently on some one clse. For bodies of peasants to resist a 
foreign invader by forming ambuscades or making surprises against 
him, though his advance is marked by fire and pillage and outrage, 
may be contrary to the laws of war (though that point has never been 
agreed upon); but to make such attacks the pretext for indiscriminate 
murder and robbery is an extension of the law of reprisals that was 
only definitely imported into the military code of Rurope by the 
German invaders of France in 1870, 

‘The following facts, offered in proof of this statement, are taken 
from a small pamphlet, published during the war by the International 
Society for Help to the Wounded, and containing only such facts as 
were attested by the evidence of official documents or of persons 
whose positions gave them an exceptional title to credit! At one 
place, where twenty-five franc-tireurs had hidden in a wood and 
received the Germans with a fusillade, reprisals were carried so far 
that the curé, rushing into the streets, scized the Prussian captain 
by the shoulders and entreated mercy for the women and children, 
“No mercy” was the only reply,?- At another place, where twenty- 
six young men had joined the franc-tireurs, the Baden troops took 
and shot their fathers? At Nemours, where a body of Uhlans had 
been surprised and captured by some mobiles, the floors and 
farniture of several houses were first saturated with petroleum and 
then fired with shells.* 

‘The new theory also was imported into the military code, that a 
village, by the mere fact of trying to defend itself, constituted itselr 


" Recweil de Documents sur tes exactions, vols, et cruautés des armées prus: 
siomes m France. The book is out of print, but may be seen at the British 
‘Museum, under the title, “ Prussia—Army of,” It is to be regretted that, whilst 
oe book, however dull, relating to that war, hns been translated into English, 

has hitherto escaped the publicity itso well dererves. 

ar 19. BB. Athy 


Military Reprisals, 543 


engineers and one soldier had been taken prisoners by the French 
‘troops. The usual forced military contributions which the victors 
‘exacted did not exclude a systern of pillage and devastation that the 
present age fondly believed to belong only to a past state of warfare. 
On December §, 1870, « German soldice wrote to the Cofaywe Gaselte: 
“Since the war has entered upon its present stage it is a real life 
of brigands we lead. For four weeks we have passed through 
districts entirely ravaged ; the last eight days we have passed through 
‘towns and villages where there was absolutely nothing left to take.” 
Nor was this plunder only the work of the common military serfs 
‘of conscripts, whose miserable poverty might have served ax an 
excuse, but it was conducted by officers of the highest rank, who, 
for their own benefit, sacked country houses of their works of art, 
their plate, and even of their ladies' jewels. 

“The world, therefore, at least owes this to the Germans, that they 
have taught us to sce war in its true light, having removed it from 
the realm of romance, where it was decked with bright colours and 
‘noble actions, to the region of sober judgment, where the soldier, 
the thief, and the murderer are secn in scarcely distinguishable 
colours They have withdrawn the veil which blinded our ancestors 
‘40 the ovils of war, and which led dreamy humanitariana to believe 
in the possibility of eiviifted warfare; so that now the deeds of 
‘shame threaten to obscure the deeds of glory. In the middle ages 
ia the custom to declare a war that was intended to be waged 
with special fury by sending a man with a naked sword in One hand 
anda burning torch in the other, to signify that the war so begun 
~ ‘was to be one of blood and fire. We have since learnt that there 

ig no need to typify by any peculiar ceremony the character of any 

particular war ; for that the characteristics of all are the same, 

The German general Von Moltke, in a published letter in which 

he maintained that perpetual peace was adream and not even 

beautiful one, went on to say, in defence of war, that in it the 
noblest virtues of mankind were developed—cournge, self-abnega- 
tion, faithfulness to duty, the spirit of sacrifice; and that without 
‘wars the world would soon stagnate and lose itself in materialism,* 
‘That is one side of the question, though even the brightest samples 
of these virtues have been given by those who in peace and ob- 
security, and without looking for lands, or titles, or medals for their 
reward, have laboured not to destroy life but to save it, not to lower 
the standard of morality but to raise it, not to preach revenge but 
‘mérey, not to spread misery and poverty and crime but to increase 
» Keene, 33-37 "The Times, Mords 1, We 


— q 


Pee ieee cena as the to sal eae 
aa Ghee ae into the details o! a 


reprisals ; we see war in another mirror, and paige 
one gave but a distorted reflection of its realities. No one ever 
denied but that great qualities are displayed i in war; at 
is beginning to arise, not only whether it is the worthicst 
their display, but whether it js not also the principal n 
the crimes that are the greatest disgrace to husnan nature, 

It is idle to think that our humanity will fail to take its 
from our calling. Marshal Montluc, the bravest yet most 
French soldiers, was fond of protesting that the <a 
guilty of was in cormption of his original and better nature; a 
close of his book and of his life, he consoled himself for the 
had caused to flow like water by the consideration, that the 
whose servant he had been, were (as he told one of them) really “5 [ 
sible for the misery he had caused. But does the excuse avail him, or 
the thousands who have succeeded to his trade? A king or a govern- 
ment can commission men to execute its policy or it 
but is a free agent, who accepts a commission that he 
be iniquitous, acquitted altogether of his share of culpab 
responsibility no greater than that of the sword, the axe, 
halter with which he carries out his orders ; or does the p 
military discipline justify him in acting with no more moral 
than a slave, or than a horse that has no un 
Prussian officer who at Dijon blew out his brains than: 
some iniquitous order! sliowed that he understood the dign 
human nature as it was understood in the days of the bygon 





Military Reprisats. ‘545 


sought.to do at Brussels, on the footing of an International Agrec- 
ment. It is sometimes said that dynastic wars belong to the past, 
and that kings have no longer the power to make war, as they once 
did, for their own pleasure or pastime. There may be truth in this, 
though the last great war in Europe had its immediate cause in an 
inter-dynastic jealousy ; but a far more potent agency for war than 
ever existed in monarchieal power is now wielded by the Press War 
in every country is the direct pecuniary interest of the Daily Press. 
“I know proprictors of newspapers,” said Cobden during the 
Crimean war, “who have pocketed £3,000 or £4,000 a year 
through the war, as directly as if the money had been voted to them 
in the Parliamentary estimates." ‘The temptation, therefore, is 
great, first to justify any given war by irrelevant issues or by stories of 
the enormitices committed by the enemy, or even by positive false 
statements (as when the English Press, with the Zimes at its head, 
with almost one yoice taught us that the Afghan ruler had insulted 
our ambassador, and left us to find out our, mistake when a too 
ready credulity had cost us 2 war of some £20,000,000); and 
then, when, war has once begun, to fan the flame by demanding 
reprisals for atrocities that have perhaps never been committed nor 
established by anything like proof, In this way the French were 
charged at the beginning of their war with Germany with bom- 
barding the open town of Saarbriick, and with firing explosive 
bullets from the mitrailleuse ; and the belief, thus falsely and pur- 
posely propagated, covered of course with the cloak of reprisals a 
good deal of all that came afterwards, 

In this way has arisen the modern practice of justifying every 
Tesort to war, not as a trial of strength or test of justice between 
enemies, but as an act of virtuous and necessary chastisement against 
a criminal, Charges of violated faith, of the abuse of flags of truce, of 
dishonourable stratagems, of the ill-treatment or torture of prisoners, 
are seized upon, regardless of any inquiry into their trath, and made 
the pretext for the indefinite prolongation of hostilities. ‘The lawful 
enemy is denounced as a rebel or a criminal, whom it would be wicked 
to treat with or trust; and only an unconditional surrender, which 
drives him to desperation, and so embitters the war, is regarded as a 
possible preliminary to peace. The time has surely come when such 
a demand, on the ground of reprisals, should cease to operate as a 
bar to peace, One of the proposals at the Brussels Conference was 
thatno commander should be forced to capitulate under dishonourable 
conditions, that is to say, without the custotnary honours of war. It 

§ Morley's Cobden, 8. WITT 


546 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


should be one of the demands of civilisation that an uncond 
surrender should under no circumstances be insisted on in t 
with an enemy ; that no victorious belligerent should deman 
defeated one what under reversed conditions it would consid 


honourable to grant itself, 
J. A. FARI 


547 


MY MUSICAL LIFE. 
vu. 


HE pulpit had now fairly taken the place of the violin. Of 
course I wrote my sermons elaborately, so elaborately that 
after I had written two I did not quite see my way to-writing @ third, 
for the simple reason that I had exhausted the whole range of Christian 
teaching, practice as well as doctrine, and there did not scem to me 
to be any more to say. Necessity, however, is the mother of inven- 
tion, anc I contrived to go on reading sermons at first to an empty 
church until I felt that something must be done. 1 had studied 
audiences in the concert room, I had never uttered two words in 
public, but in the Isleof Wight I had been occasionally in’ the habit 
of selecting a solitary hillock and addressing the cows in terms of 
‘great eloquence on yarious topics of public interest, 

‘This is not the place to dwell upon my early attempts at extem- 
porary preaching, Suffice it to say that the faculties which make the 
“success of a soloist are temperamentally at Teast the same aa those 
required by the actor or the orator, Some intellectual power and a 
special cultivation are of course required-in addition, and it is quiteas 
possible to bea yood speaker without having an ear for music as it 
is possible to have an car for music without being a successful soloist ; 
but it is not possible, without the dramatic intuition and sympathetic 
temperament, to be a good soloist, actor, speaker, or preacher. I 
found then that the time I had spent in wequiring the art of domi- 
nating an audience in the concert room had not been wholly wasted. 
Ab orator is sometimes said to play upon his audience as uponan old 
fiddle. The simile is not ill chosen. The specinl vehicle T had 
leamed to control was indced Jost to me in the church, but the living 
spirit, the breathing creatures, the beating hearts I had studied how to 
move were the same ; and although suffering from a certain ineaher- 
‘ency of mind and excessive redundancy of language, I did not 
despair of success in my new sphere, It scemed to me to be one 
‘foll of great possibilities, Iwas more hopeful then, than Iam now 
about Church reform, 1 thought the clergy as a class more 
intelligent. I thought more of the old theology cout we wate 


l 


ation, if not of a nobler, at all events of a more practical ideal. As 
time went on I found the problem more complex and Jess soluble, 
‘Then I was more hopeful about my cvn powers. 1 thought that 
steady industry and perseverance would supply my natural defects of 
brain and fitfalness of temperament, which were very considerable. 
Spey impatecion o(}edgmen ee See 
How many endeavours after the Christian life would never have | 
made did men stop to count the cost or estimate theirown weakness! 
How many good works would never be begun could the inevitable 
failures be foreseen ! Still the impulse of youthful fervour and inexperi- 
ence which endures as sceing that which is invisible, is mever 
wholly without fruit, and after all scems closely akin to the fith 
that removes mountains. 1 would not have had my life at the East 
End without its illusions or its failures. ‘The first have comforted 
and the last have chastened me, and both have worked together for 


‘When I had been nearly two years in the Church and went west 
to St. James the Less, Westminster, as curate, there was very little 
outward trace of my musical life left, 

One morning 1 was reminded that I was still a masician bya 
letter from the Dean of Canterbury, Dean Alford. He had just 
become editor of the Contemporary Review. He sent me two volumes 
of Mozart's letters, and asked me for a page or two of notice. — 

With the exception of a little East End sketch called “Amy 
Amold,” for which I received the modest sum of £2 from = 
religious Socicty, this was the first remuneratiye work that bad 
come the way of my pen. 


rage 
Joquence of my style. Words! words] words!" they killed me. 
“ Amy Arnold” was a simple, unaffected little narrative, h 
‘of pathos stealing over the page like the evening | 
through the dusty casement upon the bed of the dying gir ‘That 
real sketch from life was accepted, and I had begun | 
Thad something to say it was of no use to trifle with) 
strat about in the borrowed plumes of \ 
flimsy rhetoric, 





= 


My Musical Life. 549 


So my pen, with the exception of sermon writing, which I was 
even then fast abandoning in favour of the spoken word, had lain 
tolerably idle, and when T opened Mozart's letters with a beating 
heart, I resolved to wield itin sober camest, and to succeed. 

. Thatarticle, which is now to be found in the Biographical Section 
of “ Music and Morals," at once “placed " my literary faculty in the 
Dean's estimation. I may say it made my literary fortune, 

‘The sudden change from failure to stccess surprised me a little, 
but the factismy whole style had suddenly changed, T stilleould be 
magniloquent when I chose, but I had learned, partly from my pulpit 
studies and the cultivation of the spoken word, the value of direct- 
‘ness and plain speaking, both as a means of expressing thought and 
winning attention. If began instinctively to choose the short instead 
of the long words, and then I found that I could bring in the 
long words and rolling sentences occasionally with all the more 
crushing effect. Somebody pointed out to me that this habitual 
temperance and occasional exuberance of language was a leading 


feature of Milton's prose, This encouraged me in chastening my 


style. I thought I might not be able to imitate Milton in any other 
way. 

cS Tecom that day I never have found any difficulty in gaining 
admission to any magazine that I chose to, write for, from the 
Quarterly Review down to the veriest * penny dreadful." The following 
week the Dean of Canterbury sent me about twenty volumes of all 
sorts to review for the Confemforary. Amongst these was Mr, 
Howells’ “ Venetian Life.” 

Mr. Howells was at that time an unknown writer, It was my 
happiness to discem him at once on this side of the big pond. I 
believe my review was the first notice that he got in England, I 
had not read two pages of his book before I experienced the in- 
deseribable sensation of something new, characteristic, and charming. 
Any man, be he painter, poet, essayist, or musician, who can give 
‘us that feeling, that distinct breath of novelty, that odour as of brine 
from the great ocean and fount of creation, lifts himself at once above 
the herd. He has the incommunicable touch that cannot be taught ; 
the power of making the ever original and personal soul shine 
through—not as a reflection, a copy, a parody—a soul like any other 
soul, but the soul of the soul in him, the writer—unlike all the world 
with a: message for the soul of the soul in me, the reader, unlike 
‘every other reader, discerned, appealed to, found out, ‘That is the 
precious and prophetic quality which stamps all best art and literature. 
Tt comes from the Alone and goes to the Alone; Wis the eer 


by! ne 
utbich the whole of our modern life in this conventional. copy-book 
[ol pe aecinee cicm v ~<a 


with dew, and the scales fall once eat Ten 
new heaven and 2 mew carth stand | u 
have passed away and all things have ‘become new, even oan 


day is new, born out of the infinite sunlight to fude again i 
“azure of the All," whilst “God fulfils Himself in 

Under the Dean of Canterbury's editorial 
essay after essay in rapid succession for the a 
not always on music, but often so. ‘These; together willias irae 
appeared in Good Words, form the staple of my first book, “ Music 
and Morals," which appeared in 1872. These 
sense written to order ; several of them had been in m 
years. At Freshwater, Isle of Wight, during many; 
Tigrappled ineffectually with the problem of musi 
reason Why it acted so directly and powerfully om 
tion. Tee eaid fdlads a wene cia ae 
a network of emerald foliage in spring ; in : 
of the Lido off Venice ; in the southern vineyards at Naples, when al 








My Musical Life. 552 


occurred to any one to point this out before, though many have 
quietly assumed it since. 

‘These ideas had long been maturing in my mind, and when I took 
‘up my pen In England 1 established this position in the firse part of 
my book with intense pleasure, and 1 may say that the whole of 
“ Music and Morals” was written out of a full heart and brain, in 
which many thoughts had been stored for years without ever having 
found a congenial outlet in any literary form. 

I should in all probability not have thought of issuing, as Tam 
about to do, a companion volume of collected essays, ranging over 
about twelve years (1871-83), had not various reprints in America, 
and translations into French and German, warned me that others were 
not slow to reap where I had sown. In republishing these picces, 
however, I have decided to take the wind out of the pirates’ sails, as 
far as I could, by giving them a sort of autobiographical setting which 
none of the pirates.could possibly supply. I intend, then, to string 
my s¢parate beads upon the thread of my own life, in some places 
supplying certain links of thought which may tend to give my essays 
a unity of purpose and sustained interest, which they might not 
otherwise possess. 


HX. HAWES. 








The Soul and its Fotk-Lore. 553 


the body, is the fact that a person through some accident may sud- 
denly fall into a swoon, remaining to all outward appearance dead. 
‘When such a one, however, revives and is restored to consciousness, 
the savage is wont to exclaim that he died fora time until his soul 
was induced to return. Hence, Mr. Williams ' informs us how the 
Fijians believe, when any one faints or dies, that the soul may some- 
times be brought back by calling after it. On this account, divina- 
tion and sorcery are extensively employed, and certain “ wise men” 
profess to have a knowledge of the mystic and secret art of invoking 
souls that for some reason or other may have deserted their earthly 
tenement.? In the sameway, too, according to a popular superstition 
among rude tribes, some favoured persons are supposed to have the 
faculty of sending forth their own souls on distant journeys, and by 
this means of acquiring information for their fellow-creatures,? ‘Thus 
the Australian native doctor undergoes his initiation by such a 
journey, and those who are not equally gifted by nature subject 
themselves to various ordeals, 30 as to possess this supposed faculty 
of releasing their souls for a time from the body. From this curious 
phase of superstitious belicf have arisen a host of legendary stories ; 
survivals of which, indeed, are not confined to uncivilised com: 
munities, but are found among the folk-tales of most countries. Mr, 
Baring-Gould,* for instance, quotes a-Scandinavian story, in which 
the Norse chief Ingimund shut up three Finns ina hut for three 
nights, sothat their souls might make an expedition to Iceland and 
bring back information of the nature of the country where he was 
eventually to settle, Accordingly their bodies soon became rigid, they 
dismissed their souls on the errand, and on awakening after three days, 
they gave Ingimund an claborate description of the country in question. 
Itis interesting to trace distinct survivals of a similar belicfin our own 
‘country in what is commonly known as “second sight.” Although 
the popular proverb tells us that it is impossible for a man to be in 
two places at the same moment, yet history and tradition abound 
in instances of persons beholding events occurring at a distance. 
Indeed Scott went xo far as to say that “if force of evidence could 
authorise us to believe facts inconsistent with the general laws of 
nature, enough might be produced in favour of the existence of 
second sight.” A well known anecdote records how St. Ambrose 


© Fifi aud the Fifians, i. 242. 
# See Sir John Lubbock's Origin of Cicwication amd the Primitive Condition 








The Sout and its Fotk-Lore. 355 


As, too, dreams, visions, and trances have afforded the rude 
‘opportunitics of learning the soul’s scparate existence, 

s0 likewise he has formed from them his conceptions of the soul's 
image 2s being the exact counterpart of-its material body. On this 
account, therefore, it is considered by some savage races the height 
of cruelty to mutilate in ever so small a degree the body at death, as 
he who quits the present world in this state will arrive in the next 
with his appearance unchanged. Thus the Chinese abhor the very 
idea of decapitation, and the Australian, after putting to death his 
‘enemy, will cut off the right thumb, under the idea that although the 
soul will become a hostile ghost, it will not with its mutilated hand 
be able to throw the shadowy jayclin or spear. For the same reason 
‘some sivages dislike old age, from the notion that on entering the 
next world they will be old, ‘The Hjians, too, adds. Mr. Williams,? 
believe that “as they dic, such will be their condition in another 
‘world ; hence their desire to escape extreme infirmity." Captain 
Wilkes? also affirms how in one town, numbering several hundred 
inhabitants, he did not see one man over forty years of age ; all the 
old people having been buried, ‘The theory of the soul's assuming 
the exact counterpart of the body, cven to the smallest detail of 
dress, is one of the most universal beliefs, and numerous instances 
occur in classic literature in support of it, It has obtained, also, 
widespread credence in our own country, and still retains a hold on 
‘the superstitious mind. ‘Thus, it may be remembered how Horatio 
tells Hamlet that when Marcellus and Bernardo were on their 


. A figure like your father, 
Armed at point exactly, eap-ape, 
Appears before ther, and with solemn march 
Goes slowly and stately by them, 


Further on, when the ghost appears again, Hamlet addresses it 
thusi— . 7 
What may thie mean, 
‘That thou, dead corse, agein, in compleve steel, 
Revisi'st thus the glimpses of the moon, 
Making night hideous, 


In the graphic description of Banquo’s ghost in Macbeth," we 
have a further allusion to the same belief. 

“Again, the objective figures seen in dreams led the uncultured 
mind to regard the soul asa substantial material being,—a survival 


©1 Bip and the FGjianr, 5. 183. 
¥ United States Exploring Expatition, coven’ wie, Qe 20 


va oi 








hg 


The Soul and its Folk-Lore, 559 


to some of those prevalent in our own country, a Lancashire legend 
identifies the plover as the transmuted soul of a Jew; and then 
there is the popular tradition of the owl and the baker's daughter, 
which Shakespeare has immortalised in “Hamlet” (act iv. sc. 5), 
where Ophelia exclaims, * They say the owl was a baker's daughter ; 
Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.” 
Douce says the following story was eurrent among the Gloucester- 
shire peasantry: “Our Saviour went into a baker's shop where they 
were baking and asked for some bread to cat; the mistress of the 
shop immediately put a piece of dough in the oven to bake for 
him, but was reprimanded by her daughter, who, insisting that the 
Piece was too lange, reduced it to a very small size ; the dough, how+ 
ever, immediately began to swell, and presently became a most enor- 
mous size, whereupon the baker's daughter cried out,‘ Heugh, heugh, 
heugh t’ which owl-like noise probably induced our Saviour to trans- 
form her into that bird for her wickedness." Another version of the 
same story, #8 formerly known in Herefordshire, substitutes a fairy 
in the place of Christ. Similar legends also are found on the Con- 
tinent" Gervase of Tilbury tells how the stork was formerly re- 
garded as both bird and man, on account of which superstition it 
is carefully protected from injury in Prussia. According to a Cornish 
tradition, King Arthur is said to have been changed into a raven ?; 
‘and there js still a popular notion common among many of the 
peasantry that the sparrow carries at death the soul of the dead, 
‘Hence it is regarded as unlucky when these birds are seen near the 
window of a sick room, Mr. Kelly? relates an instance of this belief: 
“* Look, my dear," said §, S,'s wife to him one moming, as he lay in 
bed ; *Iook at that kite flying round the room.’ He saw nothing, 
but heard a noise like a large bird flapping its wings. A few minutes 
afterwards a sparrow came, dashed its bill against the window, and 
flew away again, ‘Oh }’ said Mrs. S,, ‘something is the matter with 
poor Edward’ (her brother). She had hardly said the words when 
@ man on horseback rode up, and said, when S. opened the door to 
him, ‘Don’t frighten poor Mary, but master has just expired’ The 
‘messenger had only ridden from Somers Town to Compton Street, 
Soho.” Under a variety of forms the same superstition” prevails 
‘on the Continent, being extensively associated with the dove. In 
‘the Breton ballad of * Lord Nann and the Korrigan” it is thus alluded 
to — 

+ See Dasent's Filer af she Norse, 1859, 230. 

* See Hant's Aypular Kemances of the West of England. 

* Sado Burepoae Fats Lore, 104. 


The Soul and its Folk-Lore. 561 


into animals being only another branch of the same animistic con- 
ception which has been handed down from the distant past. 
According to Herodotus it held a prominent place amongst the 
Egyptians; and in Greek philosophy great teachers, as we know, 
stood forth to proclaim it—Pythagoras being its powerful advocate. 
At the present day it finds plenty of exponents among the lower 
aces, and in this country, here and there, distinct traces of it crop 
up in unexpected quarters. Shakespeare, it may be remembered, has 
given several amusing allusions to this belief, as, for instance, in the 
“Tempest,” where he makes Caliban, when remonstrating with the 
drunken Stephano and Trincule for not taking the magician’s life at 
‘once, say :— 

Twill have none on't ; we shall Love our time, 

‘Ard all be tumol to bamacles, of to apes 

With forcheads villainous low, 


‘The elfin sprite Puck, after placing the ass's head on that of 
Bottom, and terrifying Peter Quince’s celebrated amateur corps 
dramatigue, says — 

Til follow you, Tl lend you about x round, 
“Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier j 
Sometimes a horse 1° be, sometimes hound, 





As might be expected, this notion has been incorporated into many 
atradition and folk-tale, and on the Continent it formerly held a 
Prominent place in cases of witchcraft; one of the favourite forms 
which this class of persons were supposed to assume being that of a 
black cat. Of the stories illustrative of this superstition in England, 
Wordsworth, in his poem entitled the “White Doe of Rylstone," has 
embodied a Yorkshire tradition which asserts that the soul of the 
lady founder of Bolton Abbey revisited the ruins of the venerable 
pile in the form of a spotless white doe — 

When Lady Aiiliza mourned 

Her son, and felt in her despair, 

‘The pang of unavailing prayer ; 

Her son in wharf"e abyxses drowned, 

‘The noble boy of Egremond, 

From which affiction, when God's grace 

At length had in her heart found place, 

A pious structure {a)r to see, 

Rose up this stately Priory { 

‘The lady's work, —but now laid low 5 

Tn the beautiful form of this innocent dos + 





The Sont and its Fotk-Lore. 563 


many illustrations of how varied have been the psychological notions 
of early and primitive mees, ‘The subject, however, a8 we stated at 
the ontset, is so extensive, and embraces such a host of world-wide 
beliefs, that it is only possible in the present paper to give a brief 
notice of some of the most important ; but those who may be desirous 
of pursuing the matter further, would do well to consult Mr. Tylor’s 
valuable work on “ Primitive Culture,” to which we have had occasion 
to refer in the present paper, Among other well-known superstitions 
may be mentioned the primeval belief that at death the soul returns 
to the community of elves out of which it came, According to & 
popular tradition Bertha—the goddess of birth—has a numerous 
retinue consisting of still-born children, who work in her service a3 
elementary spirits. Mr. Kelly! quotes a legend of a young mother, 
who, having lost her only child, wept beyond measure, and would 
not be comforted, Every night she went to the little grave, and 
sobbed over it, till on the night before Epiphany she saw Bertha 
pass near her, followed by her troop of children. ‘The last of these 
was one whose little shroud was all wet, and who seemed exhausted 
by the weight of water it carried. In vain it tried to cross a fence 
over which Bertha und the rest had passed ; but the mother instantly 
recognised her child, rushed to it, and lifted it over. “© how warm 
are mother’s arms,” said the litle one; “but don't cry so much, 
mother, for I must gather up every tear in my pitcher. You have 
made it too fulland heavyalready. You see how it has run over and 
wet all my shroud.” The mother cried her fill once more, and then 
dried her tears. At the present day many similar stories are told on 
the Continent, forming a part of that extensive fairy mythology which 
finds a ready credence among the peasantry.” 

Once more, another auimistic notion whieh holds a prominent 
place in the religion of uncultured tribes is the belief that at death 
the soul passes through some transitionary stages, finally developing 
into ademon. In China and India this theory is deeply rooted 
among the people, and hence it is usual to offer sacrifices to the 
souls of the departed by way of propitiation,as otherwise they are 
Supposed to exert a malignant influence on even their nearest friends 
and relatives. Again, diseases are regarded as being often caused 
‘by the souls of discontented relatives, who in some cases are even 
‘aid to Teappear in the form of yenomous snakes.’ Owing to this 


} Indo-European Folk-Lore, 126-1, 
# See Keightley's Fuiry Mythoiocy ; Campbell's Aytular Tales of the High 
faut, 


Sir John Lubbock's Origin of Civilization, 64, 








a 





GREENSTEAD CHURCH, 


BOUT twenty miles out of London, and less than an hour's 

ride from Liverpool Street, on the Great Eastern Railway, is 

‘the most curious church in England ; and were it situated elsewhere, 

or rather, were it not so near to this great metropolis, which is so 

vast that its inhabitants find sufficient within it to interest them, it 

would be a centre of attraction in whatever county it was, and 

pilgrims, archacological and otherwise, would flock to it from all 

parts. But because it is 60 near London, and close to the much- 

frequented Forest, the vast majority of Londoners know nothing 
of it. 

Suppose, however, the reader mentally accompanies the writer (to 
whom this little charch is an object of the deepest reverence) on a 
‘sisit to the little village—no, it is not even a village—of Greenstead, 
near Chipping Ongar, in Essex; a place so small that the “ Post 
Office Directory” only nares seven people, and its whole population 
is but some 120. 

‘The railway journey, after passing Leytonstone, is all too short, 
passing through a beautifully varied country, delightfully wooded, 
and quite hilly enough to dispel the average Londoner's hallucination 
that Essex is a flat country. Far too soon does the train stop at its 
terminus, Ongar; and we set off at once on our visit to Greenstead. 
A turning on the right hand, half-way between the station and Ongar 
Church, brings us to a stretch of springy turf—with a noble avenue 
of trees, and this leads direct to Greenstead Hall—by the side of 
which is the little church, 

Probably the first fecling would be one of disappointment ; a 
common, and very little, village church, with a wooden tower and 
shingle spire ; a nearer approach clicits a remark that evidently the 
chancel is a later addition, and coming still closer, one is forced to 
exclaim : “ How singular | the nave is made of split trunks of trees !” 
Precisely so, and it is about these trees that a tale can be told. That 
little chantry chapel stood there, and was composed of those self-same 
ogz, when, in the year 4.D. 1013, it sheltered for a night the bones ot 


Saint Edmund, king and martyr, 





Greenstead Church, 567 


his royal signet to them, and recommended Edmund as his 
successor, 

Offa being buried, the nobles hastened to Saxony, where 
Alkmund convened his nobility, and it was settled that the boy 
should go to England to fill the dead kirig’s throne. He was nearing 
the land (Hunstanton in Norfolk), when 

‘Through goddis might, whan thei the land han kavht, 

‘This holl Edmond, of hool afleccion, 

firo ther arryvalle, almost a bowe draubt, 

He ful devouth, gan to knele down, 

And pteiel god firt in his orison 

‘That his comyng were to him acceptable, 

And to all che land useful and profitable 5 

And in fokne that god herdo his praier 

Upon the soil, sondy, hard, and drie, 

‘Thee sprong bi myracle {yve" wellis clier 5 

That been of vertu, helthe, aad remedic 

Agoyn ful'many straunge malladie ; 

‘Thus list the lord, of his eternal myght, 

thirst at his londing, moguetie his laxight. 
For some reason or other, the lad did not at once assume the 
government, but spent the following year in retirement at Attle- 
borough in Norfolk, where, instead of his counsellors making him 
acquainted with the laws, customs, and manners of the people he had 
come to govern, they allowed him to spend his time in committing 
the whole of the Psalter to memory. At last, according to Asser, 
“the most glorious King Edmund began his reign the 2sth Dec. 
AD, 855, and was crowned and anointed King of East Anglia by 
Humbert Bishop of Hulm, on the following Christmas day, 
Ap. 856, having then completed the s5th year of his age.” 

‘The sort of education he had received would naturally unfit him 
for the troublous times in which he lived, and although we hear 
plenty about his personal piety, we hear of nothing he did for the 
welfare of his people. How he became enbroiled with the Danes, 
history says not—probably because such a “niddering * was fair game, 
but Lydgate tells the generally received legend, of how the 
celebrated Norseman, Ragnar Lodbrok, whilst hawking on the-sea- 
shore, saw his pet hawk fall into the sea—how he jumped into a boat 
to rescue it, but was driven away from his own land, and finally cast 
‘on shore at Norfolk, where, with his hawk (which in spite of all 
he had retained) he was presented to Edmand, who hospitably 
received him, and gave him as 4 companion, owing to his love of ficld 
sports, his own falconer Bern—and from this dates his downfall, 

4 Galftidus says twelve, 











Greenstead Church. 569. 


varying success, and at one time he actually drove them out of his 
kingdom. [t was then that he unfurled his famous banner of three 
gold crowns on a blue (“colour ynde") ground, the meaning of which 
(although some take it as the arms of East Anglia) Lydgate gives ai 
follows :— 

This other Standard feeld stable off colour ynde, 

Ta which off gold becn notable crownys thre 5 

‘The firste tokne in cronycle men may fynde 

Geanted to hym for royal dignyte, 

And the second for virgynyte 5 

ffor martindum the thrydde in his suffryng 

To these annexyd, fleyth, hope, and charytey 

In tokne he was martyr, mayde, and kyng. 


At length in 869, the Danes came south from Yorkshire, and 
plundered and burnt all the tich eastern monasteries, murdering 
their inmates ; and in 870, Hinguar took possession of Thetford, then 
Edmund’s capital, and a battle was fought there, which lasted the 
whole day, and then the victory was undecided. But, shortly after 
the battle, Ubba joined his brother with 10,000 fresh troops, and 
Hinguar sent an ambassador to Edround, requiring his submission, 
His prime counsellor Bishop, Humbert, advised compliance, and 


pointed out 
By dissymyling ye may yourself submytte 
Sithe the kyngdom shal to you be reserved, 
And that your fif may be fro deth conserved, 
‘Your silif submyttyng ye may dissymyle and feyne 
flor a time til god list bet ordeyna, 
® Bat blissid Edmond was not born to feyne, Yt longid not onto his 
roial blood "—and he would not listen to the bishop; he was 
prepared to die for, and with, his people, and he sent back an 
extremely heroic, but very ill-advised message, and fled to Eglesdene 
—now called Hoxne. The Dancs pursued and captured him, and 
Hinguar, incensed at his conduct, commanded him 
first to be bete with shorte battis rounde, 
Mis bolly brosid with many menial wounde. 
‘The cursid Danys of newe cruette © 
This martyr took most gracious and benigne, 
‘Of hasty rancour, bownde hie to a tre 
‘As for ther marke to shute at, and ther signe, 
And in this wise, ageyn him thei maligne 
Made him with arwis! ot ther mali most wikke, 
—. Rassemble an yrchon* fulfilled with spynys thikke. 








‘Arrows. * Rwelgeek, 
FO, CCLY, NO, 1836, RK 











Greenstead Church, 571 


To take it upp with dew reverence, 
, nd bar it forth tyl they did atteyne 
to the body and af thy eke tweyne 
% Mise vet, god by mymele anon 
& ou hem, that they were maade botbe oot 
<7 sartyng ther was nothyng, seene 
& % Ig 20! this Bt hl 
Paatyned were 40 cleene, : 
~ bee P wis sotylly took heed, 
+ Appered, breede of a purple threed, 
5% “ch goil list shewe tokne of his suffrance, 
. To patie his passion mare in remembrance, 


ow only remains to tell about the extremely well-behaved wolf, 

4 the history would be sadly incomplete without recording what 

became of it. It quietly accompanied the corpse until it was 
entombed, 


And meckly afler to woode went ageyn 
‘Most doolfully, and was never afer seyn, 


His martyrdom took place on November 20, A.D. 870, in the 15th 
year of his reign, and the zgth of his age, Probably on account of 
the disturbed state of the country, his body was buried ina little out-of- 
the-way chapel, most likely a counterpart of Greenstead, at Hoxne in 
Suffolk, and there it remained for about thirty-three years, when rumours 
were spread abroad that some blind men had been restored to sight, 
and other miracles had been wrought, at the tomb of the Martyr King, 
‘So his ignoble resting-plice would no longer do, and alarge wooden’ 
church was erected at Fefricheswerth or Beodricswortl, now called 
St. Edmond’s Bury, for the reception of the royal corpse, On its 
exhumation, it is said to haye been in perfect preservation, with the 
head united to it, and only a red mark round the throat to mark its 
decapitation. Nor only so ; a devout woman, named Oswyn, averted 
that she had long lived near the saint's place of burial, and for 
several years had tended the corpse, yearly cutting its hair and 
paring its nails, which holy, relics she religiously preserved. 

So in Ap. 903 the body was transferred to its mare stately resting- 
placeat Bury, and there it remained, to the great profit ofits keepers, 
‘until the year tox0, when Turkil the Dane, having harried the whole 
of East Anglia, burnt and plundered Bury, ‘The custodian of the 
royal corpse, Egelwin or Ailwin, aflerwards bishop of Elmham, 

it to London, and deposited it, as some say, in Christ 
Church, of, as others say, in St Gregory's near St Paut’s, and, as it 
‘passed through Cripplegate, the lame recovered the use of their limbs, 


Fade Friscens sap + “Pet maximam mio figneotabulata cles," 
BRA 


& 





ground, whilst these are worked with 
half trunks, but have had a slice of the heat 


its dimensions have never varied ; isa 
14ft., and the walls were 5 ft. 6 in, high. 
and was probably thatched with rushes 








Greenstead Church. 573 


‘On the south side there are seventeen original slabs, and on the 
‘north there are twenty-one original slabs, the places of two others 
being filled up by modern substitutes, as the method of construction 
employed entirely prevented the possibility of replacing one of the 
timbers without lifting the rooplate. ‘This is a strong proof of its 
antiquity; for, when it was taken down in 1848 to repair the ravages 
‘of that destructive beetle the “ ptinus pectinicornis,” both plate and 
sill were clearly shown never to have been touched since they were 
first put together, Owing to that wretched little beetle, about 
t2 in, had to be cut off the end of each log, and a wall in brickwork. 
taised 4 corresponding height. This, however regrettable, was abso- 
lutely necessary, or what we now have would not have been ours 
much longer, and, indeed, the restoration of the church has been 
‘On the north-west side of the chapel is an opening cut in one 
of the logs, an anktet’s window, or leper’s window, as it was some- 
times called. These curious windows are not uncommon, but they 
_ are generally on the sou/h. west side of the chancel. However, there 
are examples of their being on the sor/A-west side, and this is one 
of them. These little side-windows are always low down, and 
generally have bars and shutters, but there could have been nothing 
to tempt thieves in this little chantry, and it is furnished with 
neither, One of the reasons of their existence undoubtedly was, 
that the recluse or ankret dwelling therein might speak and be 
spoken to after public service time, when the doors were shut, 
People were fond of asking the ghostly advice of the ankret and 
even confessed to him, as Richard the Second, before going to meet 
Wat Tyler in Smithfield, went to church at Westminster Abbey, 
“after which he spake with the anchore, to whom hee confessed 
himselfe.” ‘ 

But these little windows had another use. We know that in 
England leprosy was a fearful plague, and lepers could on no account 
be allowed to mingle with the general population, Shunned every- 
where, and naturally prohibited from worshipping God in company 
‘with their fellow-men, these little windows were made the means of 
‘enabling them to see, or at all events to hear, mass being performed, 
and through them the Holy Communion could be administered to 
the poor diseased outcast. And that this part of the world was no 
freer than the rest from this fearful scourge, is evidenced by the 
fact that at Brentwood, a very few miles off, there was a hospital for 
lepers, and the estate now is known by tlie name of “The Spital.”” 

‘The window, as far as one can judge, musthave been theankset’s 


mre S75 } (tz 


THE GYPSIES ASSEEN BY 
FRIENDLY EYES. 


JT is of the nature of a true interest to become a joy. Inquiry 
_ develops into a series of surprises—the distant and the near 
sudden and unexpected union—incidents succeed and 

shape each other as do the scenes in a first-class work of fiction, 


eee. anew attests it, Even though it be but a hunt, 
for words, this will be found true; the words cannot be properly 
apprehended till their first human significance is emphasised afresh, 
fie and passion are reflected on them, giving magic hues, 





‘That keeps the wear and polish of the wave, 


‘as the Laureate says in the Idylla. So Mr. Max Milller has: raised 
philology from a study of dry bones to a kind of poetry; full of 
passion and imagination fancy and picture, suggesting the advancing 
or retrogressive conditions in which men at various times have stood. 
So Mr. Grant Allen, when he invites us to walk with him in the 
country, and takes up a weed by the wayside, or by dint of 
educated eyes finds tracks of a mole or hedgehog where the 
ordinary. observer had missed them, and from the significant 
point or imprint finds aclue to processes of fine distinction and 
development whose origin is lost in'the mists of time. So, too, Mr. 
Leland, when he goes a-pypsying. He has putso much brain and 
heart into the matter, that work and play are here with him 
happily united ; and he is able to entertain while he instructs us, 
and to widen our horizons and enlarge our sympathies even while 
he amuses us That is his prescriptive claim to attention and 
anes, Many men before him had pleased a vagrant fancy by: 

the prudences and precedences of civilised life behind them, 
and roaming with the gypsies. There was Christophar North—a 


gecessories, 

like a flower,” but borne as if indeed it were all of 
were not there at all, that can succeed here. Fe 
repugnant toa race like the gypsies than the smell 
‘The moonlight is more to their taste than the n 


secret, you must, in fact, be guilty of an innocent dec 
the Rommany lives a double life: he must profess to | 
world to have no part or lot in the life he really lives. 
of the secret lore which in his heart he prizes abo 

» soget toknow him you must first give the p 
‘outcast, one of the despised of the earth, he 
‘race which imparts dignity and instils reserve : he 
many doubtfil expedients; wor be ehershes vhe 


—_ 





The Gypsies ds seen by Friendly Eyes. $77 


Jordly palace whence he came, of the ancient rock out of which he 
was hewn. , 
And “heaven lay about him in his infancy" also, notwith- 
standing the buffetings of rough winds, the visitations of cloud and 
starlight, of rain and dew, of frost and snow, and all the rude 
materials among which he may have been cradled. ‘The mother 
sings the child's lullaby in a tongue unknown to those around them ; 
whispers in his ear scraps of the mysterious story, between the loud 
strainings of the wind, and she warns him, as soon as he can compre. 
hend her words, to love it and to guard it, and never in his heart to 
belie the Rommany, or to give the Gorgio, or Gentile, the advantage 
over him by revealing his secret. She patiently teaches him the mystic 
words, and dwells upon them one by one with a loving ardour and 
patient persistence. She speaks of the persecutions to which they 
have been subjecthow in years gone by they were banished, put 
jin the stocks, imprisoned, and even hanged, merely for being gypsies. 
‘She gently educates the young idea to grasp the fact that in every 
part of the world there are friends, who will recognise and help him, 
if he should ever be in sore straits, simply because he knows that 
and these secret signs. So the gypsy spirit is breathed 
into him } and he is surrounded by such influences that it grows with 
his growth. No gypsy has ever been known to betray his people, 
or to fail to keep faith with those who have been received ay 
and have trusted him. 
~ George Eliot, in “The Spanish Gypsy,” has well emphasised the 
faithfulness to race-traditions and the love—strong as death—with 
which, through all disguises, the Rommany clings to his own. And 
the gypsy’s pride in his race and language later researches have fully 
justified. ‘They are, indeed, all andl more than they claim to be— 
a peculiar people, not very zealous it may be in good works, but 
still bearing a testimony. If daily, like the typical youth of whom 
Wordsworth sings in the Ode, they “travel farther from the East,” 
the East is still with them—they bring the nomadic and patriarchal 
life close to our doors, 
What could possibly do more to whet the curiosity and to inspire 
a deeper sense of wonder than to hear of a set of wanderers who, 
in the privacy of tent and caravan, use a language which is older 
than Sanscrit, and has through millenniums been preserved, though 
without a literature—a speech which, “in point of age,” says Mr. 
Teland, “is an elder though vagabond sister of that ancient 
language. Despite its mutilated, diluted, and impoverished state, 
there are reasons for belicving that it contains the fragment or frame. 


4 





578.) The Gentleman's B 


‘work of some’ extremely ancient Ars 
| saviieet Gee amseng thee wandentng: b 
| daysof the Vedas, —preserved a privile 
| Mr. Leland relieves: his sei % 
fade ayaio that: ievoftentifnet 
wt sur 
PONT donot supose" sy that 











The Gypsies as seen by Friendly Eyes. 579 


occupsints through’ the medium of Hindustani, Afterwards one of 
the gypsies informed him privately that his friend talked “werry 
bad Rommanis, but it was Rommanis—such as itwas, and the 
gentleman was « Rommany Rye.” 

‘The terrible persecutions to which these people were for long sub= 
jected accounts for much in connection with them ; it accounts espe- 
eially for their strong desire to preserve all their internal marks of race, 
and tomodilfy the outward ones by mixing with the races they have 
‘come into contact with, ‘This they have donc, as it would appear, 
‘on system —adopting the males of other races, whom they married 
to females of theirs, who would bring up the children of such unions 
as members of their fraternity ; fully alive also to the fact that, asa 
‘general law, the mental if not the physical traits are more derived from 
the mother than from the father. If it be true that children were ever 
stolen by the gypsies, it would be more with this design in view thant 
with any idea of reward for their restoration, ‘To speak of fair-haired, 
blue-eyed gypsy seems almost a contradiction in terms, and yet it is 
quite acorrect déscription of a large section of gypsydom in England 
and elsewhere, and well known to those who closely study the subject. 
In Spain gypsies: ‘can easily pass as Spaniards, ‘The race has increased 
and prospered in spite of all opposition and persecution, In our 
country, and In northern countries generally, preference seems to 
have been given to fair or red hair in the case of such children 
as have been adopted into the body; and the half-castes make up 
for their want of blood by smartnessand general ‘knowledge of the 
Tanguage; the half-bred gypsies, in fact, become ultra-gypsies, as 
Simson says, and’ give guarantee for the perpetuation of the body. 
Tt thus comes about that a gypsy may not differ a whit from an ordi> 
nary native in external appearance or character, while in his mind 
he may be as thoroughly a gypsy as one could well imagine. Though 
it is demonstrable that the race increases, modern changes are day 
‘by day making it more and more difficult to trace it and to estimate 
itsextent. It is to all appearance being absorbed, while in reality 
it is absorbing ; for all the elements that are adopted invariably go 
with the gypsy body. Some writers have assumed that the gypsies 
are disappearing, being improved: off the face of the earth by the 
necessity that has led in recent years to the rapid enclosure of waste 
lands, the appropriation of commons, and the stricter laws that have 
been passed regarding vagrancy. But this is merely a superficial 
impression. Fifty years ago Simson found that there was an in- 
variable tendency on the part of the gypsies to pass, by separate 
stages, to a settled life, ‘The firat stage was the tent; the next the 


‘or waggon ; and finally a settled life, within four walls, and 
external evidlence by which the gypsy descent could 


in twenty gypsy 

seen ; but gypsy life will be far from extinguished. English land- 
scape will miss a very characteristic feature, but town life will baye 
gained, But the more that the gypsy becomes settled, the more suc- 
cessfully can he hide himself, and the more, in all probability, will 
gypsy life demand aid from native elements, Even as. ‘things are, 
shee tate berate) Fee eae gypsy women unaware 

that they were gypsies. ‘The women, it pete pear 
if they can, their gypsy 

Romances might be worked out of incidents that are known in 
Rommany record of this kind—the love of tlie open air and Bohe- 
mianism coming out in unexpected and characteristic fashion in the 
children, Though Mr. Leland and others assure us that it is impos 
sible, having once become familiar with it, to mistake or to overlook 
the * three-cornered eye" which is inseparable from the true gypsy, 
lovers, in their blindness, Aave overlooked it. Miss Tuckey, indeed, 
founds one of her poems, “ Gypsy Death for Love," in Mr, Leland’s 
“ English Gypsy Ballads” (Trubner & Co,), epee 
kind: Alice Cooper” (a gypsy of a well-known and 
“told me of a gypsy gitl who, having married a respectable English- 
man, committed suicide, the reason being that she had kept her 
Rommany origin a secret, and was afraid if it were found 
husband would be ashamed of her, Alice was quite sure that 
fear of his anger caused her to drown herself, “She was alaj her 
rye would latcher she was Rommany”—“she was ashamed her gentle- 
man husband would find that she was gypsy,” was the explanation of 
the mal event. “In Weybridge Churchyars* Miss Tuckey atl 
“within « mile from the place where I heard this, there is a | 
stone placed over the grave of another gypsy git! nai 
who drowned herself for love. It may easily be seen. 
as it lies just by the wall.” Miss Tuckey's ballad is so simple, 
and true to the feeling, that we must find space for it, gas 


1 wandered far from my mother’s tent ; 
‘Alone through the skade of the woeds' went: 


fondly 
But be did not know \ was Bornman\. 


——_= 





The Gypstes as seen by Friendly Eyes. 581 


He led me out where the sun shone down, 

He looked at my face that was gypsy-brown 5 
He looked in my eyes, and he took my hand ; 
He said, * You come from a distant land. 
From a warmer country across the sca?" 
Thever told twas Romuuni. 


“Come, love |" he said. When I beard him call, 
Left my mother and home and all 

I never tumed to the tent again, 

‘To bid good-bye to the gypsy men, 

‘My Gorgio married me faithfully, 

Bat he never knew I waa Rommani. 





Anil now I live like a lady here, 

But Vim never safe from a thought of fear s 
‘They'll tell my hustand some day with scorn 
‘Of the gypsy tent where his wife was born j 
And the fotk will ery when he pases, "See 
‘The man that married » Kommani !" 


If he knew me for one of the gypsy race, 
He eould never look Gorgios in the face, 
Me'd be glad to hide in the house all day. 

© husband ! 14 sooner go far away, 

‘And death would be easier far to me 

"Than seeing you ashamed of your Rommani, 


She rose, and soon to the streamt she came 5 
Tut once she whispered her bustand’s name + 
She stood awhile by the water side, 
Then cast herself in the flowing tide. 
*'Tis for love of you, O dear heart 1 said sh 
“Now you'll never be shamed by the Romrnani, 








‘The marked capacity of reserve and secrecy, the power of self- 
help in the most adverse circumstances, that persistency which 
recalls the Jews, but is more remarkable than. theirs, inasmuch as 
the gypsies have no great historic traditions and no religion to unite 
and inspire, will doubtless serve the gypsy race under its new con- 
ditions as they have served it in the past. ‘The Lelands of a century 
hence will look in vain at the waysides, on the commons, or at the 
fairs, for the dark-eycd, dark-haired men and women who once were 
such picturesque figures there ; but in the byways of the city the 
secret sign will be given and responded to, and all the freemasonry 
of old will charm those who have the right of entrée, 

Readers of Quentin Durward” will remember how Scott repre- 
sents Durward as starting back in something like horror when Hay- 
addin Maugrabin, the Zingaro, answers one of his questions about 





The Gypsies as scew by Friendly Eyes. 583 


Whe gypsies are great singers, and their songs, or rather their 
singing, would itself aford niatter for an article. They have the gift 
of the smprovnisatore very powerfully developed. ‘Though they have 
‘no literature, they have select treasuries of song, long descended 

the centuries from mouth to mouth—songs that are hoar 
with antiquity. Forgotten by one section, they dre preserved by 
another, and, like winged sceds, are carried over wide barren spaces, 
and)sow themselves afresh in prepared minds by processes that are 
inexplicable. This is proved by many incidents... Here is one. from 
Mr. Leland :— 

“Wishing to know if my pretty friend (one of the Russian’ gypsy 
singers) could understand an English gypsy lyric, 1 sang in an under 
tone a ballad from George Borrow’s ‘Lavengro,’ which begins with 
Bes ~ Penile Rowmant ehai ke Jakiidye ; 

> Miri diri dye, mi shor kameli, : hy Hp 
I had never been able to make wp my mind whether this-was 
really an old gypay poem, or one written by Mr. Borrow. Once, 
when I repeated it to old Henry James, as he sat making baskets, 
was silenced by being told, ‘That ain't no real gypsy geld. That's 
one of the kind anade up by gentlemen and ladics,’ However,as 
soon a3 I repeated it, the Russian gypsy girl cried eagerly, ‘I 
‘know \that sang!’ and actually sing me a ballad which was 
‘essentially the same, in which a damsel describes her fall, owing to a 
Gajo (Gorgio, a Gentile, not gypsy) lover, and her final expulsion 
from the tent, It was adapted toa very pretty melody, and as soon as 
she had sung it, soffe eve, my pretty friend exclaimed to another 
girl, ‘Only think, the ye from America knows that song!’ Now, 
ag many centuries must have passed since the English and Russian 
‘gypsies parted from the parent stock, the preservation of this song is 
‘very remarkable, and its antiquity must be very great.” 

|. But, though they have such inherited traditional stores, they 
Jove to vary such things as these on the impulse of the moment, and 
‘ate most impressive when they improvise, ‘This gift in sore families 
of gypsies is so marked, strengthened as it may have been by 
‘exercise through generations, that their practice of it looks like a 
series of inspirations. Mr. Leland, who has heard this singing both 
in America and Russia, gives a long account of it, and we must Jet 
“him indicate its general characteristics in the effect it had upon him. 
‘He says itis “ the strangest, wildest, and sweetest singing I had ever 
heard, the singing of Lurleis, of sirens, of witches. First, one dam- 
scl, with an exquisitely clear, firm: foice, began to sing a verse ofa. 


a 
3584 ‘The Géntléman's Magazine 


Jove ballad, and as it approached the end the chorus stole in, s6ély 
Bradepenetest Lee with exquisite skill, until, in a few seconds, 
the summer breeze, murmuring melody over a rippling lake, seemed 
changed to a midnight tempest roaring over a stormy sea, in which 
the basso of the black captain pealed like thunder. Just a5 it died 
away a second girl took up the melody, very sweetly, but with a little 
more excitement ; it was like a gleam of moonlight on the still 
agitated waters, a strange contralto witch-gleam ; and then again the 
chorus and the storm ; and then another solo, yet sweeter, sadder, 
and stranger, the movement continually increasing, until all was fast 
and wild and mad, a locomotive quick-step, and then @ sudden 
silence—sunlight—the storm had blown away." 

Teta not wo be wondered at that gypeies shoald hayssniatem ene 
siderable figure in fiction. For the purposes of romance, | 
living affords a fine sct-off to the conyentionalitics of ordieary life. 
Tt is so easy to get a picturesque effect out of the tent or the 
caravan; here, as elsewhere, distance lends enchantment to the 
view. We remember that one of the class fancied a gypsy made 
herself out a devil-worshipper, because she used the word *Duvel” for 
God, which showed surely that there was little prospect of 2 Common 
understanding in higher matters between the two, and that misan> 
derstanding and misrepresentations were inevitable, Weiters of 
fiction can hardly be complimented on their care to. study the 
peculiarities of the race. The gypsy of romance is usually a gipsy 
of romance—a helpless hybrid, whom the stress of modern circum= 
stances would have swept out of existence some centuries ago. 
Neither their good points nor their bad points are so definitively 
realised us to render them human for most part. We remember 
that Mrs. Oliphant gives a few suggestive glimpses in “Valentine 
and his Brother ;" but she is too concerned with a special 
and too intesit on picturesqueness and pathos and 
to be quite true, and she finally. explodes the pedir 
impossible firework of sentiment. But to Mrs. Oliphant: 

‘the credit of the latest and in some respects the iain 
attempt since Scott to give the gypsies a place in fiction, 

‘The gypsy stories and fables which Mr. Iedaod ad COE i 
and translated are highly characteristic. They refl 
and wild freedom of the life—its sudden changes, 
its delights and charms also—no less than the “pains. 

‘that came by unjust laws in the olden time, And they a 
shrewdness and fun, and the delights of “sturt | 
devilrie,” One distinct merit there tales have—and 14 6 


4k 





The Gypsies as sten by Friendly Eyes, 585 


all usual in such tales—they are sternly true and real ; no high- 
flown sentiment intrudes to soften or conceal the rough, ragged 
outline. 


No. L 


* A tinker stopped one day at a farmer's house, where the lady 
gave him meat and milk. While he was eating he'saw a kettle all 
rusty and bent, with a great hole in it, and asked, ‘Give it me, and 1 
will take it away for nothing, because you have been so kind and 
‘obliging to me.’ So she gave it to him, and he went away for three 
weeks, and he repaired it (the kettle), and made it as bright (white) 
as silver. Then he went that road again, to the same house, and 
said, ‘ Look here at this fine kettle! I gave six shillings for it, and 
you shall have it for the same money, because you have been so 
good to me.'" 

‘That man was like a great many more—very benevolent to 
himself 

No, Th. 

“When 1 was sitting down in the forest under the great trees, 1 
asked a little bird to bring (find) me a little bread ; but it went away, 
and I never saw it again. ‘Then I asked a great bird to bring me 
a cup of brandy, but it flew away after the other. I never asked the 
tree over my head for anything ; but when the wind came, it threw 
down to me a hundred ripe nuts.” 


No. {1l, (Pains ann PENaLvies.) 


_ “A gypsy girl once went to a house to tell fortunes. After she 
‘went away the girl of the house missed a pudding-bag (literally, Zéren 
cloth), and told the master the gypsy gitl had stolen it, So the 
master went far about the country, and found the gypsies, and sent 
‘them to prison. Now this was in the old time, when they used to 
hang people for any little thing. And some of the gypsies were hung, 
and some transported (literally, wafered), And all the bags, and 
kettles, and things of the gypsies were thrown and piled together 
hehind the hedge in the churchyard, and no man touched them, 
And three months after, the maid was preparing the pigs’ food at the 
same house, when she found the linen eloth they lost three months 
(before) that day. So the girl went with the cloth to her master, 
and said, ‘See what I did to those poor, poor gypsies that were hung 
‘and transported for that trifle (there) !" 

“ And when they went to look at the gypsics’ things behind the 


You. CCLY. NO. 1836, ss 








The Gypsies as seen by Friendly Eyes. 587 


to argue it, One or two traits are sufficient for him: “I should 
have liked to know John Bunyan,” he says. “As a half-blood 
gypsy tinker he must hare been self-contained and very pleasant. He 
had his wits about him, too, ina very Rommanly way. When con- 
fined in prison he made a flute or pipe out of one of the legs of his 
three-legged stool, and would play on it to pass time. When the 
jailer entered to stop the noise, John replaced the leg in the stool 
and sat on it, looking innocent as only a gypsy tinker could, calm as 
a summer morning. T commend the subject for a picture. Very 
recently, that is in the beginning of 1881, a man of the same tinker- 
ing kind, and possibly of the same blood as honest John, confined 
in the prison of Moyaniensing, Philadelphia, did nearly the same 
thing, only that instead of making his stool leg into a musical pipe 
he converted it into a pipe for tobacco. But when the watchman, 
Jed by the smell, entered -his cell, there was no pipe to be found; 
only a deeply injured man, complaining that ‘sornebody had been 
smokin® outside, and it had blowed into his cell through the door 
winder from the corridor, and p'isoned the atmosphere. And he 
didn’t like it,” And thus history repeats itself. “Tis all very well 
for the sticklers for Wesleyan gentility to deny that John Bunyan 
was a gypsy, but he who in his life cannot read Rommany between 
the lines knows not the jib nor the cut thereof Tough was J. B., ‘and 
de-vil-ish sly,’ and altogether a much better man than many suppose 
him to have been.” 

‘And so this old-fashioned gypsy life, which is now so swiftly 
vanishing, has found its poct and reporter, who has given us a 
faithful picture of it. ‘The gypsies have been lucky in this respect, 
in having fallen under the eye of so efficient and kindly an intquisity 
and however much they may have suffered {rom unkindly inquisition 
in past times, this must make them some amends, 








ALEX, 1. TAPP, 








France in the Sixteenth Century. 589 


‘no diminution till the end of the story ; and it is curious to note one 
after another of the quick-witted envoys sent by the Republic of 
Venice to the court of the Valois kings, puzzling over the same 
question which was discovered to be equally difficult of solution by 
English trayellers two hundred years later, the problem being stated 
inalmost the same terms by each. ‘Thus Gio. Michel, in 1561, reports: 
“Not only are they (the French kings) absolute lords and masters of 
their subjects and vassals, but they are also loved and obeyed by 
them as much as can be desired; not only loved, but revered and 
adored as if they were gods, so that without fear of alienating or 
irritating them, the kings can safely make use of their life, 
labour, property, and all that they possess, as if the people were 
slaves, such is the devotion and reverence in which they are held 
—an extraordinary thing not seen in respect of any other Christian 
prince or king.” “Liberty, no doubt, is among the greatest bless- 
ings on earth, but not all men arc worthy of her. The French, 
perhaps feeling how incompetent they are to govern themselves, 
have placed their liberty and their will completely in the hands 
of their king. He has merely to say, I require this or that sum, 
I command, I consent, and the execution is as prompt as if the 
matter had originated in the will of the whole nation;" so writes 
Marino Cavalli in 1546; in 1778 Dr. Moore observes, “ They 
consider the power of the king from which their servitude proceeds 
8 if it were their own power.” | 

Tt is of the power of the king, but more especially of the ser- 
vitude and sufferings of the people, that I proceed to give a few 
‘details, interspersed with some illustrations of social manners and 
customs collected from various writers of the sixteenth century, 
but chiefly from Machiavelli, the Venetian ambassadors, and Claude 
Haton, Amongst my gleanings, contradictions and paradoxes will 
doubtless be found ; in excuse, I can only proffer the maxim of 
the unfortunate Marquis de Vauvenargues: “IL est plus aisé de 
dire des choses nouvelles, que de concilier parfaitement toutes 
celles qui ont été dites,” 

It was the fortune of Francis I. at the outset of his career, 
and almost against his will, to obtain as a reality that which had 
been the dream of many of his predecessors—the jus eligend’, or 
ight of nomination to all ecclesiastical benefices within his king 
dom; a right which necessarily brought with it the control of the 
Church and the power of utilising its enormous wealth. Hitherto, 
vacancies had been filled by the colleges ; the canons, on the death 

' Society and Manners in Prance, wy Dt. Wn Moor. 





France in the Sixteenth Century, 593 


‘see that neither confiscation, nor tithes, nor renunciations, nor pen- 
‘Sons, nor even judgment in ecclesiastical cases are any longer trans- 
mitted to the Pope, but all is arranged and kept within the kingdom. 
‘The king uses the money of the prelates as if it were his own, He sends 
bishops and abbots on embassies, sometimes without salary, He makes 
them build, at their own expense, ships, houses, and palaces, which he 
inherits. He lodges at their establishments without payment, sending 
there besides whomsoever he chooses, whilst old and meritorious 
soldiers are distributed about amongst the abbeys to be tended in 
their old age. ‘Thus is everything made to contribute to the serviceand 
convenience of the sovereign and to the salvation of the souls of the 

" Foremost in the ranks of those who thus worked out their 
‘spiritual welfare ought surely to be placed Cardinal de ‘Tournon, who 
‘offered half of his yearly revenues to assist Charles IX. at a period of 
‘great financial distress. In eight years, from 1561-69, twelve million 
cus were extorted from the clergy,' whilst in 1567 they contributed 
250,000 towards the “gift” of 400,000 écus made by the town of 
Paris to the king.? Yet though the church might be ever so subser- 
‘vient, it was evident that from sheer exhaustion she would soon fail 
to meet the increasing demands made upon her resources. Already, 
‘at the States-General in 1560, had Monsignor Quintin, the clerical 
advocate, complained, “not only five or six times, but even nine 
times a year have tithes to be paid on the revenues belonging to the 
church, and this, not once in consequence of some extraordinary 
necessity, but as a usual measure. Hence, in many places we see 
the poor curds deserting the churches and the divine service, lest 
they should: be imprisoned for inability to pay the tithes. I will not 
speak of the many church ornaments that have been sold by auction 
in order to meet the cruel demand." Yet a little later, and Gio. 
Corero confirms this tale of disttess, writing in 1569, “The clergy is 
ruined, and neither now nor till these troubles be passed, can it hope 
to raise its head.” 

“To fawn, to erouch, to wait, toride, to run, 
‘To give, to spend, to want, to be undone.” 


Nor was the church alone to experience how “pitiful a thing is 
suitor’s case.” The nobility, whose rd/e had so long been one of 
turbulent opposition, were now, as Marino Cavalli tells us, equally” 
willing with the rest of the nation to give the king “not only their 
wealth and their lives, but their honour and their souls as well.” 
Neither was the explanation of the change difficult to find, One 


* G, Corsto, * Davila, Storia delle guerre civili di Francia. @q 





France in the Sixteenth Century. 505 


his “prodigality, once ‘excited, knew no bounds) Moreover thé 
incomes ofmany had been seriously reduced by the heavy ransoms 
the ill fortune of war had imposed ; the liberty of some of the greater 
personages had been appraised at 100,000 francs, whilst for those of 
Téser note, 3,000 to 4,000 francs was no extraordinary demand. 
‘The ransom of the king himself was fixed at two million écus, and of 
this the seigneur, as in duty bound, contributed a large portion ; thus 
in 1529 all fief-holders, noble or non-noble, were called on to pay the 
fourth of their year's income towards their monarch's redemption. 

‘And if truth, these incomes, drawn solely from the fruits of the 
‘earth, could not be stretched beyond certain limits, for in the days 
when ‘the Constable de Montmorency could taunt Catherine de 
Medicis with being a tradesman’s danghter (fille de marchand), 
commerce was regarded in France as essentially a plebeian pursuit, 
in which a noble could not engage without being deprived of his ~ 
rank and subjected to the taille. ‘To this rule, however, were some 
‘curious exceptions. For instance, a royal edict in 1566 grinted the 
nobles of Marseilles liberty to enter into trade without stffering 
derogation, but the Herald Belleguise asserted that “they found it 
‘was necessary, if they desired to be trusted, to drop their titles when 
trading with foreigners.” Ideas have changed since then ; far from 
Deing at discount, the man with a handle to his name finds himself 
‘at premium on the Stock Exchange, dnd well knows how best to 
barter that honour of which too often he has but inherited the tradi- 
tion. Tt was only Inst year that, to quote from our leading journal, 
the names of some of the most distinguished families in France, the 
TYHarcourts, the De Broglies, and others, figured amongst the 
directors of a company whose transactions were stigmatised as illicit 
and fraudulent, and whose failure spread pani¢ and desolation 
throughout the country, Who will say that the sixteenth century 
merchant has not been justified im his interpretation of the oft eho 
motto, “Noblesse oblige"? 

‘To pay taxes, or to be exempt from such Baeny that was ‘the 
test of nobility ; in fact, the formal scntence of degradation made 
synonymous the two phrases, “ dtre dégradé de noblesse," and “etre 
mis i Ia taille” ‘Thus not the vain pride of ancestry, but the 
utilitarian dread of taxation, caused the seigneurs to be jealous of their 
pedigrees, which * one would fetch from Aineas, another from Brute, 
a third from King Arthur. They hung up their ancestors” worm~ 

eaten pictures as records of antiquity, and kept a long list of their 
1 Fournal Cun Bourgeoir, At that date the dw Wor was worth about two 
Franos, but ii8 value Nuctuated constantly, : a 





made position, 
roth Detake himself to the 1 
imodities, who would at ‘once credit 


mown for the king's benefit 5 toutheae Tomek 
SEpSRS 0h Devanliaeite sie On ng a 
the devastation of his property by o 
uns pefiterot thc Snierion weliesct tale 
with the wealth possessed by the far le: 
Barbaro’s estimate is the best proof: comy 
revenue of the kingdom at fifteen millions, | 
church, one and a half to the king, the rest to tl 
and people, - 
‘But the seigneur, reduced in circumstane 
Bee ee pen tee ays x Hie, creases 
great noble as one who saw the king, te 
ancestors, debts, and pensions. pees 
the goal of his ambition and formed the mainsprin 








France in the Sixteenth Century, 597 


stimulus tO the liberality of the congregation is often sought in a 
certain hymn, the huckstering argument of which aptly expresses 
the so-called “devotion” of the French noble to his sovereign :— 
“Whatever, Low, we lend to Thee 
‘Repaid a thousandfold will be. 
Then gladly will we give to Thee, 
Giver of all.” 
And the kings gave generously, for “they know their grandeur, 
their power, their treasure, consist in the liberality exercised towards 
their friends and followers." Hence the infinite and ever-multi- 
plying number of offices created as a means of repaying the needy 
seigneur who had invested his all in the speculation for Court favour, 
and hence too the ever-increasing burden on the people of the 
taille, to enable the exchequer to furnish pensions and salaries to 
these offices. At first such pensions were granted merely during the 
life of the donor or recipient, though if either lived too long, the 
contract was liable to be broken, as prejudicial to the crown.* 
Places about the king’s person, previously held by menials, became 
highly valued, “often that with least authority is most coveted if he 
who holds it should happen to stand high in royal favour ‘The 
formerly despised valets have been succeeded by numberless gentle- 
men of the bed-chamber who carry a golden key at their belt and 
are greatly esteemed.” Then came the twelve pages of honour 
selected from the highest families, little boys, carefully tended and 
well-brushed and combed, to judge by an entry in the Comptes des 
Dépenses de Charles. 1X. of ten livres paid to the king’s barber for 
washing the heads and sponging the hair of His Majesty's pages. 
‘To these must be added sixty pages of the stable, each with his 
servant, besides “ushers, officers of the mouth, of the wardrobe, 
Keepers of dogs and other animals, forming an enormous and dis- 
organised mob”; when the king travelled, the Court was followed 
by such “a crowd of princes, dukes, barons, and prelates, all impelled 
by duty or ambition, that the corttge formed 8,000 horse," * 
Doubtless the personal services paid by this troop of noble 
retainers were rendered as little onerous as possible by the popular 
manners of the sovereign, his accessibility to high and low, and that 
courteous demeanour, the acquirement of which formed the earliest 
part ofa prince's education, In 1524, for instance, we find the poor 
little dauphin who had just lost his mother, and who could not have 
been more than six years old, carried about the country, “pour 
commencer & lui faire voir le monde et apprendre d faire la cour," + 
+ G. Michel, 1575, * OE. Cavalli. 
* Lippomano, 1577. + Journal Cun Bowrypeit. 4 











France in the Sixteenth Century, $99 


@ provincial inn would not exceed twelve to fourteen sous." But it 
is difficult to estimate public expenses ; the treasury is like an open 
parse into which many dip their hand, and he who has the largest 
draws out the biggest sum. It is not enough to be on the jist: of 
those to whom salary or pension is die, but on that of those to whom 
it is paid,"' while “the practice of defrauding the soldier of his 
allowances had become an evil so decp that if all the guilty treasurers 
were hanged, there would not be one left in France"? In spite 
therefore of the rapid growth of that taille, levied nominally for the 
maintenance of the anny, the soldier of whatever rank or des 
cription lived once more at free quarters among the people whom he 
recklessly plundered, urging as excuse the non-receipt of his pay. 

‘There were also available for temporary service, within.the confines 
‘of the kingdom, the troops already alluded to of the ban and arritre- 
Lan, all mounted gentlemen and supposed by M. Giastiniano in 
1535 to muster 10,000 men. It is evident, however, that as the 
standing army increased in reputation, the unpaid feudal levies 
deteriorated in efficiency and discipline, till “they were only called 
‘out in cases of dire necessity,” when they were more dreaded by the 
people they were intended to protect, than feared by the enemy they 
were expected Lo oppose. 

“Tl nervo ¢ Timportanza dell’ esercito ¢ Ja fanteria,” such was 
Machiavelli's favourite axiom = its force and its truth remain unaltered 
hy the progress of more than three and a half centuries. On: this 
theory the French army, had it depended on its home resources, 
would have been feeble indeed. ‘To meet the Jong-felt deficiency 
Charles V11. had established the Free Archers. To this force, each 
ksman, who, thereupon exempt fron: all tax, 
parish during peace, and paid by the king 
when called out for war. But setting aside Machiavelli's *astounding 
statement, that in his day the men so enrolled amounted to 1,000,700, 
for Giustiniano's more reasonable estimate of 42,000, it is not 
difficult to understand the apprehensions with which these peasant 
legions were regarded by the nobles who, mindful of theold horrors of 
the La Jacquerie, “ feared lest the people as soon as they werearmed, 
would, inspired by jealousy, rise against the great and ayenge the 
oppression from which they suffered.”* ‘The very mode of selection, 





* G, Corer, 1569. 
* Mf, Cavalli, 1546. 
# + Che secondo le parrocchie sono un milione ¢ settecen(o,"and again, "Le 


parrochiv un milione ¢ settecent,” Avtrerti. 
|‘ Suriano. 


France in the Sixteenth Century. 6or 


infantry, whilst, during a phase of the religious war of his reign, 
| Pl paenenee ae 16,000 cavalry, with 20,000 
| to say nothing of the useless rabble, were all living at 
on the country—which proves its fertility!"! ‘That the 
support of this " uscless rabble," camp-followers and the like, was of 
itself no light burden, will be allowed on reference to Machiavelli's 
“Dell arte della guerra,” in which Fabrizio Colonna suggests that 
every ten men-at-anns should have five carts, and every ten light 
horsemen two carts to carry the tents, cooking-pots, axes, &c., whilst 
to bodies of 450 faot, he would allow thirty-six carts. 
ee te seinen of the same writer, we can arrive at the 
bas elm of artillery in the first decade of the r6th century. 
ii expounds the various moves of the game o 
war, he a that a general action would be commenced by each 
i their artillery once with, as a matter of course, little 
Colonna would then immediately withdraw into safety 
eee ates aru s stiaianers and cayalry would straightway 
guns of the enemy, who, after firing the first round, would 
Be aac iectest tne pestormarce, and would therefore be power- 
Jess to resist the charge, &c., &c, Being questioned why he avails him- 
self so little of such a powerful arm, Colonna declares he doubts the 
risdom of using his guns even that once, for they are far more likely 
to injure those by whom they are fired than those sistem Sena 
pointed, whilst a commander can scarcely during an 
remain all day behind some solid wall or trench (the only ce 
places), for fear of his own guns. However, if the peril cannot be 
avoided, diminish it as much as postible; therefore run out your 
guns early in the day, fire and withdraw them before the mé/é begins, 
and whilst you can restrict to necessity’s narrowest limit the number 
of your men to be exposed to the dangerous proximity of the dis- 
But after all, the smoke caused is so dense and £0 confiss- 
ing, wonld it not be better to save your powderand keep your vision 
clear, your enemy, if he chooses, to blind himself with his 
own smoke? Besides, almost invariably, the balls either fall short 
of their mark, or else fly innocuously over the heads of the foe, for it 
to get the correct range ; whilst there is the final objec. 
your cumbrous guns, if left in position, only obstruct the 
ur advance, 
wever, rapid progress was made in the science of destruction, 
y the middle of the century guns were expected to fire from 80 
in one day without bursting; the inaccuracy of their 


4 "Gian Cores. 
fs -NO, 1836, vr 

















- 


| France in the Sixteenth Century, 603 


Tong—ench having its own set of oars ; yet the crews were too weak 
| to perform the most common manceuvres. ‘Then there was the big 
ship at Havre-de-Grice, 300 fect long, with sixty guns) “thirty of 
are metal.” Of what the other thirty were made’ I cannot 
r. Were they of leather, like those used in the Scotch invasion 
Neagvor were they “ Quakers "?< The French translator evades 
difficulty by suppressing the phrase, a 
-# pat by Charles V. to Francis 1., how much a year 
‘he got out of his kingdom, and the reply, As satel as choose” 5 
‘the remark made by the Frenchman to M. Cavalli, « Fermettpour 
2 called: Reger Francorum, now they may be styled: Reger 
Servorune""; and the comparison of the Emperor Maximilian, 
‘wiereby hie Ekenes! the French monarch to the King of Asses, for 
bis people bore in peace all kinds of burdens without complaint— 
one motsrather gratifying than otherwise to the Iaughter-loving nation 
‘tend at the same time to show that their sovereign was'a fit object 
‘of envy amongst other European rilets. Tailles, subsidies, tates on 
salt, forest revenues, the fines and confiseations of the’pro- 
‘petty of criminals and heretics, as well as of that of all strangers 
“dying in France, the sale of offices and vacant benefices—these were 
‘some of the modes by which the royal exchequer was filled. If 
‘ordinary tailles did not suffice, “extraordinary tailles were asked 
‘and granted, till in their turn, from Tong use, they became ordinary."* 
“Lf more still be required, loans are made and rarely returned; these 
are. asked by letters patent, thus : ‘Our lord the’ King commends 
to you, and, as he wants money, begs you to lend him the 
‘sim named in this letter,’ and this is paid into the hands of the local 
‘receiver.”* Most of the chief towns were exempt by royal privilege 
‘from taxation, but they were sometimes solicited for a gift. ‘Thus, in 
“1522, during’ the war with England, Paris was asked first to raite 
and. 1,o00{s6ldiers, and soon afterwards for “a gifl of 190,000 
‘éus, which they were compelled by love or force to grant"* At 
‘tic same time private loans of 500 to 1,000 écus were begged of the 
‘variotis Parisian residents, whilst throughout the kingdom, families 
i a to contribute their silver plate, Next, resort was hid 
eet income-tax ; for, in 1527, the “ Bourgeois” chronicles 
“the King desires all officers drawing salary to give him one 
say, and those without salary to give an eighth of the purchase 
im of their estates.” Again, in 1§29, to pay the king's ransom, 
“an exceptional taille was levied on all the French towns 5 139;906 
~~ =) M, Giastiniano, 7M. Cavalli. -- 


+ Machiavelli, * Jowrnal um Fourgenir 
= @ 












France in the Sixteenth Century. 605 


three million livres, does not suffice to cover his cpfaications) orto 
y the debt due to the king. 
‘From these, and innumerable other instances of frauds and confis- 
cations, it would appear, that whereas in the first quarter of the cen- 
tury, the sum capable of being squeezed out of a wealthy subject was 
‘at hundreds of thousands of francs, in the space of some 
forty years such estimates had risen to millions, though probably the 
latter term should be accepted according to Dr. Johnson's definition 
name for any very great number,” A similar com- 
parison tight be instituted between the revenue of two and a half 
cus with which Francis I, had to be content, and the six, 
and seven and a half millions which Charles IX. and Henry ILI. 
enjoyed. Brittany also suggests an analogous example: 
whilst a Duchy it had never yielded more than 300,000 livres ; under 
Charles IX., some forty-five years after its incorporation with the king- 
dam, its revenue exceeded a million. Again, it was only by vigorous 
measures that Francis I., in his most pressing exigencies, obtained: 
from Paris 150,000 écus,' yet Charles IX. got from the same city, 
in the space of six months, 3,400,000 livres, Now, as it is impos- 
sible to accuse Francis I. of having dealt too leniently with his 
people, described by Giustiniano as so heavily burdened and so poor 
that any additional tax would be insupportable, it cannot be imagined 
‘that the revenug he raised was not the highest that could have been 
obtained at that time. Still less can we assume that the rapid growth 
of the budget under his immediate successors betokened a corre- 
sponding growth in the national prosperity, or increase in the produce 
‘of the soil, so constantly harried by contending armies. The public 
treasury doubled and quadrupled its golden stores, yet added 
nought to its wealth ; for so great was the influx of the precious 
‘metals from the New World that moncy alone was cheap at a period 
when civil war was carrying fire and sword throughout the land, 
eausing death to all, and to the peasant ruin and starvation, ‘We 
‘shall soon be all gold, and yet we shall be all famishing for want of 
food,” are the words in which the situation is described by a political 
economist in 1574, 
Meanwhile French credit had fallen rapidly, In most Euro- 
pean States the sudden and enormous importation of specie 
had been naturally followed by a proportionate reduction in those 
excessive rates of interest which had prevailed during the middle ages ; 
yet whereas the Venetian Government paid but five per cent., and 
Francis f. had found his eight per cent. loans eagerly taken up by foreign 
! “ Discours sur Veatrere cheney” Koy WA 


i 
i 
! 









France in the Sixteenth Century. 607 


Government, not being inexhaustible, the creation of appointments, 
for no other purpose than that of sale, followed as a natural off-shoot 
of the policy. New courts of law were established merely for the 
king's profit, till the presidents, counsellors, advocates, notaries, 
solicitors and pleaders, carrying on their trade in Paris, were esti- | 
mated at 40,000 ; to these must be added a proportionate number 
of the same cormipt tribe attached to the parliaments of Rouen, 
Bourges, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Aix, and Grenoble, whilst every little 
Village was infested by employés who multiplied daily, and who all 
‘Contributed towards the 400,000 écus which Francis cleared annually 
bythe sale of his patronage. “His son tried yet another manoeuvre. “Tt 
issaid that the year 1556 brought King Henry 40,000,000 francs when 
‘be made all his officers alternative,” ! Thus was the system improved 
by each succeeding monareh, till itwas perfected hy Louis XIV, who, 
by its means, “found himself the most powerful prince in Europe. 
He has no gold mines like his neighbour the king of Spain, but yet 
he has more wealth, for he extracts it from the vanity of his subjects, 
more inexhaustible than mines, He undertook and continued long 
wars, having no other funds than the sale of titles, and yet, by a 
miracle of human pride, his troops were paid, his forts armed, and 
his fleets equipped.”? “De par le roi, jurés crieurs -héréditaires 
Wenterrement,” or “contrdleurs de perruques,” or “ barbie 
petruquiers-baigneurs-diuvistes,”* such were some of the distinctions 
abolished in 2791, when the French patriot, discovering that “titles 
are but nicknames and every nickname is a title,” brought all these 
“ chimerieal nondescripts” “to the altar and made of them a barnt- 
offering to Reason,”* 


1 @Discours we Vextrime chert’,” Kee * Montesquieu. 
¥ Feterna, © RigAn of Man, Tom Paine. 





#, BLANCHE HAMILTON, 


k 


Science Notes. 609 


down until the roof of the cavity touches the floor; and that the 
Lacie ee ayia ee (or its existence even for a year or 
Utes isa pega 

inevitable is this Bet in the old mode of coal working by 
reaped a deplorable waste of coal occurred. “The pillars 
of coal that are left to support the roof form frequently as much as 
three-fourths, and never less than one-third of the whole seam" 
(Tomlinson). A portion of these are finally removed, but in order 
to protect the miners artificial wooden pillars or “juds” are supplied 
‘to support the roof. When these are removed the roof falls in by 
the bending down of the hundreds of yards of rock above, and 
shivering of the immediate surface of the roof, 

If those who believe the moon to be the abode ofcaverned oceans 
and atmosphere, and who imagine that our earth will follow its 
example, would make a pedestrian trip through the Black County 
between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, under which the great 
ten-yard coal seam formerly existed, the spectacle of leaning chimney 
shafts, split cottages, and toppling houses, would show them what 
would happen # the intcrior shrinkage of the earth produced bur 
Very remote approaches to their imaginary caverns. 

“The ‘most remarkable of these effects is that of the yielding— 
1 say “flowing”—of the rock not immediately over the removed 
coal, The area of the superficial sinkage basin is considerably 

than that of the hollow filled up, but of course proportionally 
Tess deep. From this it follows that houses not actually undermined 
are sometimes wrecked or damaged, “Sunnyside,” near Cacrgwele, 
Flintshire, a house occupied by a friend of mine, was split down 
the middle while his family were in occupation. It was 
well. built and of good size. Had it been a London suburban villa 
of the ordinary Jericho order of architecture the consequences would 
hhaye been serious As it was, he deliberately moved to another 
house, and Sunnyside was left until the subsidence was completed, 
when the chasms in the wall were filled up by the proprietors of the 
colliery, whose workings had only approached but had not reached it. 
‘This is merely one example ; hundreds might be quoted, 

Tn modem “long wall" working the coal is removed by working 
‘away from a long face of coal at the boundary farthest from the pit, 
then approaching the pit in a long line, supporting the part where 
the men) are immediately at work. As soon as the distance from 
Pane exceeds a certain extent the roof collapses, and thus 

the collapse follows the workers. 

_ If such puny excavations cannot exist, how oe 


SEE 


610 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


assumption that caverns capable of swallowing the Atlantic Ocean 
could remain for even half an hour | 
Natural caverns rarely attain the span of Bruneleschi's dame, or 
that, of the Albert Hall, and never reach that of the Midland Rail- 
way station. at) St, Pancras unless supported by stalactites and 
stalagmites, A multitude of proofs of the limits of their possible 
area is afforded by their collapse, cases of which (like Daddy Hele 
Plain, Torquay) may be traced in almost eyery great limestone 
district. At earth depths corresponding to maximum ocean depths, 
‘not only great caverns but even minute filtration pores are impose 
sible, a3 proved by.the experiments of Spring, described in my notes 
on “Regelation and Welding" (August 1882), and on Transfusion 
by Pressure” (Febraary 1883), + ny 
wor 


Limestoxn Caverns, “ 


S the origin of natural caverns’ is Ge getoally ake captH 
may supplement the above note with a short explanation, 
Generally speaking they occur in limestone rocks. ‘There are « 
few exceptions, such as that on the island of Thermia (Greece) in 
argillaceous schist, and those on Etna formed by the hardening of 
Java during the escape of pent-up vapour, but such exceptions are 
very rare’; while, on the other hand, there are very few ranges of 
compact limestone where caverns are not more or less abundant, ~_ 
‘Dake a little clear lime water in a wine-glass and. blow through 
it -by means. of a glass tube, a quill, or tobaceospipe. It becomes 
turbid ‘by the conversion of the soluble caustic lime into insaluble 
carbonate. Most of the limestone rocks haye been formed by 
chemical action nearly resembling this precipitation, = 
Now continue the blowing, and the further supply of carbonic 
acielwill ultimately dissolve the carbonate of lime it first precipitated. 
‘This is the action that excavates the limestone caverns. — 
| Rain-water picks up a little carbonic acid on i 
air, then more and more as it flows over vegetable 


matter, ‘Thus 
charged it dissolves, slowly it is true, but surely, the i 
limestone. Ihave walked through a few miles of | ra a 





in the marble mountains of Carrara. — 
_ In limestone districts small rivers are ia the hal 





Arethusa ‘being the most popular and typical. Wier 
Sountain of sArethusa it was the yatdic Nauney sh 


pa 


Science Notes, Gur 


one nymph, but above a score of nymphs was there. It is a con- 
siderable stream, Shot Lreaks.ons teqagha Noenonacunnehsbecstp 
‘on the sands of the sea-shore. 

‘There arc about half a dozen of such subterrancan streams in 
the Graven district of Yorkshire, and more than a dozen in Ireland, 

The solvent power of the water reaches its maximum when it has 
oved through a peat bog. ‘The river connecting Lough Mask with 
Lough Conn is a striking example of this, Its subterranean evolu- 
tions are most complex, and the hard limestone is riddled with 
caverns of all sizes, from little holes affording winter quarters for 
solitary toads to the show caverns that are duly exhibited to tourists 
for a consideration. 

An absurd result followed from this condition of the rock—a 
canal for extending the inland navigation from Lough Corb to 
Lough Mask, thence to Lough Conn and the Moy River to Kilalla 
Bay was projected, thus connecting Galway Bay with the Bay of 
Donegal. ‘The canal was actually cut in the hard rock betwee the 
lakes, and finished all ready for filling, When the water was admitted 
it disappeared, and the cutting now remains as a costly tributary to a 
subterranean river, i 


MARVELLOUS VeGRTATION IN AMERICA. 


N account of a New York Hashish House is) published in a 

recent number of “ Harper's Magazine.” Many wonderful 

things are described therein, and amongst thém a great scientific ex- 

ploit, which throws into the shade the experiments of Sir William 
Siemens upon the promotion of vegetation by electric lighting. 

After a suitable prelude of falling chain, rasping bolt, and grinding 
key, a door opened, and. the visitor found himself in a wondrous 
place, where “ a hall lamp of grotesque shape flooded the hall with a 
subdued violet light," Omitting the description of extraordinary 
draperies, &c., T pass on to“ one side of the hall," where “between 
two doors were arranged huge tubs and pots of majolica-like ware and 
bluenccked Japanese vases, in which were plants, shrubs, and 
flowers of the most exquisite colour and odour. Green vines clam- 
bered up the walls and across the ceiling, and catching their tendfils 
in the balustrades of the stairs (which were also of curious design), 
threw down Jong sprays and heavy featoons of verdure.” 

Hitherto it has been found impossible to cultivate vines with Jong 
sprays and heavy festoons of verdure without the aid of abundant 
sualight ; but here, “ with windows absolutely dark,” a grotesque lamp 
and subdued violet light does it all, unless we adoptanent and very, 





Scsence Notes. 613 


Up to that time he was a healthy, vigorous man, young-looking 
for his years, cheerful and genial, though quiet and thoughtful. After 
this tea-drinking exploit he became suddenly bald, and all at once a 
feeble tottering old man ; he grew peevish, and his intellect gave way 
very curiously. At first there wasino failure of his Hierary intellect ; 
he continued writing as usual with his customary clearness, conscien- 
tiousness, and profound learning, but when he left his study he was 
lost. As an example of bis condition I may refer to one occasion 
when I called at his old home at Brompton while he was engaged 
upon one of his best known works. He came directly from his 
study to the dining-room, and although his wife had just told him 
who was there, he failed to recognise me. He spoke only in French, 
and believed himselfto be in Paris. 

He rapidly grew worse, and died shortly afterwards, just when he 
should-have attained his highest intellectual maturity, and when 1 
believe he would have done so, but for the suicidal habit of causing 
“ fatigue to disappear as if by magic after drinking a cup of tea.” 

Tt may be said that this was an extreme case, Granted! He 
was killed ; others are wounded, This is all the difference. 


Mores in THE SUNBEAM. 


T Torquay I have met several people who have been victims of 

what they generally call “‘ bronchitis ;" not because they have 

any evidence of their trouble being located in the bronchial tubes, 

but rather because the name was then in fashion, Be this as it may, 

they all had persistent chronic coughs before coming to Torquay, and 

all lost their coughs after a short residence there. They came from 
London, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton. 

Many years ago I sailed from Constantinople to London ina 
little schooner, my only fellow-passenger being an engineer of the 
Imperial Arsenal, who came on board in a dying state, and coughing 
horribly. . As we cleared out of the Golden Horn and Bosphorus 
into the Sea of Marmora his cough moderated ; when we were fairly 
in the Mediterranean it ceased entirely, and in spite of miserable 
accommodation the poor fellow kept up wonderfully while we were 
knocking about there and in the Atlantic for two weary months, 
‘When we entered the Thames his cough returned; on Janding in 
London it was as bad as on leaving Galata, and he died three days 
after landing, 

A multitude of similar cases may be cited, all showing that in 














TABLE TALK. 


A Frexcuman on Oxrorn. 


‘OB the flippant traveller who a score years ago came among 
us to acquire comic capital, and who returmed to paint for the 
delight of his countrymen English ladies with splay fect, consuming 
‘at their meals more raw beef and stout than would support a French 
Periefaix, France now sends us keen and shrewd obtervers who 
Strive to understand our institutions and benefit by what in them is 
worthy ofexample. {tis pleasant to hear M. Paul Bourget, in La 
Nouvelle Revwe, speaking of Oxford as M, Taine bas already de- 
scribed it. M, Bourget is cqually impressed with the beauty of the 
place and with the conduct of the “gownsmen.” An ideal of Earthly 
Paradise is supplied to him by the gardens of St. John's, of New 
College, and of Worcester, and the Bodleian Library shows him the 
“very poetry of study rendered present and palpable.” To English- 
men these are familiar ideas, Looking over the gardens of St. John’s 
from the window of what is known as King Charles's Room, and 
taking in the small glimpse of Wadham, which is all except greenery 
that the eye can see, the place seems fit for the home of an en- 
chanted princess, Nowhere does the fecling of mediteyal life linger 
as it lingers in this fairest and sweetest of cities. I know nothing 
for which the mind in later days should rebuke itself so much as for 
insensibility to the advantage with which a three years’ residence in this 
house of learning enriches life at its outset. That the undergraduate 
at Oxford is proud of the city is true. He does not realise, however, 
‘one-tenth of the gain that attends residence among its opportunities 
and beautics M. Bourget scems to have regarded everything with 
a fair amount of approval, and is as much impressed with the costume 
and the manners of the undergraduate as with the condition and 
Plilosophic pursuits of the “dons,” 


Poxen vron Rapetars, 
HEN a humourist so. celebrated, and in his way so brilliant 
as Mr, Burnand, attacks the greatest of his predecessors, 


there is some apparent cause for surprise. The brisk skirmish under- 
‘You, CCLV. NO, 1336, uy 














619 






‘Dante or of Chaucer. The publication accordingly of Professor 
| Morley’s expurgated edition of the “Life of Gargantua" and the 
“ Heroic Deeds of Pantagruel,""' and the forthcoming appearance of 
Mr, Besant’s “Readings from Rabelais,” are matters on which the 
public is to be congratulated. The only subjects for regret that 
1 find in Professor Morlcy’s book are that it is unaccompanied with 
yi form of explanatory comment, and that the introduction is 
eee and less exact than is to be desired. In the first half-dozen 
lines it is said that “ Rabelais was partly cducated by the Benedi 
“ab Sevillé,” a statement likely to stagger those who do not perceive 
‘that Sevillé is a misreading of Seuillé, of, as it is now known, Seuilly. 
‘There are, moreover, but two books out of the five of which the 
romatice of Rabelais consists. Still, such asit is, the book is welcome, 
Tt is at Teast a step in the right clirection. 


As Insrrrure vor Yourst. 


as true of nations as of individuals that “The ebild is 
father to the man.” The future of a country is in the hands of 
its youth, and on the influences brought to bear upon the young the 
vital problems ofa nation depend. With more thankfulness than T ean 
well express, I sce accordingly the establishment in the building 
formerly known as'the Polytechnic of a Youths’ Institute, the sue- 
cess of which is likely to beget a series of similar institutions in our 
great centres of industry. Two thousand lads, between fifteen and 
twenty years of age, are already enrolled as members, and a thousand 
mere até awaiting election. ‘The Youths’ Institute has a library 
containing books, magazines, and newspapers, which are largely read, 
and an admirable gymnasium. It is shortly to include a swimming 
Bath. Evening classes, at which ehorthand, French, and different 
Dranches of technical education are studied, are established, and to 
these no fewer than cight thousand boys will shortly be admitted. 
‘There arc, in addition, a chess and draughts club, a lawn tennis 
élub, a cricket and football club, a bicycle club, a choral society, an 
orchestral band, a drum and fife band, a reed and brass band, a 
volunteer company, a circulating library, a savings’ bank, and I know 
not how many similor cocicties ‘I'ea and coffee, and other non- 
alcoholic refreshment, are served on the premises, and the institution — 
has thus many features of a club. As a means of withdrawing lads 
from the temptation and dangers of the street, this seems to be the 
best institution yet established, It is satisfactory to hear that it is 


1 G, Routledge Sons, 















wa - 











620 The Gentleman's Magazine. 


self-supporting, and is likely to be still more largely used. The 
foundation of similar institutions at the East End and in the most 
populous districts of London will probably follow, and will prepare 
the way for their ultimate dissemination through the country. 





Porric SeNsteitity AND THE Orrxative Classes. 


N interesting discussion has been carried on in various peril: 
cals as to the influence of poetry, or, perhaps it may be said, 
‘of poetic sensibility, upon the life of the artisan. Not the feast inter- 
‘esting contributions to this consist in letters written by working amen. 
‘That the views taken on this question by those who regard it fom 
within should be contradictory is not'surprising. Most human pro- 
‘lems present themselves under different aspects to different indi- 
vidualitics, and between the two opposing views of optimism and 
pessimism there is room for endless gradations of opinion. One 
working man thus holds that “if it were only possible to get some of 
the poor creatures that throng our thoroughfares and teach them to 
sce something of the beauties of nature”—in fact, as is by direct im- 
plication asserted, endow them with poetical sensibility—they 
‘become different beings. A second holds that to endow the 
‘man with poetic sensibility would be to madden him. Such a one 
would need a wife who could share his ideal. To bring a woman o- 
this description intoa working. man’s life, and to harrow her soul * by 
the sights and sufferings that would inevitably await her,” would be 
crucl Dulness of soul is for the working man the only 
condition of happiness, and the increase of poetic sensibility is any- 
thing rather thana gain, So far as it goes, this latter statement is 
true. Ifno existence except under conditions of absolute 
and misery is possible, the rude nature is best suited to it. The 
average savage leads assumably a fairly happy existence. Tn the 
distaste for squalid surroundings, however, is surely supplied the 
strongest motive for advance, A man with a taste for literature, and’ 
with the power of observation that comes as a necessary 
ment to poetic tastes, cannot fail to improve his position. 
most strictly mechanical trades the influences of mind ant. 
must make themselves felt ‘The mass of mankind will 
present conditions, be leavened by poctry. Upon the i 
however, the influence, when felt, can scarcely fail to be 
tno Happens #6 well operat well: bela 








#3 


SYLVA 


= 


‘Speitinuseds bo Ca, Prinlery, Nawateoet Syasve, Loatim.