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^

THE

Gentleman s Magasine

Volume CCLXIX.
JULY TO DECEMBER 1890

Prodesse (^ Delectare

E Pluribus Unum

Edited by SYLVANUS URBAN, Gentleman

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UonDon

CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY

1890

PRINTED BY
SrOTTISWOODB AND CO., KEW'STREET SQUARE

LONDON

1664^7

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CONTENTS of VOL. CCLXIX.

Africa, The Future of. By A. Werner

After " Tatou." By Stephen Gray

Algerine Hills, Geology and Natural History of the. By J. E.

Among Rooks. By DiSClPULUS

Ancient Inscriptions on and in our Old Churches. By Sarah

Wilson

At the Bend of the River. By G. W. Bulman, M.A. .

Balquhidder. By GEORGE Eyre-Todd

Berkshire Town, A, and its Reminiscences. By James H. Doherty
Birds, Beasts, Fishes, Insects, Reptiles, and a Woman's Thoughts

about them. By Elsa D'Esterre-Keeling .
Book-Fires, Our Last. By J. A. Farrer
Book- War, The, of Church and Dissent. By J. A. Farrer
Brittany, A Legend of : The Groac'h. By C. S. BOSWELL
Caterpillar, The Magpie. By Frank E. Beddard

Ceylon, In. By A. E. BONSER

Chairs by the River. By J. Field

Church and Dissent, The Book- War of. By J. A. Farrer
Churches, Some Old. By Sarah Wilson
Cocoa and Chocolate. By Dr. Alfred J. H. Crespi .
Commercial Relations, The, of Gold and Silver. By B. D. Mackenzie
Conway, A Walk up the Valley of the. By Edward Walford, M.A
Crime, An Indian. By J. W. Sherer, C.S.I. .
Curiosities of Eating and Drinking. By Dr. Alfred J. H. Crespi
Depravation, The, of Words. By George L. Apperson
Droitwich, The Progress and Future of. By An Old Oxonian
Eating and Drinking, Curiosities of. By Dr. Alfred J. H. Crespi
" El Mdgico Prodigioso " and " Faust." By H. Schutz Wilson
English Dramatic Literature, Irish Character in. By W.

Lawrence

English Paganism, Two Relics of. By Sidney O. Addy

English Players in Paris. By W. J. L/\wrence .

" Europe, Innkeeper for." By James Ramsay

" Faust " and " El Mdgico Prodigioso." By H. ScHUTZ Wilson

Fines. By Alex. Charles Ewald, F.S.A. ....

Found ! By Fred. M. White

Future, The, of Africa. By A. Werner

Geology and Natural History of the Algerine Hills. By J. E

Taylor, F.L.S

George Eliot and Her Neighbourhood. By George Morley
Gold and Silver, The Commercial Relations of. By B. D. Mackenzie
Groac'h, The : A Legend of Brittany. By C. S. Boswell
Herodotus, A Sixteenth-Century. By Rev. E. H. R. Tatham, M.A.
Heroes, Unaccredited. By H. Gilzean Reid, F.J.I.
Hunted. By Ella Edersheim :—

Chapter I. — Introductory

II. — In which the Hunt is begun .
III. — In which the Hunt is continued
IV. — In which the Hunt is ended .
In a Scotch " Smiddy." By Alexander Gordon
In Ceylon. By A. E. Bonser ....
Indian Crime, An. By J. W. Sherer, C.S.I. •

J

PACE

397

228
147

516

477
366

561

359
631

152

615
80
192
109
152
204

371

341

84

72

482

595
527
482

280

178
46

446
22

280
92

217

131

228

583

341
615

403
384

325
330

433

541
c6

IV Contents.

" Innkeeper for Europe." By James ILxmsay .... 22
Inscriptions, Ancient, on and in our Old Churches. By Sarah

Wilson 516

Irish Character in English Dramatic Literature. By W. J.

Lawrenxe 178

Key, The, of the Elbe: Schreckenstein. By jAMES Baker, F.R.G.S. 33

Line, Up and Down the. By W. Armstrong Willis . . . 503
Literary Frauds, Follies, and Mystifications. By W. H.

Davenport Adams 238

Lost Lakes, The, of New Zealand. ByJ. Lawson. . . . 162

Magpie Caterpillar, The. By Frank E. Beddard ... 80
New Zealand, The Lost Lakes of. By J. Lawson . . . .162
Nostradamus. By C. A. Ward . . . . . . .601

"OldQ." By Edward Walford, M.A 173

On a Mountain. By Lillias Wassermann i

Ordeal, The, by Poison. By Cuthbert Withers . . . 307

Our Last Book-Fires. ByJ.A. Farrer 631

Our Vagabonds — Human and Feathered. By Alexander Lamont 297
Out Ottering. By Rev. H. D. Rawnsley, M.A. . . . .313

Pirates, Some Eminent. By M. R. Davies 467

Players, English, in Paris. By W. J. Lawrence .... 446

Poor People. By C. E. Meetkerke 21 r

Progress, The, and Future of Droitwich. By An Old Oxonian . 527

River, At the Bend of the. By G. W. BULMAN, M.A. . . . 477

River, Chairs by the. By J. FIELD 109

Rooks, Among. By Discipulus 147

Rowing Songs. By Laura Alex. Smith 255

Salmon Stop-Nets, The, at Beachley, on the Severn. By C.

Parkinson 459

Schreckenstein : The Key of the Elbe. By James Baker, F.R.G.S. 33

Scotch " Smiddy," In a. By Alexander Gordon ... 56

Sea- Sorrow. By Isabella J. Postgate 430

Sixteenth-Century Herodotus, A. By Rev. E. H. R. Tatham, M.A. 403

Some Eminent Pirates. By M. R. Davies 467

Some Old Churches. By Sarah Wilson 204

Suio on the Garigliano. By Lily Wolffsohn . . . .265
Table Talk. By Sylvanus Urban :—

A Rousseau of the Gutter — The Bull-Fight in Paris . . . 107

Omar Khayyam and his Latest Translator — Mr. Fitzgerald's
Translation of the Rubaiyat .215

The Bodleian Library — A Woman on Woman . . ' . . 323

Chained Books in Wimborne Minster — Books in Chains

generally 431

The Latest Amusement in Paris — The Latest Amusement in

London — Untrodden Ways . 539

A Parisian Experiment — Rabelais in London .... 643

" Tatou," After. By Stephp:n Gray 397

Territorial System, The. By Thomas Graham . . . . 42 1

Tobacco, A Whiff of. By Philip Kent. 575

Tramps and Their Ways. By Peregrin US 97

Two Relics of English Paganism. By Sidney O. Addy . . 46

Unaccredited Heroes. By H. GiLZEAN Reid, F.J.I. . . . 384
Up and Down the Line. By W. Armstrong Willis . . .503

Vagabonds, Our — Human and Feathered. By Alexander Lamont 297

Walk, A, up the Valley of the Conway. By Edward Walford, M.A. 84

Whiff, A, of Tobacco. By Philip Kent 575

Words, The Depravation of. By George L, Apperson , . 595

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

July 1890.

ON A MOUNTAIN,

By Lillias Wassermann.

Chapter I.

MOEL CARRIG, upon a certain fine morning in August a few
years back, wore its gentlest and most pleasing aspect.

Too frequently the giant wrapped himself in his mantle of mist and
frowned upon the world. At such times his gray crags— magnified by
the density of the atmosphere — loomed out portentous and grand.

But upon that August day all the sternness was softened and
glorified into beauty. The mountain stood out well against a soft
gray sky, a sky with great rents In its clouds, behind which showed a
vivid and intense blue.

A streak of silver amongst the dark heather marked the place
where a mountain torrent danced and leapt in the sunshine from
crag to crag.

And down by the side of this stream came Bronwen Llanaber,
herself as much a child of the mountain as it, and also leaping gaily
from crag to crag, joyous and happy in the rare sunshine. Following
more clumsily in her wake appeared a young Englishman, who had
been botanising on the heights above. This gentleman, Mr. George
Beldon, was staying at the old gray stone house at the foot of the
mountain, the house that nestled so snugly in a sheltered hollow, and
which belonged to old Gwylim Llanaber, the man who farmed the land
adjacent to Moel Carrig, and whose only child, Bronwen, was now in
company with Mr. Beldon.

Bronwen was a spoilt child, the darling of hec fiLtti^t, ^Vv<(^ laxvd^
vou ccLxix* NO. 19/j.

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2 The Gentleman s Magazine.

that the pretty ^irl rouUl do no wrong, and who foolishly let her see
that he hchl tlus ()))iniim.

l-'roni her carHest iluldhood the girl had been conversant with
every portion of the big mountain. With no mother to restrain her
roving propensities within reasonablclimits, she had been accustomed
to spend whole days alone there, exploring every nook and cranny
in itH steep sides.

Slie knew the shai^e of every boulder that stood out fantastic and
rtiriouH from the craggy summit, knew where the precipices lay, and
h( >w to avoid and skirt each bog. Also she knew every particular plant
that grew there ; and though utterly unversed in their long Latin designa-
tions, louhl tell pretty correctly the habits and properties of each.

This, naturally, made her society valuable to Mr. Beldon, an
ardent botanist and lover of plants, who had come out of the beaten
trark in ])ursuit of his favourite hobby; and who, in this mountain
dislrif't, founil many rare specimens hitherto unprocurable by him.

It was ( ertainly a profitable hunting-ground. Between the stones
and in the crannies of the crags nestled many varieties of ferns—
aspleniums and parsley, the mountain-bladder and the scented ferns.
'I'iie boggy ground below was studded with choice orchises and sticky
sundews ; while cistuses and yellow poppies grew upon ledges of the
r(K:ks al)ove. But for such treasures it was necessary to know the
locality and where to look.

No wonder, therefore, that Bronwen was an acceptable companion
to the young botanist.

But it is well to confess the whole truth. Besides all this, Geoige
Beldon admired pretty girls almost, if not quite, as ardently as he
did rare specimens of the herbaceous genus, and Bronwen Llanaber
was a rustic beauty of a somewhat uncommon type. In stature rather
under than over the middle height, but with a perfectly proportioned
and graceful figure, a figure suggesting strength and a healthy
physique, as of one born to endure fatigue and to glory in all the
perils of mountaineering ; and along with this a face of oval contour,
with a rich dark bloom upon it, lighted up by a pair of dark gray
eyes set off by long curling lashes.

Beautiful as she was in every particular, it was these eyes — dreamy,
unfathomable, full of the poetry of her beloved mountains — that
riveted attention to her face.

When this pair of mountaineers had descended to a somewhat

lower level, Mr. Beldon, who was growing a trifle fatigued, proposed

Sy the side of the stream. He wished to sort the treasures

lected that morning, and suggested that while he did so

On a Mountain. 3

Bronwen should recount to him some of the wild legends of the
country, in which she was well versed.

In fairy, as well as in natural lore, she was a proficient, and
had frequently beguiled the long days of rain that summer with
some fantastic tale or other common to the locality.

Mr. Beldon delighted in listening to these stories— the girl so
evidently believed every word she said.

She told him of the gwragedd annwriy or elfin ladies, who fre-
quent the shores of the llyns high up in the mountains, and who
upon moonlight nights may be seen bathing and sporting there in
the clear waters ; told of how a venturous knight once lay in
ambush behind a heap of stones, and, fired by the charms of one
of these beautiful bathers, caught her as she passed the spot where
he lay, and, enwrapping her in his coat, held her prisoner until she
promised to become his wife. This she did, upon one condition,
and that condition seemed to her would-be spouse a very easy one;
being only that he should never touch her flesh with cold iron. To this
he consented gladly, never dreaming that the condition would prove
difficult of fulfilment Years rolled on, and the fay became as an
ordinary mortal, proved an excellent wife for her captor, ;ind bore
him sons and daughters. But there came an inauspicious day, when
the husband lost his temper with his horse, which proved restive
under the hands of the blacksmith, and in his rage the infuriated
man caught up the first missile he could find and threw it at the
restive steed. Now this missile, glancing aside, struck the fairy wife,
who stood nursing her infant and watching the shoeing process, and
as it happened to be ji small piece of iron the mischief was done at
once. With a wail of anguish for the beloved husband and children
she was forced to leave, the melancholy fairy vanished and was lost
for ever.

Bronwen always cried over the sad ending of this story, though
she had recounted it hundreds of times. But over the more prosaic
one of the farmer who captured one of the fairy kine she felt more
amused than sorry.

The good people set great store by their cattle, and seek out for
them the juiciest pasture on the mountain sides. This particular
cow was a choice specimen, and proved a treasure to the farmer*
Never had he such quantities of butter, milk, and cheese to sell-
never such fine healthy calves. But fairy treasure is ever of a
transient and fleeting description. One day the foolish farmer took
it into his head that the cow was gro« '
killed. Scarce bad he aniioiv«<

4 The Gdntlemafis Magazine.

distant voice resounded from the overhanging crags in the cry used
to bring cows home, and, lifting his eyes, the astonished man saw,
just for one moment, the original owner of the cow standing there.
Helter-skelter from field and byre came the numerous progeny of
the milky mother, and following close at her feet ascended the
lower slopes of the mountain, where — marvellous to behold — the
rock at the bottom of the crags opened and the train passed within.
The chagrin of the farmer may be better imagined than described as
he rushed frantically after his herd, to find nothing there but solid
rock ; for the place where they had entered closed up behind them
immediately and appeared exactly as before.

Then with low and timorous voice she would speak of those who
had spent the night upon the dread summit of Cader Idris, and
spoken with the great enchanter who is forced to haunt that spot
until the Day of Judgment, and how some had lost their reason, and
some had died, and very few had won the gift of poesy for which
they ventured.

But this morning Bronwen did not appear in the mood for acting
the part of raconteur,

" It i? only upon nights of moonlight or firelight when one really
cares for those," she replied to his entreaties, in that slow and careful
English which sounded to him so pretty, with its separation of words
and its emphasis upon the second syllables. " Are not the sun and
the flowers sufficient for us this morning?"

And the young man assented to this, wondering a little at her
poetic way of looking at nature.

It was indeed a perfect day. Across the sides of the mountains
flitted in an ever-changing phantasmagoria the mighty shadows of the
clouds. Overhead, on restless wing, hovered a hawk. The silence,
save for the distant bleating of a sheep or the humming of the bees
among the blossoming heather, was complete. ^Vith the sweet fresh
air of the morning mingled right well the scent of heather and of fern.

George, his task completed, lay back upon the hillside with his
face upturned to the sky, and felt perfectly content and happy.

In his litde tin case were two or three plants found by him for
the first time, and he had a nice girl near him, whose presence com-
pleted the charm of the scene.

Mr. Beldon was not a flirt, in the common acceptation of the
word ; at least, he would have shuddered at the notion as vulgar and
coarse. But he could never resist the temptation of making love, in
a meaningless, foolish sort of way, when a woman took his fancy and
be was brought for any length of time into contact with hen

On a Mountain. 5

And, surely, two months' sojourn in a lonely farmhouse, cut off
from the world by that great chain of mountains, without railways,
newspapers, or even telegrams, to bring contact with Society, was
some excuse for such pastime.

George thought so at any rate, though he might have been some-
what ashamed to own it. And Bronwen was so entirely different to
any girl he had ever met : she was so completely a child of the
mountains — wild, wayward, capricious, and yet withal perfectly
natural — with every emotion speaking from her eyes, her face, her
gestures, in the most irresistible way.

Mr. Beldon was what is called a well-principled young man —
respectable, decorous, moral ; and he would not willingly have
harmed the girl.

But it is quite possible to brush the bloom from the petals of a
flower without plucking it from its stem, and this was the kind of
amusement George most affected. Only a pastime, not a crime.

And so long as no sin is committed against the man's moral code
— what would you ? The flower may be left drooping, faded, scent-
less ; but, then, it ought to be defended by thorns.

Well, Bronwen at least was no thornless flower, though the thorns
were not in evidence that sunny morning.

But she certainly possessed the fiery ungovernable temper of her
race. Woe betide those who ventured to hurt her pride or to rouse
her hatred !

With no mother to guide her, only a father who spoilt her and
allowed her to do as she chose, the girl had grown up to believe
that she was a perfect being, morally as well as physically, and that
her will ought, in her little domain, to be law.

Only one person ever ventured to oppose her. This was Thomas
Gwynne, her half cousin, a young man who helped her father on the
farm, to which, along with Bronwen's hand, it was arranged that he
should in time succeed.

But, now that Bronwen had grown to womanhood, she thought
that on this matter it behoved her to have a say.

There were qualities about Thomas which jarred upon her. Even
bis personal appearance— to which, to do him justice, he never gave
a thought— did not please her.

He was a typical Welsh mountaineer, long bodied, short limbed,
sturdy ; with a sombre visage and a Calvinistic turn of thought. If
Bronwen found fault with him, she was by no means perfect in his eyes.
Her views were dreamy and unpractical in the extreme^ 2X^.4 \^
was therefore but fit {md proper that sb^ sViou\d\>^\:^^XLV>\:^\s|

6 The GentUntafis Magazine.

the man who was to have leave to guide her, and that he should
nstil proper notions into her foolish feminine mind.

But Bronwen did not wish for any such proper notions. She
liked to be told that her ways were the right ways, and that she was
the best as well as the prettiest girl in the district.

Thomas did not approve of the new inmate of the Carrig house
either, though he was too cautious to express such an opinion,
save by dubious hints, when his uncle, old Gwylim, first mooted the
question of the young botanist's sojourn at the farm. It was a ques-
tion of money — of a good round sum in return for simple board and
lodging — and on a question of money a man like Thomas is ever
prudent.

But he was quite sure nevertheless that it was not conducive to
Bronwen's growth of wisdom that she should be necessarily brought
into such familiar intercourse with this Mr. Beldon, who was certain
to fill her head with vain and foolish notions.

Probably if the botanist had come in the guise of some musty old
spectacled professor, in place of a good-looking young fellow, Thomas
would have felt easier in his mind.

Besides this, however, he had all a practical man's mistrust of any-
thing not immediately lucrative.

It was stupid enough of these poor devils of artists who sometimes
came to the farm, and who required accommodation at the lowest
possible rate, to go on spoiling paper and canvas in their vain attempts
to reproduce the effects of mountain and stream. Stupid enough,
because they evidently found it a poor business.

But this eternal grubbing and gathering of weeds and rubbish,
what profit was it like to bring a man ? Therefore was botany
intolerable to his stern common sense.

It is certain that he would have disapproved more than ever of
Mr. Beldon had he seen the admiring glances and heard the fiattering
speeches made by the botanist as he lay at Bronwen's feet upon Moel
Carrig that morning.

It is very pleasant fooling, but a trifie risky all the same.

Under the subtle influence of the hour the girl's eyes grew soft
and tender, and veiled themselves shyly under their long lashes.
Never had she felt so diffident, so self-conscious. New feelings were
coming to life within her and causing a delicious trouble in her
blood. Poor Bronwen ! All unversed in the dangerous pastime, she
was quite ready to fall a victim to the voice that kept assuring her —
what in her heart of hearts she believed already — that there was no

On a Mountain. j

one fit to compare with her, that she was the sweetest and most lovable
girl in the world.

There was some show of reason in her good opinion of her
charms. No means had she of pitting herself against other attrac-
tive girls, for the farmers' daughters in that scattered district were,
for the most part, coarse and commonplace.

The moments flew with winged speed, and before long Bronwen's
hand was clasped in that of George, and perilously near to her face
was his own. He did not know how it happened. When he began
the amusement he had no idea of going to such lengths ; but, alas!
men are ever weak when women are charming.

" What is this ? " he said, pointing to a flower decorating the
bosom of her grey home-spun gowa " Why, Bronwen, it is white
heather, I do declare ! Does it also grow on the mountain ? "

" Yes. There is still a little of it left amongst the purple. Will
you have it?" she went on, rather bashfully, ofiering it to him.

He noticed that her hand, unpinning it, shook slightly. At this
proof of his power his eye brightened.

" You darling ! " he said, in a voice so low as to be little more
than a whisper. " So you would give me your luck ? You see I know
the superstition. No, Bronny dear, we will divide it rather ! " He
parted the piece of heather, and putting one spray in his button-hole,
began trying to replace the other in its original position.

But now it was his turn to feel discomposed. As he touched
her his face flushed, and she shrank back involuntarily.

In a moment his arms closed round her, she was drawn close,
and a passionate kiss pressed upon her lips.

She gave a low cry of bliss and shyness mingled, and wrenching
herself free, covered her face with her hands.

George sighed deeply and rose to his feet His passion was as
brief as sudden. He felt more than a little ashamed of himself
akeady.

What had he done? Made a confounded ass of himself, he
feared ! Why couldn't he have let the girl alone, when he knew,
none better, how inflammable he was by nature ? Well, the sooner
he ran away from temptation the better for both.

Muttering a lame excuse of some important letters which must
be written before post time, he went off homeward, leaving Bronwen
to follow at her leisure.

8 The Gentlematis Magazine.

Chapter II.

It was to Beldon merely the folly of the moment ; but it meant
mucli more than that to poor ignorant Bronwen.

A flood of strong and new sensations was rushing over her, like
a great and overwhelming wave, and she gave herself up to them
entirely, and became lost to all but the delicious dream of happiness
and love.

To do the girl justice, no sordid taint entered into her dream.
The petty pride which many girls in her position might have felt in
being admired by one superior in rank was totally absent from
Bronwen's mind.

From sheer ignorance — if from nothing else — she was a democrat
Living in a world of her own, a world where social barriers were
unknown, she had no idea of their real importance. The solid
material facts of life appeared to her as the unreal, and the idealisms
as the tangible. Her soul was, therefore, exquisitely and rarely
free from any mercenary or snobbish influence.

Thus it was that there seemed to her nothing outrageous in the
notion that this gentleman should love a girl whom he pronounced
to be so charming and so lovable.

But from these blissful dreams she was destined to receive a rude
awakening.

The sudden barking of a dog startled her from her meditations,
and, looking across the stream towards the opposite part of the hill,
she saw that Math, the colley belonging to Thomas Gwynne, was
driving the flock of sheep, which were feeding there, down the moun-
tain. She followed them with her eyes as they steeple-chased over
stone walls and down the steep slopes, outstripping, in their headlong
flight, even the fleet-footed Math.

Then she became aware for the first time that Math's master was
standing on the opposite bank and regarding her moodily.

He came across when their glances met, leaping, with the sure
and agile footing of a mountaineer, from boulder to boulder.

" Where is the Englishman ? " he asked, in a gruff" sort of way,
looking strangely at her as he made the inquiry. *' I thought he was
with you this morning on the mountain."

Bronwen's eyes drooped in some confusion.
" He is not here — he has gone ! How should I know where he
is ? " she replied hesitatingly, and yet with a certain defiance in her
tone.

'' Ydi o ddim yn wir. Wyddoch chwi yn iawa Mi welais i chwi

On a Mountain. 9

yn rhoi cusan iddo ! " {" It is not true. You know well enough. I
saw you kiss him ! ") returned Thomas, in a stern and angry voice.
•" And if you did ? What is it to you ? "

He said nothing, only looked at her, with both sorrow and anger
contending in his glance.

Presently her defiant air softened, and the mystical light of new
love shone in her eyes.

" Do not be angry, Thomas. I cannot help it. My fate has
come. If he loves me, I must needs love him back. "

" If he loves you ? You do well to put in that ifi^

" Nay," said the girl, raising her head, and glancing proudly at
him, " I do not well ! He is a gentleman. Gentlemen do not kiss
girls without loving them ! "

There was something alnfost sublime in the innocence of this
speech ; and even Thomas, angry and incredulous as he was, hesi-
tated before dispelling the delusion. The pathos of her eyes and
voice touched the rough man in some tender spot, and his own tone
in answering her grew more gentle.

" Put not your trust in man, but in God, who knows men's hearts I
Their ways are not our ways, nor their kisses as the kisses of honest
men, who have no time for folly ! He is a gentleman, as you
say," he went on, after a moment's pause, "and therefore it
is not likely that he will marry the daughter of a poor farmer,
but some lady in his own rank of life. It's no use being vexed
with me, Bronny ; my conscience obliged me to warn you, and
I've done it ! "

As he finished he whistled for Math, and set off down the hill,
without waiting for Bronwen to continue the conversation.

A feeling of delicacy caused his haste. He knew that the girl's
pride must have received a heavy blow, and that, when she realised
it, she would choose to be alone and unwatched.

Probably his zeal for her welfare had injured his own cause, but,
if so, he could not help it. He had seen something of the world,
and knew that such things as she held to be impossible were of daily
occurrence.

It is certain that he left a sore heart behind, if he bore a heavy
one with him.

Although Bronwen told herself that she did not believe a word of
it, and that it was but the outcome of jealousy and spleen, the
beautiful gossamer webs she had been weaving were shattered, and
the first evanescent glamour of bliss gone for ever.

She sat on, her bead hf\'^ ^•^"dlv on ViV9J[^XK^'\^CL«cnsA&\A^^

lo Tlie Gentleman's Magazim.

completely disappeared from view; then, with a quick gesture of self-
abandonment, threw herself prone amongst the heather and the ferns,
handfuls of which she, in an access of intolerable pain and rage,
plucked up by the roots and scattered around her.

In mood, as in temper, she was entirely ungoverned, and every
emotion with her was given its full play. It was a lie — a wicked,
unfounded, malicious lie ! How was it possible that she, Bronwen
Llanaber, the spoilt darling of her father, and of everyone else,
should be insulted by a show of love, without any meaning —
reality in it ? It could not be ! If it were so, she would hate the

man so that nothing would be left save God forgive her ! what

dreadful thoughts were these that came ? No, no, it was not true !
She would give no credence to it. Again she could feel those
strong young arms around her, that warm kiss on her mouth. She
loved him ! — she loved him ! What was the world to them ? Let
it go. He loved her sufficiently to dare its censure for her sake. So
much the better if it frowned upon them. They would but draw
the nearer, and brave its anger together.

Well was it for her that she was not able to discern at that
moment the heart of the man to whom she was giving her ardent
affection !

Not that that same heart was much worse than others ; but of a
surety it was a poor thing for a woman to stake her all upon.
Compounded of conflicting elements — of vanity, ambition, weakness,
good-nature, and a longing for admiration. On the whole, a slight
and unsatisfactory nature was that of George Beldon.

The young fellow was not easy in his mind about his morning's
proceedings. He had been playing with fire, and, though no scars
were visible, he had a miserable consciousness that he had burnt his
fingers more than a trifle.

And yet — considering the force of the temptation — had he not
behaved better than would most men under the like circumstances ?
Confound it ! Every fellow kissed a pretty girl now and then, and
what worse was any one for the transaction ?

Nevertheless, Bronwen's face — ^with its look of awakening passion
and intensity— haunted him, and prevented his attaining to any
great peace of mind.

" I must get out of this," he muttered, as he turned his specimens
out of his case and labelled them carefully. Not all his perplexity
prevented this methodical performance of a habit.

Then his eye fell on the piece of white heather still decorating
his coaty and at the remembrance it evoked he was weak enough to

On a Mountain. ii

experience a glow of something not unlike satisfaction. But stem
conscience pricked him immediately, and he took it out, with the
wise resolution of throwing it away, and stopped short— weak
again.

" So long as I keep it hidden," he decided at last, "it does not
matter. Poor little Bronny ! It will not do to let her see that I

value it, but if I put it away in my pocket-book I wonder why

fate should be always placing one in awkward situations, when one
doesn't go out of one's way to seek them. A better intentioned
fellow than myself doesn't exist, and yet, hang me if I'm not always
getting into some scrape or other ! Am I to blame for longing to
bask in every ray of sunshine that comes across my path ? " At
this moment he opened the aforesaid pocket-book to place within
its leaves the treasure and token of this poor victory over an ignorant
girl ; and behold ! from it fell a photograph, at sight of which he
reddened, and swore a little under his breath. Not that there
appeared anything in the photograph to arouse his ire. It was the
presentment of a well- featured, conventional-looking young lady,
faultlessly attired in the latest fashion, and appearing as prim and
demure as Society demands that its feminine votaries must do.

To George — whose particular property the original, along with
an exceedingly handsome fortune in her own right, was about to
become — the picture did not come as an altogether pleasing reminder
of duty.

Critically and unsympathetically regarding it — as he had never
done before — he decided that dear Clara must have been in rather a
cross mood when it was taken. At least, it certainly had a very
haughty and repellent expression.

And — ^yes, there was no doubt that her lips were too thin, her
eyes too close together, and her nose just a trifle too pronouncedly
aquiline.

Perhaps, however, a certain dark and sparkling face rose before
him in too marked a contrast for him to do justice to the somewhat
severe charms of the lady there photographed.

" Yes, it's quite time I left here, if I'm not to make a worse fool
of myself," he decided.

And then he remembered that the last of dear Clara's letters
remained unanswered.

"I will answer it in person, that will be best She is already dis-
satisfied with my prolonged absence, and if once she grows suspicious
there'll be the devil to pay 1

*' Poor Bronwen 1 I hope she's not too baxd Yal« ^€^ ^

12 The Gentleman's Magazine.

beautiful ideal sort of creature, entirely out of place in the kitchen of
a farm-house. And yet — heigh-ho ! I suppose she'll end by marry-
ing that grim-faced fellow, and sinking all her idealisms in ihe
practical work of a farmer's wife ! Well, it is no business of mine —
but one can't help feeling sorry, all the same."

In this and similar fashion did the weak man soliloquise, while
screwing up his resolution to the point of leaving the farm and the
girl together.

Fortunately for the fulfilment of this resolution, a friend of his, a
young fellow who was making a pedestrian tour through the district,
paid him a flying visit that day, and by his idle talk brought matters
to a climax.

Since morning, Bronwen had kept \try quiet, and shunned obser-
vation, busying herself with various household tasks ; but it so
happened that the visitor caught sight of her, nevertheless, and took
occasion to chaff" his friend about the "pretty wild Welsh lassie."

"So, so, Master George ! this is why you've kept your address
so snug ! " he began at once, after the senseless fashion of youngsters.
" I can assure you I had the greatest difficulty to hunt you out ! * The
world forgetting, by the world forgot,* that sort of business, eh? Well,
I congratulate you on your taste, for she's uncommonly good-looking,
and sufficient excuse for any fellow's seclusion.

"But, look here, old boy — keep it dark ! Don't you forget that
Clara Haldane is an heiress, and that those Johnnies that hang round
her will be only too delighted to have their knives into you. Well,
well, you needn't look so black, for all the world like an embodied
thunder-cloud; one gets enough of them in this beastly wet country,
without you beginning to imitate the weather ! I'll tell no tales, you
may be sure ! "

The lad rattled on in this shallow, frivolous fashion for a few
minutes, then suddenly his face grew grave, and he laid his hand on
the shoulder of Beldon.

" Get out of this," he said, in a more serious tone. " You are
engaged, and to one who will make you a good wife, but you are
not treating her well. Don't — for Heaven's sake — don't get into
mischief ! Go back to Clara as soon as possible. There ! that's my
advice, and you may quarrel with me for giving it unasked, if you are
fool enough."

Mr. Beldon kept his eyes fixed on the ground. Then he appeared
to shake off" some troublesome thought which kept recurring, and
turned with a somewhat forced smile to his friend.

" Thanks, old fellow ! I am not fool enough for that, Ygu

Oh a Mountain. 13

rAean Well, and on the whole your advice is sound. But you are
needlessly alarmed. Bronwen Llanaber is a strange, unusual sort of
creature — not wholly belonging to this world of prosaic facts. So
much has she lived in these mountain solitudes that she is not to be
judged by the same rules as we ordinary mortals. If she knew what
a poor sort of fellow I really am, she would certainly turn a cold
shoulder to me at once. When I am in her company I feel a terrible
humbug, because I can't help seeing that she places me on a pedestal
to which I have no claim. Sometimes I think it would be better for
both if the illusion were dispelled. It's devilish hard to live up to
any ideal standard, you know ! But she's a good girl, mind you, and
a modest, and there*s no harm done, save a twinge or two of heart-
ache, perhaps."

If she knew what a poor sort of fellow he really was !

Well, she had every opportunity of learning it ; for, this conver-
sation being carried on in no very measured tones, and the window of
the room being open, Bronwen, in the garden below gathering pot-
herbs for dinner, had small chance of escaping the unwelcome know-
ledge. She started and gasped, as though a knife had suddenly
pierced her ; then, with a cry like that of a wounded creature, she
crept away to covert.

Alone in her little bedchamber she had to battle with the demons
of wounded vanity, despair, hatred, and shame. She lost her senses
for the time being, and was a prey to every evil thought that chose to
creep into her aching heart.

" He has played me false ! Thomas was right after all, though I
hated him for saying it. And now it is the other — the one that
smiled and deceived me — it is him I hate. All the time he was
doing his utmost to gain my heart, he was engaged to — to a lady
in his own rank of life— as Thomas said. Ah, yes ! a lady with
money. Well, let him sell his soul for gold, and then I hope it may
be cursed to him 1 May it turn to pebbles in his grasp, like as the
fairy gold does ! At least I can be honestly grateful that I have no
gold wherewith to buy love !

" But he might have had the grace to keep silence concerning
me. To make a mock of me to his friend — it is too much ! "
George had never done this ; but the wounded wayward creature
chose to imagine it. " To laugh even because I believed him good
and true. How was I to know ? Perhaps he will also laugh at me with
her. Oh God, what a pain was there ! Why should I suffer ? I
have done no wrong. I hate pain. He is to blame for my suffering.
Ay, and he is to blame also because I no longer feel good. R^'^'y^

14 The Gentleman's Magazine.

who has raised the evil spirit within me which I cannot banidi.

Could I be sure of dragging him with me I would • God in

heaven, pardon me and keep me from crime ! "

Chapter III.

With a face rigid and immobile as the crags on Moel Carrig
after a storm has passed over them, Bronwen resumed her house-
hold duties, and even lent a hand to the preparations Mr. Beldon
was making for his departure on the morrow. She packed his
clothes and his dried plants also.

All this without the slightest trace of any emotion visible about
her.

And George Beldon, relieved, and guessing nothing of the
tempest raging within, felt that he had been unnecessarily alarming
himself as to the consequences of his foolish love-making. It was
quite evident that the girl cared nothing about him one way or
another, or she could not have taken his departure so easily. Not
even a conventional expression of regret did she utter, or a hope that
at some future time he might return.

So much the better, of course !

Still it was a little galling to his vanity to be treated in such a
manner. Restless and dissatisfied he was, therefore, even while con-
siderably relieved.

Glad ? Of course he was glad that she did not care too much
about him ; but then again he would have liked her to show just
some trace of feeling. Altogether his weak mind was, as usual, in a
state of ferment.

When morning dawned it appeared as though the very elements
did fight against him and hinder his flight from temptation.

Every now and again Moel Carrig hid his frowning brow in a
cloud of rain, and the day was as wild and tempestuous a one as
there had been that season.

Now the nearest way to the railway station lay over the shoulder
of the mountain, and unless George made up his mind to wait for a
later train, and to drive twelve miles round along with his luggage
(which he had already arranged to have sent after him), he must
needs climb the heights of Moel Carrig, with the probability of
breaking his neck or of sticking fast in a morass.

It was not a pleasing prospect, and the young fellow might be
pardoned ibr hesitating before adventuring upon it.

On a Mountain. 15

Besides, no one could be produced willing to act as guide, even
for the ample remuneration he offered, and it was decidedly unsafe
for him to go alone.

Old Llanaber was stuck fast in the chimney-corner with an
attack of acute rheumatism, and Thomas could not spare the time,
much as he wished to speed the parting guest.

But Bronwen, when they were left alone, lifted her heavy eyes to
his.

" I will take you over the mountain," she said, in a cold and
monotonous voice. " You need not lose your train."

" You ! " exclaimed the gentleman, surprised. " But is it safe for
you on such a day ? "

The girl gave a short, hard laugh.

" Safe enough," she replied, in the same indifferent way. " I am
the best guide in the neighbourhood. Do not I know every inch of
the way between this and Gwynan Pass ? You forget it is my
world. I have had the whole of my life to learn it in."

There was something in her tone that caused Mr. Beldon to
glance quickly at her. But her face was entirely expressionless.

" You must be uncommonly eager to be rid of me, Bronwen,"
said the gentleman half in reproach, " or you would not make such
an offer."

If this was a feeble attempt on his part to extract some expression
of regret from her it entirely failed in its purpose.

" I thought you were particular about the first train," she remarked
quietly.

Taking a spiked stick from behind the door, and wrapping a warm
shawl about her, she announced her readiness for a start.

Mr. Beldon had no longer any excuse for delay. Bidding old
Gwylim Llanaber adieu, and finding that he had no objection to his
daughter acting as guide, the young man followed Bronwen out

Across the low-lying fields and the lower slopes of Moel Carrig,
fragrant with the scent of the damp bog- myrtle, and skirting the
bogs with which this part of the mountain abounded, George found
it rather slippery work ascending the grassy slopes ; but since
Bronwen, with light and rapid steps, kept silently on ahead he was
ashamed to make any fuss about a slight discomfort.

Through the mist he could see the forms of the sheep scurrying
off at their approach.

Very different appeared the mountain since they had lingered and
dallied there two days before. Dark, forbidding, threatening through
its foggy mantle loomed the monster. Eveiy now and ^.^^^ ^^

1 6 The Gentleman's Magazine.

wind swept with a hollow angry sound adoiyn the ravines searing
its mighty bosom.

The little mountain stream that flashed back, no longer ago than
yesterday, an answering smile to the sun's caress, was now swollen
to a torrent, and foamed and seethed and tore about its boulders in
an access of what looked like furious rage. Scarce did it appear able
to endure its limitations, and kept fretting to be at some work of
devastation.

Very like to this mountain torrent was the soul of the silent
Bronwen, while, digging the point of her stick into the soil, she kept
steadily upon her upward path.

Gentle, peaceful and sunshiny, only the day before, now all
angry and stormy and perturbed. Hate, wounded pride and
thwarted love were all seething and boiling within her, and working
ruin and disaster to the nature once so serene and beautiful The
only fetters of conventionality recognised by this serene nature were
about as futile to bridle its violent passions as were the soft boggy
banks of the stream to confine its boisterous waters.

It is true, however, that what was denied to conventionality was
as yet yielded to an instinctive delicacy. Angry as the girl un-
doubtedly was with the man for having deceived her, she was almost
as angry with herself for having given her love on so slight an asking,
and to so shallow a wooer.

She called her native modesty to aid her in concealing her
feelings, and the contempt which blended with them helped her to
this.

So far, therefore, all was well, and all might still have been so,
had it not been for that uneasy vanity of Mr. Beldon, which would
not suffer him to let well alone.

The silence kept by Bronwen, or the short monosyllabic replies
that were all she vouchsafed to his questions, pressed heavily upon
him. Still more heavily pressed a sense of her contempt and anger.

When they attained the summit of some crags, he stopped for
breath, for the climbing had been very difficult of late, and called
upon Bronwen to halt likewise. This she did with considerable
reluctance, for her spirit kept her from feeling fatigue, and she would
fain have seen the last of him.

She appeared to press forward as though pursued by something.
Of a truth a strange and frightful thing did pursue her, and that was
the evil that she had vainly endeavoured to cast out of her mind
and leave behind her.

Once, at a turn of the path, she started and drew back, shuddering.

On a Mountain. 17

but recovered her presence of mind immediately. It was no new
phenomenon that confronted her there — merely the shadow of herself
projected upon and magnified to gigantic proportions by the fog : a
thing every mountaineer is familiar with, and at which she had never
before felt fear.

But then never before had there been aught in her own moral
image to affright or shock her.

George looked at her in vague wonder. Was it merely the effect
of the mist, or did her features really wear an unfamiliar and dreadful
appearance ?

Pale as a spectre, her dark eyes glowed with a sombre fire as
they met his.

"Bronwen," he said, in a tremulous tone, "why do you not
speak to me ? Are you angry with me about something ? Tell me,
dear. Yesterday you seemed to care for me, a little. What has
changed you ? "

With a white fury, not pleasant to behold, she turned upon him.

" What has changed me ? Ask yourself that. If I am changed —
if evil thoughts have taken the place of good, if I am now more akin
to a devil than a woman — whose work is it? Yesterday? — ay,
yesterday I was soft and lovable. Yesterday the sun shone, the bees
hummed in the heather, and the stream sparkled over the stones —
all was peace and beauty. But look at it now ! " and she pointed
towards the crest of Moel Carrig. *' The clouds have come, and the
peace and the beauty have vanished. Yesterday my heart was
guiltless of evil, to-day it knows no good. And this is what you
have done ! "

George sighed, and his eyes rested sorrowfully upon her. But
even at that tragic moment he was quick to notice how wonderfully
anger heightened and intensified her beauty. *

" I am sorry," he murmured weakly, " I meant no harm. I was
carried away by the impulse of the moment, and— and — really I
don't know how to express it ; but, hang it ! a fellow isn't made of
stone, you know, and you did look so bewitching "

"That you chose to insult me," broke in Bronwen, her hot blood
now J)oiling in her veins. " What matter though I had a heart to be
broken, a soul to be killed ? You were amused, that was the main thing.
And this mean, purposeless, weak creature is the man I loved !

" Do not think of me," she went on after a moment for breath ;
" your very pity would be an insult. I will waste no more thought
on you. You are not worthy even of my hate — but I hate Youl'tst
all tiiat ! If you lay dead at zpv feet at thiii tA«mMi\ — ik^\^cs^3\i^

VOL. CCLZJX. 290. ^*

i8 The Gentleman s Magazine.

to God you did— I would shed no tear. I would laugh— ay, even as

you laughed at me Oh heavens ! my wish has killed him ! — my

wish has killed him ! "

A step incautiously made in recoil from her vehemence, a stumble
on the slippery stones, and the next moment a bruised and mangled
form was lying below the crags it had but just surmounted.

Was ever unholy wish so quickly gratified? Alone on the
heights were those two together, between heaven and earth, and
behold ! by the murderous desire of one the other was destroyed !

The blood rushed to Bronwen's brain, and the whole of creation
appeared but as one huge crimson stain to her.

Her first impulse was to throw herself down atid make an end of
it. So alone should the tragedy of the mountain be complete.

She raised her arras to the Heaven whose aid she had invoked
for her revenge, and a wild cry of horror and dismay rang out into
the air. Then something within gave way, and she fell senseless
upon the ground.

♦ ♦♦♦««

A considerable time elapsed before she regained consciousness,
and still longer before her stunned faculties could be sufficiently alive
to grasp the situation.

With returning reason a complete revulsion of feeling took place.

The evil spirit had departed, leaving naught behind that was not
purely womanly and good.

She recoiled from her past self as from a spectre. What had she
done ? God pity her ! — what had she done ? She had been mad —
mad ! How should she atone for her wicked thoughts ? And how
far was she to blame for what had occurred ?

Rising to her feet, she gazed around helplessly. Still did the
clouds lie below her, cutting her off from humanity. She felt im-
potent, hemmed in. Not a sound from below pierced the mist.

She crept to the edge of the precipice and peered over. In-
distinctly she could perceive below the prostrate form of poor George.

Not a movement was perceptible to show that any life remained
in him. After a moment she turned aside sick and trembling. It
was too ghastly altogether !

She must manage to creep to where he lay, and ascertain beyond
doubt the fact of his life or death ; longer suspense was unendurable.

Trembling in every limb, and with a hesitation hitherto unknown
to her, she went slowly down the rugged path and bent over the un-
conscious form.

White and drawn looked the face ; the eyes were wide open.

Oh a Mountain. 19

staring vacantly up into the sky ; and at the back of the head was a
ghastly jagged wound, from which the blood was slowly trickling,
staining the stones amongst which the sufferer lay. But a faint
fluttering motion In the pulse assured Bronwen that life was not
quite extinct, although the flame of it might be burning low.

Instantly she remembered that he carried in his pocket a flask
containing brandy, and finding it there as she hoped, raised his head
very gently and managed to get a few drops between his clenched
teeth. Then, stripping off her soft shawl, she, after plugging the
wound in his head with strips torn from her handkerchief, laid it
upon this extemporised pillow.

Still no signs of returning consciousness appeared. Again she
made an eff^oit to induce him to swallow some stimulant, and this
time with greater success. He revived slightly and his eyes first
wavered from that horrible fixed stare, then closed, opened again,
and gazed vaguely up into Bronwen's face.

" What is it ? \Vhere— am — I ? " he murmured feebly ; then
recognising the face bending over his, "My head— Bronwen —
what — is wrong — with it? Good girl ! Wish — I had — behaved —
less — ^like a cad I "

" Hush ! you must not speak ; you have had a fall, and now you
must lie still until I get help.

As she spoke she attempted to rise, with the intention of speeding
down the mountain in search of assistance, but he put out a feeble
hand and held her.

" Do not— do not leave me ! I shall die if you leave me alone.
Bronny — do not leave me ! "

His eyes and voice were both wild with terror, and the girl was at
her wits' end to know what she ought to do.

In such an agitated condition, the probabilities were that he
would, as he said, die if left to himself. And yet, lying there, in that
cold damp fog, every moment of delay was dangerous.

Suddenly an inspiration came to her. She had with her a
whistle, such as is used by the shepherds for calling their dogs, and
taking this out, she blew upon it loudly and shrilly, hoping that
some of the dogs about the farm might come to her calL

And sure enough, after the third time. Math came bounding up
the hill-side, barking and demonstrating his delight.

Bionwen was so anxious and overwrought that she threw her
arms about the sha^y neck of the creature and burst into tears.

" Oh, Math, dear old Math ! You must do me a good tuni, and
fave bis life 1 "

20 Tfie Gentleman s Magazine.

She stooped and told Mr. Beldon her idea, which was simply to
tie a note round the neck of the creature and to send him
home again.

Math appeared conscious that some mischief had happened, for
he sniffed at George's prostrate form, and touched his face gently
with a warm and sympathetic tongue, then sat back upon his
haunches and whined most dismally.

Mr. Beldon was relapsing into a swoon, and was barely able to
speak, but managed to make Bronwen comprehend that she would
find both paper and pencil in his pocket-book. Bronwen scribbled
a line hastily to Thomas, and fastened it around the dog's neck with
a scarf she wore on her own, then contrived by gestures and a word
or two in Welsh to make the intelligent animal understand that he
was to go and fetch his master.

While she was doing this, a simple thing touched her deeply, and
completed the conquest gained by her higher nature. This was
nothing more than the sight of a spray of white heather carefully
placed between the leaves of the pocket-book.

Mr. Beldon's injuries, though severe, and resulting in a long
illness, did not prove fatal ; and Bronwen nursed him back to life
with wonderful care and tenderness. When he was sufficiently
recovered to leave the place, he had grown to love, in a much more
genuine fashion, the girl who had nursed him.

If Bronwen would then have consented, he would have married
her at once.

The dear Clara had behaved in neither a pleasant nor a womanly
manner, expressing her entire disbelief in the extent of his injuries,
and writing to release him from an engagement that had evidently
grown irksome to him. His pride was up in arms directly, and he
in turn wrote, or rather dictated, an answer to his friend, the same
who came to see him once before — a letter in which he entirely
acquiesced in that release. His arm being broken in two places, he
was of course disabled, but his friend, disgusted in turn with the
heartlessness of the spoilt heiress, was in no wise averse to the task.

It was all very well being off with the old love ; but the new
declined, nevertheless, to have anything more to say to him.

During that terrible time on the mountain, Bronwen's brief hot
passion had burnt itself out.

The tenderness of a nurse for a patient whose life she has saved
by careful tendance was hers for him, but no other.

Every remembrance of her brief passion of love and of hate
now filled her with loathing uf^utt^rable. All she now longed for wag

On a Mountain. 21

that George should be sufficiently recovered to leave the place, and
that with him every trace of the past should vanish.

It took a considerable time to convince him of this, but there
came at length a day when she made it quite clear. " But you loved
me once, dear?" he pleaded sadly.

" I loved you ? Yes. But I was an ignorant girl. I knew nothing
of the world — as you have said rightly ! I am wiser now. It was
most likely some creation of my own foolish imagination that I
loved," she went on dreamily. " At least, every feeling of that sort
is gone — for ever. I neither love you nor hate you any longer. How
can you wish to marry a woman who once longed for your death ? "
she finished, with a flash of her old fire.

" You were mad, and not responsible for your thoughts. Besides,
do I not owe you my life since ? The doctor told me so."

" Then the debt is paid. So much the better. Go back to your
world, which is so different from mine— and forget me," she said, with
decision. "You cannot restore the flower when its petals have once
fallen. Another year may bring another bloom — and so will it be
with you," she added, with a slight touch of contempt in her tone ;
" but the same flower lives never again.

" Go back to your world, therefore, and let me go back to mine,"
Here she pointed to Moel Carrig. " I have much to learn yet of my
foster-mother. Nature. I must And out how to guide my unruly
spirit and to root the evil out of my heart. Nature will teach me
this and bring me peace again. Ntd oes arnaf eisiau cariad aralll
(I want no other love !) "

22 The Gentlematis Magazine.

''INNKEEPER FOR EUROPE:'

VOLTAIRE thus styles himself in one of his letters to Madame
du Deffand. An apter appellation could scarcely have been
hit upon even by this master of happy phrases. It fairly fits the way
of his life at his homes of Ferney and the D^lices. " Le roi
Voltaire," as Ars^ne Houssaye crowned him, in a book with this
title which is one of the best for learning all about his busy, bustling,
interesting career, was indeed the king of hosts. Of the many parts
he played none suited him better than this one. He was to the
manner born. Driven by a combination of events to find for himself
a home away from Paris and its Court, but still in the vicinity of
France, his choice was no sooner made than he at once started a
career of hospitality which quickly grew quite regal. Never was
house so like an inn, nor ever had inn such a succession of grand
and gracious guests. It soon grew to be the general thing for visitors
to come and go almost as it pleased them, or to stay for weeks if
they chose, and it was the merest matter of course for all who did
stay to feel themselves as free as if they were at home, and to find a
place always ready and a welcome ever warm at each and every
meal. Collini, his secretary, tells us that " the only thing he was ever
sparing of was his time, and of that he was a miser." His horses,
carriages, servants, valet, and cook, were all absolutely of much more
service to the household and guests than they ever were to their
master. There was it is true an especial vehicle which he did reserve
to himself This was a somewhat antique and far from imponderous
structure, with its golden stars sprinkled over a ground of deep blue,
and ornaments glorious in gilt and quaint in design. Madame d'Epinay
christened it " The Car of the Empyrean." Drawn about in it by
four horses he certainly succeeded in exciting a good deal of most
piquant curiosity. When he first appeared in it, it seems that
wherever he went crowds followed in its wake as it toiled along, and
when it stopped they collected round it. It was to such a hetero-
geneous collection awaiting his reappearance from the house of the

" Innkeeper for Europe" 23

Genevan banker Macaire, that he addressed the following certainly
unexpected and most probably wholly unrehearsed speech : — " Well I
and what are all you bumpkins waiting for, pray ? To see a
skeleton, is it? Here is one for you, then !" and thereupon he opened
the immense fur cloak in which he was almost lost to view and showed
them his worn, emaciated frame. What could the crowd do but
laugh, cheer, and at once make way for him ?

His letters of the time all show how intense was the delight he
felt in his new experiences as a master at last in a home of his own.
" I find it good," he writes in one to his friend Thidrot, " to be able
to settle down in the evening of my life after having had to run about
so much all the day." Ilie pains he had to take at the outset to get
possession of the property he soon afterwards came so fully to appre-
ciate caused him at first sore discouragement. It seemed, he thought,
such a silly thing to be taking all Ais trouble " just to provide myself
with a tomb." But these doleful views speedily vanished with the
cause of them.

Not long afterwards he is writing in quite a different key to the
Empress Maria- Theresa : " I must be your distant votary, for I shall
not be able to come to Vienna. My happiness is too great here in
my own retreat. Blessed, indeed, is the man who has a house over
his head, and can dwell amidst nieces, books, gardens, vines, horses,
cows, an eagle, a fox, and a few rabbits." Other and, wc may reckon
to such a man, more congenial inmates soon come on the scene.
Such a host's unique hospitahty, his courtesy to that sex whom none
ever flattered with such rare delicacy, his natural vivacity, his spark-
ling, ever-changing talk, abounding in retorts as prompt as they were
perfect, speedily led to the creation of a close circle around him — a
body-guard of friends and visitors of which he never failed to prove
the vivifying spirit Intellectual pursuits and themes ever held the
chief place. Rhyming, improvising, &c. sped the wings of every
hour. It is a bare matter of fact to say that Voltaire never knew
what a vacant moment was. Planning, writing, revising, or directing
the performance of a play ; composing some pamphlet which, read
by every cultivated person in Europe, would furnish fertile food for
many an hour's conversation in courts and coteries ; penning or
dictating letters, of which the series is so inexhaustible that Charles
Nodier Is reported to have said, " What ! more unpublished letters
of Voltaire I The only end to them will be the end of the world ! " ;
entertaining an endless succession of guests, reading to them, or
telling them a tale — in which art he was a past master— in some of
many such various but all delightful ways, Voltaire, making all around

24 The Gentlematis Magazine.

him happy and interested, found every instant of his waking hours
completely taken up.

It will come like a surprise upon some to be told that children
were among the most welcome of Voltaire's visitors. His relations
with them were especially tender. To them even his library was free ;
they could open his books, turn over his pictures, and play to their
little hearts' content with a stuffed leopard which was one of the
ornaments of it. An admirable illustration of this charming trait is
afforded us by Florian in his "M^moires d'un jeune Espagnol."
The future fabulist, when about ten years old, was a cherished and
favoured guest at the chateau. After being a fortnight there he, too,
found himself fully at home in it. Voltaire made such a pet of him
that the boy soon came to love him best of all the household. " He
often used to place me by his side at the table, and whereas many
personages who reckoned themselves of no small consequence, and who
came there to supper in support of "their dignity, were thankful enough if
they only got a word, he made it his greatest pleasure to chat with
a child. I remember the first question he put to me was whether I
knew much. * Yes, sir,' I answered, * I know the Iliad and heraldry/
Voltaire laughed heartily at this, and told me the fable of the Mer-
chant, the Shepherd, and the King's son.^ This fable, added to the
charming manner in which it was related, convinced me that heraldry
was not the most useful of sciences, and I at once resolved to learn
something else."

In another place Florian further describes the arrangements that
were made to teach him Latin. Voltaire, even if disturbed in the
midst of his histrionic creations, was never angry nor impatient when
turned to for help in doing the exercises, but on the other hand
rendered it in such a really gracious way that the boy fancied he had
actually performed them all himself. When the time came for having
them examined in the drawing-room everyone thought how very
excellent they were, and when they were brought to Voltaire he used
to smile and say they were very good indeed for so young a pupil.
One other story from the same quarter will readily be tolerated if
but for the gracious light in which Voltaire is shown in it. "In
Voltaire's garden," says Florian, " there were various beds of flowers.
In the midst of some of them the brightest poppies raised their
resplendent heads. I called them the sons of Priam. The most
beautiful amongst them was, of course, the veritable Hector himself.
Never did I pass them but I gave a sidelong glance and muttered,

' One of La Fontaine's, the i6th of the loth Dock, in which the small service
of blazonry in a time of stress is ably exposed.

" Innkeeper for Europe!' 25

'The miserable Trojans ! They shall soon be all slain by my hands.'
The fatal day arrived at last. Armed with a great wooden sword,
proudly I walked into one of these beds and cut off the heads of a whole
army of poppies. The battlefield was immediately strewn with dead
and dying. But this is not enough, for Hector still stands ! Raising
a superb head he seems to mock my fury. I rush ujmn him ! But
an unexpected stroke of fortune saves Hector's life ; Voltaire sud-
denly stops me just as I am about to deal the dcathful stroke. He*
had been watching me hitherto as I beheaded poppy after poppy,
but now, as though wishful to save the stately Hectot, he gently asks
me why I seem in such a violent rage with them. So I tell him I am
acting my Iliad, and that I was at this precise moment just in front
of the Scean Gate, before which it was the doom of Hector to fall.
Laughing loudly he left me to complete my combat, and ran in to
tell my victory to the inmates of the palace of Priam." This child's
play had, unwittingly to the performer of it, touched a chord in
the heart of the owner of the fated flowers which was quite ready
to respond to such a dramatic appeal. Acting in every and any
shape was the paramount passion of his breast. Flonan, quite
innocent of what he had done, had reached the great man's most
vulnerable point. There is no occasion here to enter upon the long
and fluctuating struggles into which this feeling led Voltaire with the
Genevan authorities. The great success which attended the reading
of portions of his Zaire seems to have first encouraged him to try to
exploit the evident zest for dramatic representations of his new
neighbours. A letter of his to his friend D'Argental affords sufficient
evidence that he had no very stout resistance, at any rate, to over-
come. " We brought tears into the eyes of the whole Council of
Geneva. I doubt if so many were ever shed. Certainly Calvinists
■ were never so stirred before." For all this, he found himself obliged to
be very wary. His utmost tact, great as it always was, had to be called
to his aid. There were members of the Consistory who were more
ready to run with the hare than to hunt with the hounds, but his great
stumbling-block was the obligation he was under to keep the peace
with the more puritanic members in order to hold his own as tha
tenant of the D^lices. To out-manceuvre them he bought Ferney,
which was beyond their jurisdiction. For a time he thought he had
secured a victory along the whole line, but in the very midst of what
seemed his brilliant triumph, the Magnificent Council had forged a
secret thunderbolt which they lost no time in hurling full into their
enemy's entrenchments. No Swiss was to be allowed to participate in
any stage-play. This was a eoup de mailre, as, except himself and his

26 The Gentlematis Magazine.

niece, Madame Denis, all his best actors were Swiss. Thus, by a
single stroke, he was left without any company. In his rage, it
may be seen by his correspondence, he would fain have burned
Geneva down.

This intense indignation was really pardonable, as greater success
than that which attended the entertainments he provided is hardly
conceivable. At one of them, for instance, he had the French
Ambassador, who was on his way to Turin, for a guest for several
days. He, his wife and suite were quartered at the D^lices.
Tournay was made the scene of all the receptions and fetes. Merope
was chosen for the first day's piece, and was followed by a stately
supper, at which Madame de Chauvelin is said to have sung •* like a
siren." Voltaire complimented her with the following impromptu :

Avec tant de beaute, dc grace naturelle,
Qu'a-t-elle i faire des talents ?
Mais, avec des sons si touchants,
Qu'a-t-elle k faire d'etre belle?

The following day there was a performance of Tancrede^ which
proved a simple triumph. Everyone was seen to be in tears. The
company was afterwards ushered into a magnificently decorated
salon, hung all round with festoons of flowers, in which they danced
till eight the following morning. Voltaire was not too tired, for all
this, to be able to pen ^vq or six letters in which his friends were
fully informed of the splendid ^clat of this State reception.

Shortly after this another opportunity was afforded to Voltaire to
gratify his hospitable pride to the very top of its bent in the marriage
of the French Resident, Monsieur de Montp^roux. The visitors on
both these occasions were so numerous that the neighbourhood all
around his chateau was taxed to its utmost to accommodate them.
Some of them came from very long distances, thirty miles Voltaire
speaks of in one of his letters. A veritable Court had for the time
formed itself around him. He had indemnified himself for the loss
of his Swiss actors by drafts from the Chitelaine troup>e, which
came just in the nick to perform in his neighbourhood. Mademoiselle
Corneille, too, a niece of the great dramatist, had recently been
adopted by Voltaire— he called her her father's " masterpiece " — and
under his teaching had rapidly developed an excellent talent for
tragedy and comedy. It was now that he produced his Olympie^
which he had previously referred to D'Alembert with the intimation
that he had only taken six days to write it ia The witty reply of his
friend was, " You ought not to have rested on the seventh." On this
hint Voltaire seems to have reconsidered and recast hb worlu

^' Innkeeper for Europe'^ 27

One of his striking characteristics was that, to the criticism of a friend
he was always most tractable. " Woe befall him," he says, in one of
his letters, " in whom there is no amendment either of himself or of
his works. Self-correction is always necessary, even in a man eighty
years old ! I have no consideration for your old men who say, * My
habits are fixed.' Form others, you old idiots— mend your verses
if you have composed any, and your character if you have got one."
Three hundred people are reported to have been present at the per-
formance of Le Droit du Seigneur^ some coming from Lyons and
others from Dijon and Turin.

Unparalleled as such successes must have been, Voltaire was still
not quite satisfied. He must have the great actor Lekain for a judge
of his plays. Lekain responded at once to the poet's invitation. He
came, saw, and applauded. Enraptured with their plots and poetry,
he offered to appear in the parts of Tancr^de and Zamore. For a
climax to such magnificence and triumph, what was more fit than for
this happy host to have the Due de Richelieu for his guest for a few
days? It was October I, 1762, that he arrived, and Tournay was
this time given up to him and his suite. Evening followed evening,
and each was a scene of splendid pomp. Every resource of the
place, as well as all its owner's genius, were taxed to their very utmost,
to insure the Duke's stay proving one uninterrupted scene of enchant-
ment. Amid such distinguished guests, including the bearers of such
noble names as the D'Envilles, D'Harcourts, and the De Villars, the
whilom prisoner of Frankfort, the hunted Voltaire of 1754, might
well be found exclaiming, " Ferney to-day is a Court of Peers ! "

It was, however, impossible for so sympathetic and vigorous a
nature as his to be preoccupied by these brilliant festivities. Never
had any man so many sides to his character. Much of the unfair
and unfavourable opinion entertained of him by some will be found
explained by the imperfect or the partial knowledge of his critics and
judges. He was not only many men in one, but in the self-same
day or hour he could hardly be identified, so susceptible, so quick
was he to respond to every intellectual or social current. His labours
and achievements in the causes of Galas and of Sirven would have
immortalised many a smaller man. His human sympathies were
illimitable. He is said always to have been depressed on the anniver-
sary of St. Bartholomew's massacre. How contradictory, too, he
could be ! Never was there more magnificent liberality than that
enjoyed by his nieces, and by other recipients of his unstinted bounty,
whilst, on the other hand, for paltry pettiness could anything compare
with his contemptible quarrel with De Brosses about a few meibsureS;

28 The Gentleman's Magazine.

of firewood, or with his mean vindictiveness towards the two
Rousseaus, Fr^ron, and other mere literary fry ? But there are nearly
always two sides shown, and we are often in doubt whether to laugh
or sigh. It is never certain whether some show of rage will not end
in a roar of laughter. His prejudices too are often amusing in their
very childishness. A more characteristic instance of the part they
could be made to play could scarcely be found than the happy
accident which enabled the sculptor Pigalle to get a successful sitting
at last Voltaire happened to be in no mood at the time for having
a bust made. " M. Pigalle is coming to model my face, but, madame,
it is first of all essential that I should have a face for him to
model. He will have a job to find mine. My eyes are sunk three
inches deep in my head, and my cheeks are simply so much parch-
ment stretched across a few bones which can hardly hold together.
The few teeth I had have disappeared. Never was a man in such a
wretched plight ever sculptured before." So Pigalle found his
patience tried to its utmost. He was ready to give up the task.
Voltaire would neither sit in one position nor keep his face in one
form for a minute together. But good luck would have it that
Voltaire took it into his head to ask the sculptor how long it might
take to make a golden calf. " Six months," was the reply he got, at
which the patriarch was in such ecstasies over a fact which seemed
to convict the Old Testament of a mistake that he from that moment
sat quite still, and so Pigalle finished his work. No less character-
istic, as showing the variability of Voltaire's temperament, and how
almost impossible it was to divine how superficial were his outbursts,
is the story for which we have such an excellent authority as that of
the Prince de Ligne. It happened that on this occasion Voltaire was
launching out in bitter denunciations of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Suspecting that much of his anger was very factitious, it was the
princess happy thought to look out of the window and suddenly
exclaim, " Why ! there is Rousseau, I believe, just crossing the court-
yard." " What ! " was Voltaire's immediate response. " Where is he ?
Where is the poor fellow ? Let him be brought to me at once. My
arms are ready to welcome and embrace him, for he has been hounded
probably from Neuchatel or its neighbourhood. Let some one run at
once and conduct him to me. Everything that I have shall be at his
disposal." It is to such experiences as this offers a sample of, and which
those who knew him intimately and saw him often frequently witnessed,
that the following testimony of the Chevalier de Boufflers is due.
" You can," he says in a letter to his mother, " form no notion of the
expense he puts himself to and the good he does. He is the king

" Innkeeper for Europe'' 29

and the father of all around him. He is as good as the head of a
house as he is as a poeL Were he divided, so that in one place I
could see the man whose books I have read, and, in another, the
man I listen to, I should not know which to choose. Let his pub-
lishers do their utmost, he will always be better than even his books."
And in another letter he remarks that " he would be the best of men
if he were not the greatest of men."

It is his greatness as a writer, by which he is so generally known,
that has perhaps kept the man as host, relative, friend, and bene-
factor so much in the shade. Once touch him on a tender point,
and all the man instantly rose up in him. It was a question on one
occasion with Huber to get a seat for a Count Colonna, who wished
to hear Lekain, but the theatre was full to overflowing. What was
to be done ? " Remembering," he says, " that the Count belonged
to the family of the Colonnas who had been excommunicated, I
hinted this to Voltaire. The effect was magical. Voltaire pressed
forward at once to meet him, crying at the top of his voice, ' Where
is he ? Where is this excommunicated one ? ' "

A list of Voltaire's pensioners would be a very long one. Durey
de Marsan, who presented himself at Ferney in all the rags of a
beggar, after having run through his ample fortune, was perhaps in
several respects the most curious of them all. After affording him
shelter and enabhng him to make himself fit to mix with the guests
of Fcmey, its owner's next step was to set about trying to effect a
reconciliation for him with the family which felt itself disgraced by
him. This took a good deal of time. Two years after his arrival at
the chateau, Voltaire is found alluding to him thus in a letter :
" He would be able to live very happily where he is were it not his
fate to be always getting into debt. M. Durey has been with me
now more than two years. He came intending to stay only two
months. . . . He has been excessively unfortunate from his own
fault, and from an indescribably romantic spirit which causes him to
seize every possible opportunity for ruining himself obscurely.
. . , Although he is a literary man, he is neither tiiagnus derieus
nor magnus sapiens."

In 1760 the Jesuits had made their preparations for stripping the
family of the Crassys of all they possessed towards the payment of
some debts to their Order. On the facts reaching the ears of
Voltaire he advanced the necessary sum at once. It was a niece of
theirs — Mile, de Varicourt — who soon after is to be found installed
at Ferney, as one of its regular inmates. She had be^n &«&'Cvn&^ Vot
« eotavnt *"" *"- "»'» and simpliaty so wou ^iit VtasM Qll\iiti&v

30 The Genilematts Magazine.

the philosopher and Madame Denis, that they prevailed upon her
relatives to let her take up her abode at Femey, ostensibly to help
the latter in the management of household affairs. The Marquis de
Villette soon after saw her, and at once fell in love with and married
her. In writing to a friend he tells him : " Her only dowry is her
sweet face, her beautiful figure, her very unsophisticated nature, and
her charming intelligence, all of which I very much prefer to a round
million I could have had in Geneva." The marriage was celebrated
at midnight in the Chapel of Ferney. Voltaire donned for the
auspicious occasion the splendid fur pelisse presented to him by
Catherine the Second, and was supported on each side by a knight
of the Order of St. Louis. During the supper he composed the
following impromptu :

II est vrai que le dieu d'amour.
Fatigue du plaisir volage,
Loin de la ville et de la cour,
Dans nos champs a fait un voyage.
Je I'ai vu, ce dieu s6ducteur,
11 courait apr^ le bonheur,
II ne Ta trouv6 qu*au village.

Does not there seem good ground for thinking that Voltaire was
justified when he wrote to Madame du Defiand thus : " In the main
I am a good-hearted fellow. My friends, my vassals, and my neigh-
bours are all quite satisfied with me " ?

Amid such scenes and friends, what were Louis and his mistresses
to Voltaire? As little as he was to them. Madame du Barry, how-
ever, seems on one occasion to have seized an opportunity to pay
a compliment to the old poet and philosopher, which he was equally
prompt to repay her for. De la Borde was to pass by Ferney on his
way to Italy, so was commissioned by her to give Voltaire two
cushions which she had herself embroidered with a medallion
portrait of herself, and two kisses ! Voltaire's gratitude found expres-
sion in one of those occasional pieces of verse which are among the
best of all the things he wrote :

Quoi ! deux baisers sur la fin de ma vie !
Quel passeport vous daignez m'envoyer !
Deux ! c'est trop d'un, adorable Egerie :
Je serais mort de plaisir au premier.

What a pity it seems that Voltaire could not have finished his
earthly career in his own home, amid his own people. But were
not the Parisians his people at heart, and what home could have
evoked such a flood of feelings as the name of Paris if it ooidc

^

" Innkeeper for Europe" 31

only be his fortune to be admitted into it? The accession of
Louis XVI. encouraged all those who had long tried in vain to get
the late king lo revoke the interdict which banished Voltaire from
Ihc Court to preiiare a way foe his return. The rumour was indus-
triously circulated that he was likely to come. The people of Paris
needed no extraneous stimulants. His popularity was found to be
as universal as it deserved to be. \Vas there another man alive who
had done so much to make the name of frenchman honoured all
over the Continent ? Was there a Court, was there a grand personage,
was there anyone of birlh, distinction, eminence, learning, taste,
or culture to whom Voltaire's name had not been familiar for many
years, whose books ihey had not read with ever increasing avidity,
from whom the merest scrap of a letter it was not an enviable honour
to possess ? No sooner, then, was he made aware of the disposition
of the ijopular mind, and iha: nciiherking nor courtier would beUkely
lo venture to run counter 10 il, than Voltaire became all aflame to
reach the capital. "I shall be happy there," he tells Mouttou,
" because I shall meet with happy people." Every one knows the par-
ticular circumstances undercover of which his abiding wish to return
to Paris was at last accomplished. The rehearsals of his Irine were
made a capital pretext. He left Ferney. His intention was to
remain away only six weeks. But Ferney never saw its brilliant owner
again. His first act on reaching Paris had lo be to summon Dr.
Tronchin. Tronchin, after having seen his patient, tells a friend,
whom he writes to at once to let him know what every one was so
curious to Icam, that, if Voltaire can stand the popular excitement
caused by his arrival, he must simply have a constitution of steel.
All Paris, according to Grimm, was vying to cast itself at the feet of
its idol. The popular fervour had its culminating point in that
historical scene at the tiieatre, during the performance of Irhie,
'hen he was crowned in the box he occupied for the occasion, and
:n the whole house stood on its feet and the building shook with
cheers. " Parisians," he exclaimed, with tears flowing from his
!S. "do you mean to kill me with ecstasy?"
His plans were now to get back again to Ferney; but not to
there. No, there was no life for him possible any longer away
itn Paris. He must return and finish his days there. He bought
Ehouse with this very object in view, " I have seen many fools in my
[E," says Tronchin, " but never a bigger one than this. He reckons
ing for ever," His letters which he wrote at this time to his
secretary, VVagnicic, arc pleasant but pathetic reading. They arc a
Lhe clearness of their author's head and the

32 The Gentlematis Magazine.

warmth of his human heart. In the first he begins by expressing
his regret at having allowed Wagnifere to set off alone. It is curious
to follow the enumeration of the several books he wants brought
from the library at Femey. The secretary is especially enjoined to
take care that he brings away every work connected with the French
language, such as the " Grammar of Port-Royal," that of " Restaut,"
the " Synonyms of Girard," the " Tropes of Dumarsis," the " Remarks
of Vaugelas," the " Little Dictionary of Proverbs," and the " Letters
of Pellisson." Could anything be more interesting than to notice
the importance attached by this inimitable writer to a liberal supply
of all the best technical books of his mother tongUe ? Here is a
man of eighty-four taking all the pains of a young student to make
himself the master of all its resources. The clearness of his memory
is simply astounding. He gives the most minute directions in
different letters about the various books he wants, states fully and
lucidly their different characters, and their exact whereabouts in his
extensive library. Works on medicine, diseases, remedies, and
anatomy are urgently pressed for. A Celtic Dictionary, an Italian
Grammar, an English book, in two volumes, on the "Origin of
Language," are by no means to be overlooked. The latter is "in a
corner of the new addition lately made to my bookcase." Like
Socrates, Voltaire grew old ever learning something new. But just
a fortnight before his death the signs of the approaching end grow
stronger. " My hand succumbs to this burden of writing. I am
enduring incredible pain. Adieu, friend ! Why are you not by my
side ? " It was very soon after he had finished this very letter that a
violent spasm of strangury suddenly seized him, and compelled him
at once to take to his bed. Day by day the disease developed itself.
In his last letter to Wagni^re, of May 25, 1778, the kindly nature of
the man, his real self, declares itself in every line : " I am dying,
my dear Wagnifere. It appears impossible this time for me to escape.
I am terribly punished for having let you leave me, for having quitted
Ferney, and for dreaming of making my abode in Paris. I must get
you to have recourse to M. Scherer for some money. You know he
has the custody of my entire fortune. I depend upon you to render
me this final consolation amid the excruciating anguish which my
present condition causes me. Tell La Barbezat she is wrong to be
angry. She shall be amply repaid and recompensed. La Bardi is
even more blamable for having left. She had a house she ought
never to have quitted, and, here in Paris, she will find she is of no
use. Gently and sadly, my dear friend, I embrace you."
Five days afterwards Voltaire, on May 30, breathed his last.

JAMES RAMSAY.

SCHRECKENSTEIN : THE KEY
OF THE ELBE.

IN descending the Upper Elbe, from Leitmeritz to Tetschen, the
most beauteous point of the scenery, and the culminating effect
of almost theatrical surprise is, where the river, that is always beau-
tiful, makes the sudden, sharp bend round the high precipitous rocks
on which rise up the ruined towers of Schrecken stein. Before reach-
ing it the river seems blocked by this rocky hill that stands out into
mid-stream ; and it is only when close to it that the course of the
Elbe can be traced on past its walls.

Few, who suddenly see these ruined towers come in sight, will
resist the temptation of disembarking at the adjoining station of
Aussig, from whence an easy walk along the river's bank soon leads
to the gentle ascent beneath the avenue of ash-trees that is over-
topped by the castle-crowned rock. Upon the left hand this avenue
is overhung by a rocky hill that reminds one in its shape and for-
mation of the well-known Summer-house Hill that overtops the
little town of Lynmouth in Devon ; but here no sofl foliage tones
down the lower heights.

Just beyond the avenue of ash-trees the first gate of the castle is
seen. A tittle gate, very much resembling in miniature the Saxon
gate over the Monnow at Monmouth. Crouched beneath some high
rocks is a tiny village, redolent of cows and farmyard produce ; and
above the timber houses, perched on a high rock, is a round look-out
tower that guarded this approach to the castle.

The gate looked suspiciously like tourist-toll being demanded for
permission to see the castle ; but, on asking if one could see the
ruins above, a surprised peasant replied, certainly we could " iiber
alles gchn und frei." But just beyond the little gateway a poor
restaurant is established, where the people of the district sit and
look out over the scenery, and drink their beer, perchance to the
sound of the music of some strolling minstrels.

Here, at '«■ 'M to be t^cn in charge by some self-

34 ^^^ Gentkmafis Magazine.

appointed guide, or, at least, to be asked to buy some book or photo-
graph of the imposing ruins that now were opening up to our view.
But, even on inquiring, no photograph or monograph could be
obtained, and the general air of all whom we questioned was, " We
have nothing of the kind, neither do we want to be bothered about
it." But wooden steps and bridges have been put down to enable one
to reach the topmost tower of the castle, and up beyond the inn we
climbed, in amidst the walls and towers of the yet important ruin.

We first entered what appeared to have been the little chapel ;
but slight traces were left of the mouldings or tracery of windows.
At the east window, which was curiously placed corner fashion, was,
close by its side on the left, another window, and on its right an arch
as for a tomb or an ambry ; two niches were also traceable at the
south window and at the door. The style was of rude Early English.
From the chapel we went into a bastion, which commanded a lovely
view of the river, and from here a very rough wall of small stones
and rude arches led to the central tower. A distance of about eighty
to ninety yards separated the tower and the bastion, and beyond
the tower about the same space northwards ran another wall to a
square tower. These rough measurements will give an idea of the
space which the castle buildings covered. From the chapel another
wall was continued on to a round tower, the older work of which was
patched here and there with brick, and beyond this tower was a
vaulted chamber in which one good rib of the roof was left, and a
fair thirteenth-century window ; but all the columns and mullions
had disappeared. Above this vaulted roof was another chamber
with doorway of the same rude Early English type as in the chapel,
and at the north-east window of this small hall seats were built
which looked out on the village immediately beneath, at a depth of
some 250 feet. Here the timber roof is still preserved, and at all
the windows seats were built, and at one spot was a niche as for a
patron saint. Worm-eaten timber was seen to be worked into the
stone-work at the little door, as though there had been at one time
wooden steps up from the village.

From the great central round-tower ran a wall, to the bastion, in
which formerly stood ^y^ round look-out towers, or bartizans. From
the tower on the west to the north bastion no wall was traceable, but
at this tower the use of timber in the masonry was again noticeable.
The view from the castled height was very lovely : vineyards and
cherry-orchards in full bloom stretched beneath us, and on the
south-east was a lovely valley with the river winding between the
hills, with great timber-rafts descending rapidly the swiftly-flowii

I

Key of the Elbe. 35

ream. From the plateau, now occupied by the rough tables of the
Henchmke, we could trace well the original outline of the pic-
.resque castle, the great round-tower forming its centre, and still
iceable were five round -towers.
Of the importance of the building in medieval times, and of its
beauty, perched upon this rock fastness, and commanding from its
overhanging point far up and down the navigable stream, we could
welljudgeaswe clambered or lingered about its ruins; but no glimpse
history, or of the part it had played in (he internecine struggles
'«f Bohemia, could we glean from any who now lived under its shadow.
But the very fact that it was a possession of the Wartcnbergers, the
powerful family who held ToUenstein and Tetschen, and almost half
the castles in this northern district of Bohemia, proves how im-
portant a position it was considered.

long ere the fourteenth century Schreckenstein had been of
importance ; tradition carries it back to 820, when the old race
■Iruggle that ever continues between German and Bohemian was
being increased by the frequent incursions of the Teutons. To
itay their depredations it was proposed to build a strong fortress on
the river, and this jutting point and sharp bend was seized upon by a
'certain Sirzck, and upon it he built a commanding wooden fort, and
■thus stayed the passage of the Teutons up and down the river. From
this founder's name the castle has since been called Slrzckon, a name
by which in after history it is frequenily mentioned. Tradition also goes
on to lel! of bands of Teutons awaking the Lord of Schrcckensiein's
lelurn from Wyssehrad, the then seat of government in Bohemia,
and taking him prisoner and destroying this wooden fortress ; but
these stories rest upon no documentary evidence. But the proba-
bility is that this famous point, from the earliest times, w.is used as
S defensive station against the Teutonic invasions, the German
name of Schreckenstein being given it probably during the reign of
Wenzcl I., in the latter part of the tenlli century,

itil the commencement of the fourteenth century does
■actual history take possession of the life of this key -castle. Then, when
John of Luxemburg became the knight-errant King of Bohemia, we
find he rebuilt the Castle of Schreckenstein as a crown property, and
let it OS a feudal |>ossession in exchange for certain other properly,
■together with the Elbe lolls from Leitnieritz lo Aussig, to a knight,
'essek ; but Pessek, in the same year, handed over both castle and
alls to John of Wartenberg, whose children were confirmed in their
ight to this castle and tolls by the king. Thus Schreckenstein

36 The Gentlematts Magazine^

became one of the strongholds of this powerful law-making and law-
breaking imperious family.

But long ere this it had received the name of Schreckenstein
from the dwellers beneath and within earshot of its walls. Deeds of
blood, of horror, and of outrage were common enough throughout
the whole of this castle-stricken land. Fist-right held its sway,
and Might was the sole claim to power ; but the one deed which
tradition selects as conferring upon the castle the fearful title of
Schreckenstein is full of the spirit of the time when Wenzel I. was
still king of Bohemia.

Kuba of Strekow, as he was called, was then lord of the castle.
Hard as the rock on which he lived, fighting and the chase were his
sole enjoyments : when there were no men to hunt, then he would
hunt the bear and the wolf ; but his time was more spent in hunting
mankind than the lower animals. Every opportunity for strife
thrilled his savage heart with joy, and when he heard of a brilliant
tournament which was to be held at Biliu by Bores of Riesenburg,
he repaired thither with a strong retinue, with the intention of bearing
away the prize. But, to his rage and disgust, he was forbidden to
enter the lists ; he had been denounced by twelve noble knights as
a disturber of the peace and a breaker of the chivalrous laws of the
tournament, and, in spite of his maddened wrath, a forest of lances
prevented his attempt to enter by force. He was torn from his horse
by the footmen and driven on foot away ; whilst horse and trap-
pings were seized as a prize according to the laws of the tournament.

Kuba soon discovered that one of his denouncers was young
Wenzel of VVrabinec, and collecting a troop of his most desperate
fellows, he sallied from his Elbe fortress and lay in waiting for young
Wenzel in a forest near Wrabinec. Joyous from the tournament, the
young knight passed on heedlessly to his home, suddenly to be
seized by Kuba and his men, to be borne away to Schreckenstein
and lodged in the deepest dungeon down in the solid rock, and loaded
with chains, where neither light nor sound could penetrate.

Kuba, however, had not yet fully wreaked his rage. He rode on
to Wrabinec, that was but weakly defended in WenzeFs absence, and
in spite of a vigorous resistance by the old grey-beard, Benes,
Wenzel's father, he stormed the walls, gained the inner court, and
had even seized upon the grey hairs of Wenzel's father to slay him,
when his arm was seized with clinging force, and a beautiful young
maiden, with streaming eyes and piteous words, begged for the
life of the old man. Kuba was astounded at the beauty of the fair
beseecber, who still clung with nervous force around him. His hold

SchreckensUin : the Key of the Elbe. 37

slackened and fell from the head of his aged victim, and the young
girl fell at his knees with moving tears, begging for the life of her
father. A new feeling came over Kuba as he looked down upon the
pleading maiden. " Stand up, fair child, and tell me thy name."
"I am Mathilde of Wrabinec," answered the maiden. "I plead for
mercy for my father." Kuba turned to his followers, forbade all
plunder under pain of death, and ordered all the gates of the
castle to be closed. He clashed his streaming, bloody sword into its
sheath, and bade the knight and his daughter lead him into their
dwelling -chamber. Into the Riitersaal they went, and Mathilde com-
manded wine of the best vintage to be brought, and with her own
fair hands she poured out a beakerful and bore it to their conqueror.

Soon the generous wine had its influence over the hard soul of
Kuba, even as the wondrous beauty of Mathilde had touched his
stony heart ; his tongue was loosened and he told of his bloody deeds
and fierce adventures, until at length he even told them why he had
so attacked their castle, and that Wenzel, fair Mathilde's brother, was
now in his stronghold of Strekow. At this the souls of the old grey-
beard and of the young maiden shrank in terror from their guest;
they fell at his feet and entreated for the life of their loved one— but
in vain, until at length Kuba said : " Good, then, I wilt spare him,
will forgive and forget, if thou, my pretty one, will grant one request,"
" Oh, tell me," cried the maiden, " what wilt thou from me ? " " Thy
hand," with a sardonic grin, growled Kuba ; " thy hand ! that shall be
thy brother's and thy father's ransom. Ye are all in my power. I
can wield my right of victory, but I will be gentle in my might. I
will raise thee to be my wife, and show that Kubaalso can be honour-
able and knightly even to mercy,"

Mathilde's face became even as the silvery hairs that crowned
her father's head, and then became suffused with the hot blood that
coursed through her veins in this her anguish. Her brother's and her
father's lives lay in her hands ; but how forget her betrothed, the brave
Otto of Dohna, whose return from the army of the Roman Emperor
they were now awaiting ? But not long did Kuba give for her decision.

" Come, Dimt \ " he cried, " hast decided ? Either a priest to
make us man and wife this night, or I take thee with me as a troll,
and slay thy father and brother in my just vengeance."

One glance Mathilde threw upon her father's bent head, and
then reached forth her hand to her conqueror. The castle priest
was hunted for {and dragged from a corner into which he had crept)
to bind the wretched maiden for ever to her captor ; and the next
momiDg ilie WM led away from ber home to the rocky castle q>% <n&

38 The Gentleman's Magazine.

Elbe. Only when the keys of her brother's dungeon and of his
chains were handed to her, did her soul return ; she descended with
tottering steps down into the solid rock, where a deathlike chill from
the noisome, black, shiny walls seemed a living foretaste of the grave
iuelf.

What was Wenzel's wonderment when his sister appeared before
him ! One by one his fetters were loosened and at length in joy he
could stretch his limbs once more in freedom ; but his joy soon
turned to rage when he heard how that freedom had been bought,
and naught but his sister's tears, her words of their aged father, pre-
vented him from attempting impossible, passionate deeds. At length
she prevailed upon him to leave the castle, and from the battlements
she waved her kerchief with her weeping adieux ; for her soul said to
her never more should she see him again.

Months rolled on. Kuba had tired of his prey and was again
raiding throughout the whole country side ; but Mathilde, in his
absence, sat alone in her chamber and thought of him to whom she
had plighted her troth. Once, when in the evening twilight she was
thus sitting in sad solitude, her whole soul was filled with strange
agitated feelings and thoughts of her absent lover. Intense yearning
caused her heart to beat with quickened motion, and in her anguish
she cried aloud : " Otto ! oh my beloved, where is the home of our
love ? " and, as it were from the earth, there came a sad sound, as if
an answering voice, that echoed with the words : " In the grave."
She shuddered as she listened — her soul was strung with intensity—
when at the door she heard the faint notes of harp-strings. She
hastened towards it, opened it, and a strange dwarf entered, with a
grey beard and honourable countenance. "Fear not," said this
mannikin. "I and my brothers are indeed gnomes, and we inhabit the
inner recesses of the rock on which this castle stands ; but we love
the good, and, like thee, hate the evil: therefore am I come to see
thee, and to urge thee to hasten and release from the dungeons
beneath, thy lover, whom the savage Kuba has captured on his
journey from Italy, and who now lies beneath us, even as thy brother
erst did lie. His groans have reached even unto us and have
awakened our pity. Save him, therefore, ere thy fearful lord returns
and wreaks his vengeance upon thy Otto's head." With these words
the gnome vanished, leaving Mathilde sunk in an agony of anguish
and fear. But quickly she started up, hastened to the castellan, and
bade him open at once the inner dungeons where Otto lay. Her
imperative words he obeyed in astonishment, and her lover, Otto^
stepped forth from his rocky grave out upon the platform of the caati

(kgi

hea

m

Sckreckenstein : the Key of the Elbe.

and here, oh wondrous joy 1 he saw, ht by Ihe tender light of the young
moon, the soft face of his bride, wet with sad yet joyous tears.

The lovers thought not of danger —long they sat, their arms en-
ined in one long, warm embrace of deepest joy, far on into the
^ht, until the grey light in the brightening east was slowly ovct-
'mastering Ihe darkness, yet still they lay enrapt in thankful peace
that once more they had seen each other— when, far below, piercing
the cool grey air, came ringing ici ihetr ears the hated horn that told
of Kuba's return. Quickly Malhilde tore herself from her lover's
arms, and pointed to him the drawbridge oi'er which he must fly,
and then rushed with I ear-sl reaming eyes into her chamber, to sink
on her knees before her crucifix, and pray for the safely of her
loved one.

Kuba had returned in riotous victory with rich booty, and eager
yet for more bloodshed and horrors. He had learnt on his road
that the prisoner he had secured in his dungeon was erst the lover
of his wife, and he would quench his blood-thirst in this lover's
heart. He called the castellan and bade him bring forth his
isoner ; but, with trembling knees, the castellan told how the noble
ly had set him free.

Kuba's lips foamed, his eyes flamed with rage^ as a madman,
his words came not but in gurgling sounds. He rushed to his wife's
chamber, crashed in the door with his foot, and tore his weeping,
praying wife from the foot of the Cross. With awful, bestial rage he
tore her fair hair and tender face, his passion and madness increasing
as he worked his vengeance on her lender unresisting form — when
with a hideous yell he lifted her up, bore her to the battlements, and
devilish shout, that re-echoed from the lowers around, dashed
ler body down into the rocky clefts, far, far beneath.

There in the evening the gentle gnome found the body, and
with his fellows bore it away with tender mourning for one so gentle
lo a quiet resting- piace. But no longer could they remain in their
old home beneath a castle where such hellish deeds were done, and
never more were their faces seen or did they give good aid to those
who dwelt therein. For many a year did the white furm of the
murdered Malhilde haunt the walls and battlements of Strekow, that
henceforth the people knew but as the Schreckenstein,

But Kuba did not escape the vengeance that pursues the evil,
Mathilde's brother, Wenzcl, learnt from Otlo of his sister's cruel death ;
these two, who had been rescued by her loving self-sacrifice, raised
whole district round, and after many a hard fight defeated and
the whole of Kuba's men and burned his castle to the ground.

40 The Gentleman s Magazine.

Kuba they found not, but, like Cain, he wandered over the face of the
earth, and at length sought peace in joining a crusade to Palestine ;
but he met his doom and his reward for all his murderous deeds by
the scimitar of a Saracen.

Whether this legend really accounts for the name of Schreckenstein
or not, it is a good picture of the life led in these castles in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and even at a much later date.

That the Wartenbergers knew much of this life, their history, as
told in the account of Tollenstein, plainly shows. But they left our
castle in the hands of a castellan, it appears, for in 1352 the Emperor
Karl IV., in a document in favour of the Biirgers of Melnik, commands
the Burggraf of Schreckenstein not to disturb the people of Melnik
in their free right of passage on the Elbe, plainly showing the use
the castle was put to. In 1370 the castle was burnt down, and the
whole of the archives and documents burnt with it, so that Benes of
Wartenberg was compelled to ask for new writings from the king to
establish him in his rights to the district. These were granted, and
the castle remained in their possession until John of Wartenberg,
who lived at the very similar castle of Tetschen, a lower key to the
Elbe, exchanged it for the domain of Strewic and other property.
John promised to pay some specie as well as Schreckenstein for this
property, but once in possession the gold was not forthcoming, and
the consequence was a feud between the said John and the owners
of Strewic, whom, in modern language, he had swindled.

But Schreckenstein appears to have been sold or to have fallen
out of the hands of the owners of Strewic ; for in 141 5 again Wenzel
IV. sells it for 430 schock to a certain Wlasseck of Kladno, whose
ownership became an important point in the history of its walls.
Wlasseck was a favourite of the king, who sold or leased to him other
important properties, as well as the adjoining town of Aussig.

In the year 14 19, when Bohemia was split up into agitated parties,
and when families were divided, father against son and brother
against brother — and when the followers of Huss, led by his brother
Nicholas, were beginning to feel that the sole outcome for their own
defence must be war —Wlasseck took the side of the Catholic party
and of the Roman king, Sigmund, and he appears to have resold the
town of Aussig to this ruler, for Sigmund mortgaged Aussig to
Frederick the Streitbaren^ together with the towns of Brux, Komotau
and Nimburg, for the sum of 30,000 schock of Prager groschen,
and allowed him to man the towns with Meissner troops, wherewith
to uphold the Catholic cause.

Wlasseck was good friends with his German neighbours and ^b*

Schreckenstein : the Key of the Elbe. 4 1

them up the use of his fortress of Schreckenstein, which had become
the stronghold and retreat for gangs of marauding, plundering soldiers,
who raided into Bohemia, burning, slaying, robbing and enacting
all the hideous cruelties that were soon so rife in the land ; but on
the appearance ofa strong resisting body of the Hussites, hastily
retreating to the river fortress and its underlying town of Aussig.
They were probably largely assisted in their attacks upon the neigh-
bouring districts, from the fact that up to 1425 the principal i)art of
the Wartenherg family sided with King Sigmund, and as they owned
the castle of Tetschen and the strange mountain fortresses of Roll or
Ralsko, Schlossberg near Kamnit/ and Tollenstein, that commanded
the wide-stretching plateaus within the protecting mountain ranges,
so the plunderers of Schreckenstein could raid with immunity whilst
the powerful barons were with them ; but as the Hussites' power rose
in might, the Wartenbergers went over to their cause, and at length,
in 1426, they (the Hussites) determined to make one supreme effort
against Aussig and its surrounding castles.

The married priest, Prokop the Great, was their leader ; and under
him a fighting commander, Jacob of Wresowic, called sometimes
Jacob Bilinsky of Wresowic, probably from the fact that he was
lord of the town of BiUn, The march of the two divisions of this
army may be traced by their victories over the towns and fortresses
of Leipa, \\'eisswasser, that lay near the royal and imposing castle of
Bosig, Trebenic, Teplitz, Graupen, and Dux, until at length they
stormed the steep heights of Schreckenstein and captured the castle,
and then the united forces lay before the town of Aussig — Jacob of
Wresowic having already besieged the place, but unsuccessfully,
through the vigorous defence of the German commander, Kaspar of
Reichenberg, ^Vhen Kaspar saw that the two Hussite armies were
united, he despatched messengers to Meissen for assistance, and the
whole country was moved to fear that the flood of Ketzers (heretics)
would pour over iheir whole land, if not stayed by the towns and
fortresses at Aussig. Several thousand troops were quickly collected —
all Germany was aroused ; for the Saxons defeated, nought would
arrest the fury of the heretics.

In the lovely valley of Teplitz the advancing Meissner and Saxon
troops united, and the 15,000 Hussites before Aussig were alarmed
at the force so quickly collected against them.

It was on a Sunday, June 16, that the opposing forces drew near

to each other, and the Hussites sent a message asking that what

prisoners were made might be spared and cared for, they on their

omising lilw mercy. But the Germans, confident in numberst

42 The Gentlematis Magazine.

answered : " Not one heretic would they leave alive." Then,
although it was the Sabbath, and they fain would have kept the day
in peace, the Hussites fell on their knees and prayed with great
humbleness and devotion, and awaited the attack, with the deter-
mination that, as they had asked for quarter and obtained it not, so
they also would spare no man.

Prince Koryhut was now with them and inflamed the troops
with ardour by his words and presence ; but the direction of the
battle was left to Priest Prokop, who took possession of a neighbour-
ing height and there awaited the enemy in his famous and fearful
waggon-forts.

These waggon-forts are best described in the words of an old
writer, who says: **Sie machten eyne Wainborg von iren eigin
wainen, der vorin mehr dann VIII. schog, do zogin sie Ketin durch
zwefache wayne unde ludin ire buchsin unde bestaltin ire were
vortrefflich. Alzo schossin dy Ketczer mit irin buchsin der sie ane
zeal hatten under sie ; unde haltin lange hacken domitte sie dy ediln
Herrn unde frommen mannen von den pherdin zcogin unde
eschlugin." Which quaint, but highly graphic phrase may be rendered:
" They made a wainburg, or fort, from their waggons, of which there
were more than eight schock (that is 480) ; then they drew chains
through each two waggons, and mounted their arquebuses, and
placed their weapons excellently ; also the Ketzers (or heretics) shot
with their muskets, of which they had a number amongst them ; and
they had long hooks, wherewith they pulled the noble lords and the
pious men from their horses and slew them."

The hooks here spoken of were most formidable weapons, and
the " noble lords and pious men " at their first encounter with these
heretics must have been much astounded to find themselves grappled
with, worried, shaken — perchance stabbed and clawed — before they
came within sword's length of their foe, and finally hauled from their
horses to the ground by a stout pole some eight or ten feet long,
having at its end a sharp spear and also a pointed hook.

These novel weapons and the waggon-forts of the Hussites most
largely contributed to their success over the tried troops and chivalry
of Europe. Another of their weapons that did tremendous service
was the flail, a most terrific and formidable instrument in the hands
of a stout and desperate fanatical opponent. This instrument, like
the lance-hook described, was very long ; but instead of the hook
and spear at the end it was bound round with iron, and slung on to
this end, hung loosely by one or two rings, was a light iron-bound
log with numerous projecting pointed iron knots, with which effective

Schreckenstein : the Key of the Elbe. 43

Ibwscoutd be dealt. Their clubs were also murderous- looking aod
trrible weapons— long, with iron balls at the end full of spikes, and
ne long spike projecting from tlic lo;).
The fight commenced before noon in a terrible heat, the Germans
sweeping down with enthusiastic ardour upon the waggon-forts of the
heretics and actually breaking their line at one point ; but the
Hussites quickly recovered themselves from the first onslaught, raised
the fearful battle-cry that had ever struck fear into the hearts of their
foes, shot from their waggons with arqucbuse and musket, until great
gaps and lines were opened in the opposing ranks, tore their riders
from their horses with their long hooks and beat them to Ihc earth ;
I and as this unlooked-for defence threw the enemy into disorder, they

Pfcll upon these Germans with such fierceness that they were soon
pureed to flight. Then followed such a blood-bath that from the field
even to Aussig the running brook was as it were of blood. Each
waggon was an impregnable redoubt, shot-proof, against which in
vain the Catholics threw themselves ; then came the victorious shout:
" The Germans fly ! " The greater part fell in their headlong flight, so
that the whole ground was thick with the slain. At the little village
of Slrbowic twenty-four counts and lords knelt under their banners,
struck their swords in the ground before them and pleaded for the
mercy they had refused their victors ; but in vain, they and all who
had taken refuge in the village were ruthlessly slain and burnt alive in
the cottages. More were slain in this fight than in any other battle of
the Hussites, and many a foremost man of the Saxon parly. Great
booty fell into the hands of the Bohemians: all the waggons (which
they knew so well how to use) and guns and 66 tents.' So that the
defeated Saxons had also to endure the ridicule of the victors ; for
they taunted them, not only with defeat, but with having fallen under
the ban of the Pope ; for had they not assisted the heretics, contrary
^to his decree, with rich assistance ?

After the fight Aussig was burnt to the ground, and for three

[ears lay in ruins ; but Schreckenstein was given back to the knight,

Wlasseck of Kladno, in the following year, he having sworn feally to

rtie Hussites. During the reign of King George of Podiebrad it

^ain fell into the hands of the Warlenbcrgers, and then once more

a royal caslle.

In 1 564 this important fort was in the hands of a family who have

I retained much of their power in Bohemia, for the Emperor

terdinand I. permitted Schreckenstein to be sold lo Wenzel of

Lubkowic, and allowed the letters of the royal mortgages to descend

B writer rays 66 tchock of lenls, which woulJ give 3,960.

44 T^f^ Gentte7}uifi s Magazine.

also to his son, Adam Gallus of Lobkowic, thus introducing the name
of Gallus in the history of this fortress. But ^v^ years later we read
that the then emperor, Maximilian I., permitted important repairs
to be made at Schreckenstein and the cost thereof to be added to
the imperial mortgages, the crown thus paying the expense. And this
appears to have been the most prosperous time of Schreckenstein, for
Adam Gallus was a powerful and energetic lord, whose services to
the throne were so great that Rudolph II. presented him with the
mortgage deeds of Schreckenstein in recognition of his services — no
slight gift, as the debt upon the estate amounted to no less than
7,100 schock Meissner money. This Gallus family afterwards inter-
married with the Rosenbergs and with the Wallensteins and the
Thuns, and it is a Count Clam Gallus who at this moment holds
Wallenstein's castle of Friedland, where many of the portraits of the
Gallus family are to be seen.

The burg was again sold in 16 15 with the surrounding property;
but this time for no less a sum than 35,000 schock of Meissner
money, and into the hands of the principal line of the Lobkowic
family.

During the Thirty Years' War the fortress sustained no less than
five sieges — once by the Saxons, twice by the Swedes under Banner,
once again by the Swedes under the celebrated Torstensohn, and
again in 1648 by Kopi ; but still it was in good and habitable con-
dition, as for nearly another hundred years it remained, until about
1740 it appears to have been deserted and the present state of rpin
seems to have been commenced ; but the roofs remained over a
good part of the building, especially the chapel and the adjoining
portion, where the seats are placed at the windows. This fact,
together with its advantageous position, led the Croats in the Austrian
army of the Seven Years' War to seize upon Schreckenstein when the
Prussians took Aussig. From this safe height they jeered at the
enemy beneath, firing down upon them, and by one shot slaying one
of their generals ; but the advance of the principal body of the Prus-
sian troops forced them to quit their stronghold, and it was manned
by the troops of the Prussians under Major Emminger. This was in
the spring of the year 1757 ; but in June the tide of war turned —
again the Austrian army swarmed around Schreckenstein. The
Croats found their old nest occupied, but determined to again
possess it, and mounting a battery upon the neighbouring Schanzen-
berg, passed such a shower of shot into it that Major Emminger and
his body of 200 men were compelled to surrender. Thus ends the
"^tory of this picturesque castle of Schreckenstein, that since that

Sckreckenstein : ike Key of the Elbe. 45

cUte has stood in noble ruin proudly on its precipitous height, still
blocking the swiftly -flowing Elbe, but unnoticed and uncared for,
save by the local wanderer and perchance some singing-union, who
may spend an hour on its plateau and make its wall re-echo once
again to the song of troubadour, that spealcs of love and chivalry or
of bygone deeds that lime has thrown its glamour over. Could but
the old walls speak, or the stones of its dungeons tell but their stoiy,
one might learn from them the whole history of the middle ages in
Bohemia ; but scattered and incomplete is the history that has
descended to us, but yet more interesting even in its meagre details
than those of many a well visited castle in the Rhine district. But
to the English traveller Schrecken stein is unknown ground, and
yet it is the key, not merely to the Elbe as of yore, but also to the
famous plateau district around Haida that positively teems with rich
historic casdes and charming, wondrous scenery.

JAMES BAKF.R.

46 The Gentlematis Magazine.

TIVO RELICS OF ENGLISH

PAGANISM.

IN January 1889, Mr. Andrew Lang, writing, as his custom is, " At
the Sign of the Ship,*' ^ drew attention to some verses which, he
said, were taken down from the mouths of sailors in widely remote
parts of the country. He suggested that they might contain " a rude
memoria technica of Cathohc doctrine or even something older than
that — a reverberation from Celtic legend." He gave two variants of
these verses which, he said, are sung to a tune, and I here repeat
the Cornish version as published by him :

Come and I will sing you !

What will you sing me?

I will sing you one, oh !

What is your one ? oh !
Repeat, — Your one is all alone and ever must remain so.

Two are lily-white maids clothed all in green, oh !

Three are the three bright shiners.

Four are the Gospel makers.

Five are the ferrymen in the boat and one of them a stranger.

Six is the cheerful waiter.

Seven are the seven stars in the sky.

Eight are eight Archangels.

Nine are nine bold rainers.

Ten are the Commandments.

Eleven are eleven that went to heaven.

Twelve are the twelve Apostles.

Mr. Lang's remarks were followed by an article ^ from the pen of

Dr. Augustus Jessopp, who described the verses as " A Chant of

Arcady," and gave another interesting version picked up at Beeston,

in Norfolk, where the so-called chant was sung at harvest suppers

till very lately by harvestmen at their festive gathering. Dr. Jessopp

declares that he can see nothing in the chant which at all sounds

like a " reverberation from Celtic legend," and thinks that we may

find its source in the " Great O's of Advent," or in the seven great

O's which in England were sung before the Magnificat at vespers

* Longman's Afaganin€t January 1889, p. 328.
> Ibid. June 1889.

Two Relics of English Paganism. 47

\ from December iG to Christmas Eve. He fails to see that the
chant " is of pagan and not of Christian origin at all, and attempts
to account for the difficulties which he finds in his text by saying
that " what was done inside the church after one fashion would be
done outside after another fashion." " We may be sure," he says,
"that 3 vigilant ecclesiastical discipline did not neglect to take
cognisance of the wishes of the people when they, too, would fain
break forth into song, and, imitating their pastors and masters, ask
that they too might have their ^/-m/ O's." It is far more probable
that in singing the great O's the church was merely borrowing from
the paganism on the ruins of which Christianity was built, and it is
certain that, as I am about to show, this "Chant of Arcady" is an
ancient pagan hymn which, in its passage down the centuries, has
gathered up fragments of Christian doctrine, and become at last con-
fused with Christian ideas. I have lately met, in the north of Derby-
shire, with the following version of this hymn and the tune to which
it is sung :

^i^i^H^gHii

1 dressed in green O ;

lit --it:

Which c>r anil e'er and e'er and ev ■ er more Ehlll be 0.
When this has been sung another singer repeats the first two
lines, but instead of saying " 111 sing you three 0 " he sings :
T'iT iing you twelve O.
WhBl is Ihe Iselve 0 1
Twelve is ihe twelve Apostles,
Two lilv -white maids and oi

B last two lines serving as a chorus.

48 The Gentleman s Magazine.

In this manner the following lines are repeated until the singer
gets to the " threble Thribers " with which the song began :

Twelve Apostles.
Eleven Archangels.
Ten Commandments.
Nine Bright Shiners.
Eight the Gabriel riders.
Seven golden stars in heaven.
Six came on the board.
Five by water.
Four Gospel rhymers.
Three threble Thribers,*
Two lily*white maids and
One was dressed in green O.

The version given to me has the words " two gaily white birds "
instead of " two lily-white maids *' which I have, without hesitation,
inserted in their place, because Dr. Jessopp*s version has " two lily-
white boys," and Mr. Lang's " two lily-white maids." The chief
interest of the song centres in these lily-white maids — one of whom
was robed in green, — who lived for "evermore." By the mention of
" the threble Thribers," otherwise the three Fates or Noms, it will
be seen that the version here published differs most materially from
the other versions. Hopelessly corrupt as some of the lines seem to
have become, enough has been left to show that they are essentially
pagan, and that they probably, in their original shape, contained an
epitome of the heathen belief once current in England — a belief
which, in spite of persecution and contempt, remained long fixed in
the hearts of the people.

Not the least wonderful part of this ancient song is the strange
music by which it is accompanied, and which, by the kindness of a
friend who has carefully written it down for me, I am here enabled
to preserve. It is music which falls upon the ear like the tones of a
solemn Gregorian chant. If the words have changed, the music has
remained as it was many centuries ago, and we have here a hymn —
if such an epitome of religious doctrine may be so called — addressed,
not to the Blessed Virgin, but to the three Weird Sisters who pre-
sided over human destinies, and to other sacred beings of the pagan
creed. If I can prove this assertion I shall have established a point
of great historical interest.

The version of the hymn which is here first published contains
the line " Eight are the Gabriel riders ; " Dr. Jessopp*s version hat

* One of Mr. Lang's versions has '* the thret great Rivah^^ — an easy conruptior
of ** threble (or treble) Thribers."

Two Relics of English Pagani.

"Nine's the gable rangers," and Mr, Lang's reads "Nine are nine bold
rainers." Ii is obvious that ihe "Gabrie! riders" and "gable
rangers" are the same tiling, and 1 think it will not be doubled that
"bold rainers" is a corruption of one of these. In the "gable
rangers " Dr. Jessopp seems to hear " the echo of the angel Gabriel,"
but had he been more conversant with English folk-lore he would
have seen at once that " the Gabriel riders," or " gable rangers," are
the well-known Gabriel hounds, or, as they are cailed in the neigh-
bourhood of Leeds, " gabble retchets," " rache " being an old English
word for a scenting hOund. The noise made by a flock of birds in the
air, the sighing of the wind in the trees, and other mysterious sounds,
were long ago the cause of ignorant fears, and Teutonic mythology
abounds with stories about the Wild Huntsman with his dogs, the
Furious Host, Hactelblock, &c. riding through the sky, "The
phenomenon of howling wind," says Grimm, "is referred to Odin's
waggon, as that of thunder is to Thor's," and he also says that
" Wuoian (Odin), the god of war and victor}', rides at the head of
this aerial phenomenon." The " Gabriel riders " of this old hymn
are, therefore, the procession of half-divine beings, valkyrs and
einheriar, who followed in the train of Odin, the reference in the
hymn being, perhaps, to the god himself. Some German folk-tales
place at the head of the wild host a white man on a white horse, and
I may here mention thai in the village from which my version of th«
hymn has been obtained— Ecking ton, in Derbyshire — a spectral while
horse which vomits fire is still remembered, and colliers are said to
have seen it when going to their work early in the morning. In t!ie
same parish it is said that children who are born at the hour of
midnight have " the power to see the Gabriel hounds," At Highlow,
in the parish of Hathersage, it is said that a white horse with a white
ridet appears by night.

The hymn, as told lo me, begins and ends with the mention of
" the threblc Thribers," two of whom are said to be hly-white maids,
and the third a maiden dressed in green. I have made local inquiries
about the word " thriber," which is pronounced with the * long. The
people who use it do not know what it means, and I have written it as
they pronounce it. What, then, is this " thriber," assuming the word
to have come down to us unchanged, or, at least, fairly well preserved t
1 lake it lo be the English representative of an old Norse word, I'rdSr,
a maid, which is found in a great number of female names, such as
Elfrida and Gertrude. ^Ve should, however, expect the form to be
~ J'lhrida," or "frida," instead of "thriba." But the habit of allriera-
n will easily explain how the letter b would lake the place of d.

50 The Gentleman's Magazine.

Whether this derivation be correct or not, it is clear, upon other
grounds, that the three " Thribers " or maids are the three Parca or
Fates. In ancient stories these maids are represented as beings
of enchanting beauty. I am not aware that they are anywhere
described as being robed in white or green, but " white ladies " are
known in English local names, if not in English folk-lore, and *' white
ladies," white-robed women, are frequent in German legend. In
German folk-myths we hear of these white maidens carrying bunches
of may-lilies in their hands, of white lilies plucked by them, of may-
lilies offered to the goddess Ostara. If these "white ladies" are not
the Fates they are nearly related to them, and it is not easy to
separate the one from the other. We do not know by what names
these radiant sisters, to whom the very gods were subject, were dis-
tinguished amongst Englishmen, except that the foremost of the three
was called Wyrd. * But the memory of the Fates is not even now
forgotten in the very village in which this folk-hymn was written down.
In Eckington, I am told, it is still the custom on New Year's Eve for
three unmarried girls to enter a room having two doors in it, and to
set the table with knives, forks, and plates for three guests. There
must always be three girls, neither more nor less. Having set the
table in this manner they wait until twelve o'clock, exacdy at which
hour the spirits of their future husbands appear, coming in at one
door and going out at the other. Now Burchard of Worms, who
died in 1024, in a well-known passage speaks of the three sisters cr
Parca for whom the people of the house spread the table with three
plates and three knives, exactly as the girls at Eckington do now.*
Moreover, the oath " by the Meggins," meaning " by the Fates," or
" by the Norns," is still heard in the neighbourhood.

Evidently the maid who was " dressed in green " was the one who
told of evil to come, of pain and death. It will have been noticed
that there is a deep and mournful cadence in the music when her
name is mentioned, and we may be sure that there was a reason for
this. Saxo Grammaticus relates how King Fridlevus went to the
temple of the gods to learn the destiny of his son. There he saw the
" nymphs " sitting on three seats. The first two foretold good things
of the boy, but the third, who was the ill-natured 'one (protervioris
ingenii invidentiorisque studii femina), said that the boy would be
addicted to the sin of avarice. She, perhaps, was robed in green.

» In Norse mythology the Norns dwelt by Urd's well. Possibly the local name
Ward send (atte Werdesend) may mean Norn*s land.

* See the orginal in Grimm'a Teutonic Mytkohgy, translated by Stallybnob
p. 1746.

Two Relics of English Paganism.

It is well known that green is still regarded as the unlucky colour. A
girl will not accept an emerald ring from her lover, and a Scotchman
will have nothing green at his wedding, all kinds of green vegetables
being rigorously excluded. The river Tees has its sprite, called Peg
Powler, who has green tresses, and some streams in Lancashire are
haunted by a being called Jenny Greenieeth. These sirens are said
to lure men to destruction, or to devour them. Hence it appears
that the Norn robed in green was the one who pronounced the evil
decrees of fate. All three lived for " evermore," and the words and
music of this old hymn show that they were worshipped with affection
and fear.

English field names, or local names, appear to contain evidence
of a widespread belief in the actual manifestation of the Fates to men.
Thus, at Ashover, in Derbyshire, a sleep and rugged piece of ground,
at the top of which is a " wishing stone," is known as the Faybrick,
"fay," meaning fate, Norn; and "brick"^OId English ^/-A-;^ — apiece
of rough, untilled land. It is said that if you stand upon the wishing
stone and wish something three times your wish will come true.
Maybrick has probably exactly the same meaning, " may " being the
maid, fay, or Norn.

Some parts of the hymn are hard to explain, and others so corrupt
that one cannot even hazard a guess, I think that the "gosijel
rhymers "or "gosi>e! makers "are not necessarily the four Evangelists.
More probably the words refer to the spells and runes written and
used by priests and magicians— spells which had power to kill and
bring back the dead to life, to heal the sick, and allay the storm. The
"seven golden stars in heaven" seem lobe the Pleiades, the "golden
hen and six chickens " of the Hungarian folk-tale. In Eckingion
children are still told that it is unlucky to point at the stars, and it is
there said that God's eye will be seen in the sky at the last day.

It will have been noticed that the hymn is sung at night amid the
drinking of ale. We must remember that in England, as elsewhere,
witches are said to have held their feasts by night on the lonely heath
or the bleak hill top. Thus an old book on witchcraft, which describes
some of these nightly assemblies in the wilderness, tells us that "at iheir
meeting ihey have usually wine or good beer, cakes, meat, or the like.
They eat and drink really when they meet in iheir bodies, dance also
and have music." ' This was written in 1664. The same book, in
describing the witchcraft practised by Agnes Synipson, mentions " her
use of long scriptural prayers and rhymes, containing the main points
of Christianity, so that she may seem to have been not so mvich a
■ Clanvil'i Saddummvi Triumphatia, 1716, p. 397.

5^

The Genileman's Mag^titU.

white witch as an holy woman." ' It would appear, therefore, that oitt
" Chant of Arcady " was an epitome of heathen belief, with some
admixture of Christian ideas, originally sung by witches and their
followers at their meetings by night The fact of its existence in
widely remote parts of England shows that the heathen creed was
definite and well understood.

In this same parish of Eckington another hymn or carol, not less
interesting than the so-called " Chant of Arcady," is sung by children
at Christmas, the words and tune being as follows :

^^^.

sail - ing by, come sailing by, I saw three ships come

gfe^i jjJ >1

3i

^

5^

1

!—, 1 ^--J—J-

^IS-fi:

Si^ESEE

sail - ing by, at Christmas day in the mom

i^^g=

m

2. 5'

I asked them what they had got there,
They had got there, they had got there,
I asked them what they had got there
At Christmas day in the morning.

Glonvirs SadJucismus Triumphatus^ 1726, p. 39S.

Two Relics of English Paganism. 53

Theji said they bid a Saviour there,
A Saviour there, a Sivioui there.
They gaid Ihey had a Saviour there
At Christmas day in the morning.
They washed his head ia a golden bowl.
In a golden bowl, in a golden bowl.
They washed hia head in a golden bowl
At Christmas day in the morning.
They wiped his head with a diaper towel,
Wiih a diaper towel, with a diaper lowcl.
They wiped his head with a diaper towel
At Christmas day in the moroing.
They combed his hair with an ivory comb,
With an ivory comb, with an ivory comb,
They combed his hair with an ivoiy comb
At Christmas day in the morning.
And all the bells in heaven did ring,
Heaven did ring, heaven did ring.
To think that Christ was bom a king
At Christmas day in the morning.

In the mysterious words of the previous hymn we have seen that
"six came on the board," and "five by water," and that Mr. Lang's
Cornish version of that hymn has the line " five are the ferrymen in
the boat, and one of them a stranger." I take this " stranger " to be
the "Saviour" mentioned in the carol about the three ships. If we
examine the carol attentively we shall see that it is not a Christian
hymn at all. The "Saviour" is not the child Jesus, but the boy
Sceaf; and if we merely read "stranger" instead of " Saviour," and
"Sceaf" instead of "Christ," we shall altogether eliminate that
Christian element which is foreign to the carol. I do not know
whether the birth of the year is intended to be symbolised by the
coming of a child across the sea, bringing plenty and goodwill to our
shores. But Sceaf means " sheaf," which is itself a symbol of plenty,
whilst the mention of the golden bowl, the ivory comb, and the
diaper lowel would seem to show that the new year was heralded
with rejoicing, and with deep reverence paid to the godlike child who
brought prosperity. As for the legend about the boy Sceaf, the
reader shall have the account of an eminent writer on Teutonic
mythology :

One day it came to pass that a ship wa; seen sailing near the coast of
Scedeland, or Scani, and it approached the land without being propelled either
by oar* or tails. The diip came to the sea-beach, and there was seen lying in
it a little boy, who wu sleeping with bii head on a sheaf of grain, tOTToUDded by
Ireunrei and tMlii by gbivci and coats of mail. The boat itself wu Hatelj and

54 The Gentlematis Magazine.

beautifully decorated. Who he wa«, and whence he came, nobody had any idea,
but the little boy was received as if he had been a kinsman, and he received the
most constant and tender care. As he came with a sheaf of grain to their coun*
try the people called him Scef, Sceaf. Scef grew up among this people, became
their benefactor and king, and ruled most honourably for many years. He died
far advanced in age. In accordance with his own directions, his body was borne
down to the strand where he had landed as a child. There, in a little harbour, lay
the same boat in which he had come. Glittering from hoar-frost and ice, and
eager to return to the sea, the boat was waiting to receive the dead king, and
around him the grateful and sorrowing people laid no fewer treasures than those
with which Scef had come. And when all was finished the boat went out upon
the sea, and no one knows where it landed.*

This beautiful allegory seems to describe the birth and death of
the year. At Christmas children in Eckington carry a doll in a
box, and go round from house to house singing :

We've been awhile a wandering

All through the fields so green ;

And now we come a wesselling,

So plainly to be seen.

O my jolly wessel,

O my jolly wessel,

Love and joy come to you

And to our wessel too.

Pray God bless you.

Pray God bless you,

Pray God send you

A happy new year.

In other parts of England we hear of the " vessel cup," or " bessel
cup." In my opinion this is not the wassail bowl at all, though the
word is commonly interpreted in that way. It is the vessel, or re-
presentation of the ship, in which an image of the boy Sceaf was
carried. It is rather strange that the doll in the box should not be
carried round when the carol of the three ships is sung ; but pro-
bably that carol was once accompanied by the figure of a ship and
child, and a little play representing the washing of the child's head
in the bowl, and the combing and wiping of his hair. A custom
known as " washing baby's head " still exists in the district. When
a child is born it is usual for the father to " wash its head " by call-
ing in his neighbours to assist him in a drinking carousal. It is not
easy to understand why there should be three ships, and the line

I saw a ship come sailing by

would do as well as the words now used. The legend of the boy
Sceaf was known to Matthew of Westminster, who explains that
personal name as manipulus frumenti. It is still the custom in
* Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology^ translated by Anderson, 1889, p. 87.

Two Relics of English Paganism. 53

Derbyshire to partake of " frumity," i.t. wheat boiled in milk, on the
rooming of Christmas day. On that morning, years; ago, I am told
that a Derbyshire farmer used to give a sheaf of wheat, or a sheaf of
oats, to each of his horses and oxen. It would seem, then, that
animals were believed to share in the common rejoicing. In Ecking-
ton it is said, at this very day, that if you enter a cowhouse at the
hour of midnight you will see the cows kneeling down in prayer to
God.

In some parts of England the memory of heathen beliefs and
practices is yet fresh and green. It needs a delicate hand to gather
these tender blossoms in, for they are apt to elude the grasp of
clumsy fingers. But just as the field-name, if we would under-
stand it rightly, is often eloquent of ancient myths, so the existing
folk-lore and legends of English villages are full of the spirit of that
non-Christian religion which was dear to our English forefathers in
the morning of their histor)>,

SIDNEY O. ADDY.

$6 The Gentletnati s Magazine.

IN A SCOTCH ''SMIDDY:*

THERE were three smiddies and six blacksmiths in the parish
of Carglen. This was but a small, some thought a ludicrously
inadequate number, when it was remembered that the area of the
parish was nine miles in length by seven in breadth, and its surface
dotted by a long succession of cottars* cots, cosy crofts, and extensive
farmsteads. Still, these six stalwart wielders of the hammer, toiling,
sweating, and struggling in front of the furnace through sultry summer
days and cold, dark, wintry evenings, ministered, on the whole
effectively to the wants of the rural population, in the matters of
ploughs, harrows, picks, spades, pitchforks, scythes, shoeing of horses,
and all the miscellaneous odds and ends in iron and steel manufacture
required by the farmer, the peasant, the carter, and the hedger and
ditcher.

I know not what it may have been in other neighbourhoods in
the north of Scotland, but I do know that in our own parish of
Carglen the blacksmith, young or old, was a noted personage. He
had more robust physical strength than any one else ; he was a
harder worker ; he was a sort of walking dictionary for the use of,
and a father confessor to, the men and lads of an extensive district ;
he was well-to-do ; he had the ear of the country lasses, if a single
man ; and, if married, was a douce, sober, " lang-headit chiel " ;
in short, he belonged to the very first grade of experience, wisdom,
and tried respectability in Carglen. The local tailor, the " souter,"
or shoemaker, the joiner, were, each and all, creatures of inferior
rank, mere sapless lumber, so to speak, in comparison with the life
and vigour of the sturdier parishioner. " Prick-the-louse *' — that is,
in other language, the tailor — was indeed the lankiest, leanest, most
woe-begone, least reputable member in the whole body of the tiny
Carglen democracy.

The two minor smiddies, though very characteristic and worthy
of ample description in their degree, shall not now be delineated in
extended detail. Suffice it to say that one was a plain, substantiali
5moke-begrimed, roadside Highland shanty, adorned with a m

In a Scotch "Smiddy." 57

decked by gaudy red tiles, and surrounded by the smith's dwelling,
a byre, a stable, and other outhouses of uncouth architecture ; the
second, a place of very different feature, inasmuch as it bore every
appearance of having been hewn from the solid rock at the top of a
declivity known in Carglen as the Girdler's Craig, For what reason
that steep precipice came to be described by this name was, I recol-
lect, a kind of puzzle to me in early days, but I never succeeded in
solving the mystery, either from inner consciousness or by en-
lightenment from the lore of local antiquaries ; but, in any case,
Jamieson's smiddy — it cannot always have been Jamieson's, but to
designate it by any other phrase would seem like transforming the
cave-shop of the blacksmith into an unknown den — was part and
[larcel, if one may so say, of the real treasures of Cai^len. Above it,
on the rock, stood the attendant tenements — conspicuous objects ;
but the smiddy itself, a veritable smoke-hole in summer, has been
known, on occasions more than one, to be utterly engulfed in mid-
winter in the folds of a huge snow-wreath.

The smiddy, however, of which I desire to speak in this paper,
was placed in different surroundings, certainly of more picturesque,
if less romantic, setting. It was the smiddy /ar excellence in our
little world of Carglen, just as the main public school, albeit there
were three others, was always spoken of parochially as ike school.
The smiddy, the smith's house, the trim front fruit-garden, the bam,
the byre, the stable, and, above all, the high, white, round dove-cot
in the rear of the court-yard, together made a picture the outlines of
which, once seen and accurately marked, could scarcely ever be
forgotten. I have used the word court-yard ; would that this were
sufficiently indicative of the actual nature of that central square I
Alas ! it is not. What would a Highland farmstead of the olden
time have been without its midden before the kitchen door? What
is a b'cotch steading even now without the glorious dunghill in the
middle of the cluster of farm buildings? Amos Gibb's croft was no
exception to this characteristic general feature. Right in front of
the superbly shining dove-cot, under the very eyes of the sleekly
plump pigeons, rose the eternal dungheap, like a rotting flower-
shrub in a fertile garden. There is a cesspool, too, at the nearest
corner, of which beware, as you steer for the smiddy door on a dark
misty night Around the blacksmith's dwelling were his half-dozen
patches of cultivated soil, and beyond these an extensive strip of
heathy moor, terminating in an abrupt descent to a birchen dell,
where

The wild rose, egUnfl"* — -■ '—vnn

Wuted uoand ibd-

58 Tlie Gentlematis Magazine, '

where birds sang sweet, lovers met on the Sunday, and Caii^leii
bum piped to irresjronsive ears an unceasing song, as it rushed by
alders, danced through narrow fissures, dallied with innumerable
tree-roots, and rumbled amid a hundred flinty rocks. Gibb's smiddy,
or Tap-tlie-neuk, as it was indifferently known, was situated by the
side of the main or toll road, at a spot where the scenery was
unexpectedly charming ; a sort of little oasis in the midst of the
sombre pastures, treeless slopes, and ban-en moorland of cold Car-
glen. Crossing the road, you passed into a little wood, full of oak,
ash, and silvery birch trees, covering banks, crags, holms, and shady
nooks, gently sloping to the Carglen burn, which here bickers through
dark caverns inaccessible to human foot, save at distant intervals,
and these only at spaces overlooking black swirling pools of exces-
sive depth, from the bubbling eddies of one of which I, poor youngster!
was snatched in early days, almost at the last gasp, by the strong
arm of a country ploughman. Heaven only knows whether it was

the tug of an over-big trout or salmon from the river S , or simply

a sunken tree-root in which the fish-hook had got entangled, that
caused this disaster ; but, in either case, my foot slipped, and down
I fell in the black waters of the Hag's Pot. In subsequent expedi-
tions this particular pool saw me no more, nor have 1 looked upon
it to this day. I have always meant to fish there again, and still
mean to do so ; the black pot has a peculiar fascination, but some-
how I have ever managed to shun it. Even when, a few years ago, I
was last within sound of its dreamy swirl, and on the greensward,
where I had first read the " Songs" of Burns, once more turned over
the pages of the national poet, I left without looking on it, under
protection of a hypocritical mental excuse that time had passed too
rapidly and I was due elsewhere. Since the railway cuttings were
opened through Tap-the-neuk den, it has come to be spoken of as
the Gulley, but even the smoky engine has failed to rob the place
of its surpassing charm, and scarcely a train passes in the snmmci
season without showing from its carriage windows many faces of
strange passengers, whose attention has been riveted by the pic-
turesque gorge.

On this charming Highland spot the smiddy looked down. The
smiddy itself was a plain square building, with two windows at the
back, graced with somewhat shattered small squares of glass, and
with a single door in front. There were two furnaces, one at eitbet
end of the room. The floor was earthen, and sadly uneven, save ia
the centre, where there was a paved square upon which the fac
stood in the process of shoeing, or "shoddin'," as it mu \

In a Scotch "Smiddy" 59

denominated in those parts. The contents of the smiddy were of the
most miscellaneous description. In addition to the usual instru-
ments required in the blacksmith's art, such as liellows, stithy
(" studdy," as they called it), vice, lathe, hammers, shovels, pincers,
tongs, &c., the rafters and the sides of the gaunt square building
were covered with bars of iron and steel fresh from the foundry of
the country town, in intricate conjunction with the accumulated
rubbish of two generations of Carglen peasants. There were twisted
old horse shoes, broken sickles, and scythes of curious antiquated
type, disused pitchforks, bits of saddle chain, coils of rusty fence-
wire, innumerable old spades, or fractions of them, a heap of out-
worn rings from rotten cart-wheels, socks, coulters, and other portions
of disused ploughs, in ample abundance ; in short, a veritable olla
podrida, if one may so say; a mixture as curious in its way as that of
the immortal Captain Grose, who

Had ft fouth o' auld Dick-nackelt,
Rusty airn caps, an' ginglin' jackets.
Wad hold the Lowdieas Ihiu in tacketa

A towmont guid ;
An' pairiich pats an' auld saut-backets

Afore Ibe Sood.

Outside the smiddy, just by the door — take care, once more, if
you go there of a mirk winter evening, in case you split your shins
against them— stood one or two gaudily painted new iron ploughs
for sale, and, perchance, one or two more sent by their owners to
await repairs. It may be asked by what means this curious stock
of ancient lumber came to be piled up in the smiddy, occupying,
as it did, even to the unpractised eye, an amount of space altogether
disproportioned to the exigencies of the rural blacksmith's shop.
The explanation, like most explanations in far higher and more im-
portant matters, is very simple. It was the custom of the good
farmer, 01 struggling cottar, whenever any agricultural implement,
such as a pick or a spade, a hoe or a harrow, was out of order, to
take it to the smith's, to see if it could be repaired. If he could
mend it, good and well ; if not, what on earth was the use of taking
it home again, burdening either the human shoulder or the back of
a horse? So it came to be left in the custody of the blacksmith.
" It's ower far gaen," Amos might declare. " Na noo, ye dinna say
sas," would be the reply, " Fac as death," solemnly adds he of the
hammer. "Mak'usa new ane," would the customer jauntily respond,
as he pitched the dilapidated implement into a heap of neighbourly

6o The Gentietnan's Magazine,

Amos Gibb was a busy man, on his croft, in the late summer and
early and mid-autumn. He, too, was a bit of a farmer in his way,
and neither threat nor temptation would move him from the mowing
of his clover patch, or the ingathering of his scanty oatmeal harvest
He was a pious man, and a ruling elder to boot in the Free Kirk,
and, as such, was known all over Carglen as a shining light of the
first brilliance. Strong language was therefore as foreign to him as
strong drink in excess ; judge, accordingly, of the state of perturba-
tion into which the worthy Cargleners were thrown when it was
rumoured throughout the parish that something like the following
conversation had passed between George M'Queben and Elder
Amos Gibb :

George (who had a hig job on hand in delving fuel from the
peaty bog) ■■ " It's a braw day, smith ; come awa' in and gae a mend
to this spaad, I'm fairly at a loss withoot it."

Amos (sweeping the scythe in the lush clover) : " Na noo, ye
dinna say sae, George ; it is really a guid day."

George: "True as God made me, smith, I canna' get alang
withoot it."

Aitios: "Troth an' its gae hkc."

But still the scythe went swish, swish, in the precious green clovu-

George: " Yell be comln' awa' in, then, Maistcr Gibb."

Amos: "Eh, fat for, man?"

George: "As sure as auld Nick, noo, smith, are ye na pro-
vokin'?"

Amos : " Be t^uict, George ; ye ken it's said in the guid Book,
' Evil communications corrupt good mainers.' "

George : " Mayners ! httle care I for mayners ; they're for chiets
aboon me ; mend my spaad, say 1."

And George laid his horny hand on the blacksmith's muscular
shoulder. Swish— chirr ! went the scythe, abruptly coming to a
standstill in the middle of the " bout." " George," said Amos, look-
ing him straight in the face with a penetration like that wherewith the
Ancient Mariner held the wedding guest ; " George," said he again,
" ye mind the text last Sunday, ' Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof.'"

" Wfcl, wed," said the peat-digger, " what in all the warl' has
that tae dae wi' the mendin' o' my spaad f"

"Deed, a muckle bit," quoth the smith ; "for see ye hoc
' There's a time,' saith the Scripture, ' for cuttin' my girss [grassl an'
there's a time for replenishin' your spade.' "

Otergt: "Jest (he vera thing I was sayin'."

r

In a Scotch "Smiddy.

"Na, na, jest ihe preceese opposite," was ihe laconic rejoinder ;
&nd swish, swish, once more went the scythe.

George fairly lost all patience. " Ve donnart auid deevil, that I
lud say sae — wunna ye dae the needfu"? "' said he.

not at all," cried the smith ; and still swish, swish, went
the keen-edyed scythe.

George stood on the juicy new-mown sward, boiling with indig-
natian, yet scarcely knowing what to say or do. Poor McQueben,
drunken, nc'er-do-weel as he was, had little notion of a correct theo-
logy ;but, all the same, some rude ideas were floating in his confused
brain. At length these gathered shape, and said he, " Amos, I've
heard tell ihal Ane ahoon has said, ' inasmuch as ye have done it to
the least, ye've done it to me ' ; and 'the wicked shall be turnit into
hell.' Eh, man, it's a glum ootlook for some. ' Depairt from me '
was the text nae lang syne."

This was too much even for the sedate elder. Swish went the
scythe no longer ; erect stood Amos Gibb leaning slightly on his
sc>'ihe, "Dam" ye, George McQueben," said he, "ye're the
deevil's ain son. Gang to the ither smiddy."

Without a moment's delay George trudged from the clover-patch,
spade on shoulder, and made for the high road ; nor did he stop till
he reached smiddy number two in Carglen, where he found smith
number two, and had his wants instantly attended to, He did not
fail, however, lo tell his story, garnished, it must be confessed, with
much additional strength of language. This was the only time upon
which Amos Gibb was known to have forgotten himself, and used
words very unbecoming a sedate man and ruling elder of the Free
Kirk. All in Carglen were alike surprised and shocked ; the profane
professed to see in the occurrence a convincing proof of the fact
that " We're a' tarred wi' ae stick " ; the professors, good, honest folk,
gave a more charitable explanation of the lamentable outburst of
temper. It was Jecms Newton who was the cause of the circulation
of this less satirical version. Jecms was a mountain shepherd,
dwelUng in a solitary turf hut within a sheltered cleft of coid Ben
Ulen, and it was pretty generally known in Carglen that somewhere
in the vicinity of his little cot there was an underground illicit still,
which supplied the worthy peasants with many "draps o' the critur"
of the daintiest flavour. Ill news travels fast and travels far, and it
was not long, therefore, before tidings of the smith's downfall were
carried to the hearlhslone on the hillside. Jeems was greatly per-
turbed in spirit ; tumbled up and down in his own mind, as John
faa quaintly phrases it ; buM||H^^he unbi»d&a%<i VvcKw^tlu

62 The Geniieman's Magazine.

"Deil be in me — wha' vould haethocht it?— hailh that's jest it ; ehl
mon, its a real awfu' owerturn for Amos Gibb."

"Ay, deed is it," chimed in his visitor.

" An' there's mair to blame than him," continued the shepherd;
"the deil's aboot, say I ; look to yersels."

"Ye havna seen him again, Jecms, hae ye?" whimpered the
superstitious Orglener.

" Na, its nae him, it's the whisky,"

" The whisky, Jeems ! what mean ye? "

" Ow, mon, its vera seemple," quoth the shepherd ; " see hen.
Yell maybe hae a kind o' glint that I supply Amos frae time to time
wi' a gallon or sae o' the dew. That's neither here nor there; but
nae to deceeve ye, I'm free tae tell that short syne I sent Maistei
Gibb twa brown jars o' a stronger drap than I had iver done afore ;
nn' may the auld carle get me, if it hasna brought aboot puir Amos's
doonfa'."

" U'eel, an' there noo ! " half whistled the man from the farm.

So that the short and the long of the story is this : All Carglen
was very speedily divided into two camps, cleft by a parting line as
distinct as that which separates Protestant from Catholic, Whig from
Tory, HomeRulerfromUnionist.pre-Millennialist from post-Millenni-
alist, and so on and on. Here, a large and voluble throng swore that
" Amos Gibb was fund OOt at last ; he wus jest as bad as ony o' us—
only wane." There, a large number — and they, strange to tell, the
sober sort— gave it as their opinion " that it wus nae Amos Gibb at
a' that was at fault, but jest that ower het drap o' whisky." But,
oddest of all, one man was strangely silent, and he the fons et origt
of the whole problem. George McQueben had nothing but good to
say of the smith ! The reason of this transformation was somewhat
hidden, but 1 believe it may be accounted for in this way. Amos
had found means of propitiating the outraged peat-digger. A spade
of finished workmanship was put into the hands of the hard driifter
of usquebaugh, and rumour in my time had it, that whatever little
jobs were done thereafter for George in the smiddy of Tap-the-neuk,
no accounts were ever known to be rendered at the close of the
half-year.

But, as yet, we have scarcely seen the inside of the smiddy. It
was a cosy place in winter, especially when the snow, driven hy the I
fury of the nor'-eastern blast, had swept over the shoulder of Bea
Ulen, to fall in wide-covering and scattered drift on the beatfaj I
moors, the sloping fields, the level meadows, and desolate glmr
the hi hland puish. A weary struggle was it for the plough'

In a Scotch " Smiddy." 63

llie fields upon such bleak , chill, winter days ; but, wiib the fall of
early evening, a genial respite supervened to his speli of dismal toil.
UTicn his supper, taken somewhere between 5.30 and 6.30, had
been duly dcsiiatched, he shouldered his " sock " and his " cou'ter,"
and set forth, amid the thickly falling snow, for the smiddy of
Tap-the-neuk. Many of the country fellows, moreover, who had
no personal business to transact with the blacksmith, found them-
selves attracted by the force of association, confirmed habit, and
pleasure of genial gossip, to the same rendezvous ; so that by seven
o'clock, or thereabouts, the grimy room was fairly packed with men
and youths from every part of the lower end of Carglen parish.
Some were squatting on the floor, others sat on the rough benches ;
some leant on the edge of the water-tubs, and yet others manfully
stood in the middle of the earthen floor, smoking theirculty pipes, and
resting now upon one leg and anon upon the other. Many a happy
winter's evening have I spent in that rude and sooty shelter, and,
indeed, so frequent were my visits, that by a sort of prescriptive
right I invariably claimed as my coign of vantage the cosiest — albeit
the dirtiest — corner in the ruling elder's smithy. This was the heap
of burnt cinders on the furnace bench, close by the great fire
blazing under the nose of the huge dusty bellows. It was a place
where the hot sparks fell fast and thick ; but, somehow, one did not
mind these, so familiar had they become upon intimate acquaintance.
School was a dreary place at the best ; preparing Greek and I^iin
lessons was a weary grind ; but when the hour arrived to don an old
suit and race to Tap-the-neuk, all such things were forgotten in the
inspiriting excitement. Oh ! for the pen of a Waller Scott, or, on a
lower scale, of a Robert I-ouis Stevenson— or even of a J. M. Barrie
— lo describe these nights, so full of fun, frolic, gossip, and healthy
human bucolic wisdom. One remembers them with a haunting
feeling that more was to be learned there than from all the books of
all the sages.

We will travel back in imagination to one of these glorious
nights. It is an evening in mid-winter, and the snow lies deep on
all the lowland fields. A nipping wind drives in blinding swirls the
powdery snow, as we trudge to the smiddy, whose ruddy light
shines welcome and cosy through the broken window-panes, the
chinks of which are, in these cold times, plentifully stu/Ted with bits
of brown paper and old rag. Pity the poor shepherd on the lone
hill-side in such a night, say wc, as ever and again the blast sweeps
Bst with teeth keener and chill more snell. There is a wildly
in the northern sky, whose scant beams occasionally

64 The Gentlematis Magazine.

light up the path, so that we are able to steer clear of yawning
Scylla as we make for the smiddy door. Safe within, we are in
another world. Like Dante emerging with joy from the gloomji
shades to look once more on the sweet earth and the beautiful lighl
of heaven, we feel a pleasure, of different kind, but equal degree,
in the welcome heat and foretaste of social pleasure, which drive
away all memory of the howling night wind.

We mount to the old seat on that cinder-heap and survey the
company. Smith Amos Gibb at this end of the room, and smith
Amos Gibb's assistant at the opposite, are hard at work. Nov
is the busiest part of the twenty-four hours for them. Clink,
clink of hammers, an everlasting clink seems to be going on. There
are perhaps a score of persons in the smiddy, and for a time con-
versation is kept up by the country fellows in scattered groups. An
occasional guffaw from stentorian lungs partly renders inaudible the
interchange of soul which is going on in the little group nearest to
us, just there by the well-worn turning-lathe. Yet, on the wholes
we gather the drift of the dialogue. The speakers are Tarn o* the
Croft, Andrew frac Claypots, Sandy o' the Tanzie, and little Pat frae
the Mill.

" It's trying weather for the horse," cries he of the Claypots,

" Ay, an' ye may say it," declares the man from the Croft.

" It's nippin' tae the ban's," murmurs the lad of the Mill.

" Deed an' ye'r richt," adds the fourth in this quartette ; " hot
hae ye heard the news ? "

Tam and Pat give a knowing wink the one to the other, as much
as to say, " We could an' if we would ; " but Andrew, slightly more
ingenuous, hazards the assertion, " It's maist like I have ; but tell yei
tale, man."

Then declares Sandy in a sepulchral voice — gazing on the dingy
roof and the curling smoke amid the rafters, at the same time
mechanically shaking the ashes from his coal-black pipe — " Kirsty's
gone."

" Dead 1 " cry they all.

" Ow na, nae deid, but only lost," responds Sandy with a mighty
expectoration.

"Lost on the muirs !" exclaims little Pat with a wild shriek, just
as a huge spark, struck by the fore-hammer, leaps into his left eye.

Sandy refills his pipe, lights it with a red-hot iron, remounts the
lathe, takes three whiffs at the cutty, and says he, " Na."

A few moments' silence, and then Andrew interposes with ^ Y<
dMrcBSL say it'tf the sojer."

In a Scotch ''Smiddy'' 65

" What, Loup-the-Dyke, o* the Cameron Hielanders ! Nay, noo
yer aff the gleg again, man. The lassie never care't a prin for
him. She's tramped wi* Donal Beg the revival preycher, fac as
death."

" Whew ! " sounds through the smiddy from Pat o' the Mill ;
•* this comes o' prayin* an' preachin'. To steal honest men's dochters,
an' the light o' their father's hoose. Past redemption an' doon the
tither side for some, I'm thinkin'."

"Ne'er fash yer thumb," interposes the philosophical and
phlegmatic Sandy; "they were merryit by the U.P. Kirk minister
in Boriff on Friday last."

" Haith, an' that males an unco difference," says Tam o' the Croft;
" but cherity becomes us a', I think, an' may Guid A'mighty pity the
lassie's ears, for her joe has a lang tongue. Ye may a' hae it as ye like,
but I'se maintain that a better chield I never met than that birkie.
Lord, how he roar't oot the text, ' Blessit are the peacemakers, for
theirs is the kingdom o' God.' True as the mune 's in the lift, it
frichtent the vera kye ayont the hallan."

"Wae's me, freens, but the warst's nae tell't yet," groans, rather
than speaks, Sandy, the narrator of this strange love tale.

"Weel ! " "Ay, ay!" "Na 1" are the varied exclamations of the
listeners.

" It's a queer set-to, sirs, but the up an' the lang o't is this :
Kirsty's faither's in bed, an' the doctor's sent for."

" Deil tak' him ! " cries Tam, with a heavy thump on an uneven
portion of the lathe.

" Nae the auld man, ye mean ? " smoothly inquires Andrew frae
Claypots.

" Dae ye na tak' me, men?" roars the now bellicose Sandy ; " it
isna the feyther I'm thinkin' aboot; " and thereupon he gives a hitch
which makes the wooden stand creak in all its ancient timbers, and
somehow causes him to lose his balance and, falling head foremost,
measure his full length upon the floor.

" Bravo, Tanzie! " interject we, as the muscular giant arises, shakes
his moleskin-covered body, and resumes his position on the turning-
lathe. "It's the doctor loon I was speakin' o', freens," solemnly
testifies he.

" Dr. Shanksbane ! " murmurs our friend Tam.
• " Richt ye are there, Tam. That's the man. He may be a vera
guid doctor, but he killit my auld mither, an' she no seventy-twa."
And again he thumps the lathe with his homy fist, emph9c&v&vci%>^^

ction with a loud oath.

^-^•- ccLxix, Na /915. 1

66 Tlie Gentlematts Magazine.

" Swear not at all/' cries smith Amos Gibb, in his well-known
phrase, pausing in the midst of his toil and pointing with a red-hot
bar of iron to a legend written in rough and partially-illegible cha-
racters on a large board suspended by a couple of tiny chains from
the roof of the smiddy. The inscription originally must have been
'* Swear not at all, but let your yea be yea, and your nay nay, saith
the Lord," but it now reads " Sw— ar not at all, but let your yea be
and your nay na — saith ."

" Ay, ay, smith, I understan' ye weel ; remember Geoige
McQueben, ye would say," quietly declares Sandy, with a nod whidi
is meant for the general assembly and produces a faint sound d
applause from us all.

" Na, Sandy, it means * Soil not yer mouth wi* foul words, in
case yer teeth are dang doon yer* throat,*" responds the blacksmitb,
fairly turning the tables upon our stalwart ploughman, whose jaw had
been broken at a market fair, his nose bruised, and certain of his
teeth knocked out by an irate gamekeeper of athletic powers, whose
wrath had been provoked not so much by Sandy's poaching oo
my Lord*s estate as by the furious onslaught of his tongue.

" Clean speech in this smiddy, say I," adds the smith, as be
again manipulates the iron on the stithy. Dead silence ensues for
a time ; and then the smith calls, " Gie's a stroke at the fore-
hammer, friend Sandy." Sandy, thus honoured above all present,
strides into the middle of the floor, seizes the heavy instrument and
smites with all his strength. " Sandy, there's hope for ye yet," sxp
Amos. " A man that can strike like that 's nae met wi' every day."
Sandy's favours are now complete, for praise from the redoubtabk
smith is like that from Sir Hubert Stanley, which is praise indeed.

Meanwhile another voice is heard in the throng. It is that of Jock
Watt, from the knowhead farm of Cauldwells. In bygone days Jock had
been a fell chiel among the queans, a sort of Carglen Don Juan;
but, under the influence of a reforming impulse, he had taken to him-
self in grim earnest the sentiment of the sweet old Scotch chant

WVll gang nae mair a-rovin*,

A-rovin' in the night ;
We'll gang nae mair a*rovin',

When the moon shines bright.

In other words, Jock had gone over to the Free Kirk, the centre^ I
must confess, of the only strong and aggressive Christianity that wm
to be found in clay-cold Carglen. And here it may be well to p
on record, in case a certain bias mo^ be ^usyected^ that '^

I.

'■fc

tn a Scotch ''Smiddy!^ 67

recorder of such veritable history as is herein contained, was not
numbered with the good people of that powerful and earnest sect,
but, on the contrary, trudged every Sunday, as the American
would say, in rain or shine, to the venerable parish church, intent
upon hearing the Word, first from the veteran lips of time-honoured
Reverend Elijah Cargill, and then, in more degenerate days, from
the glib tongue of the sleek-haired Reverend Alexos Grant.

Jock Watt is not a revivalist, but he is a stubborn pillar of bucolic
Free Kirk orthodoxy. His soul is greatly troubled this evening —
** gae near burstin','*' as he himself might assert ; and it is his voice
we hear, loud as the neighing of his own fore-horse :

" Smith Amos Gibb, what's your opinion o* effectual callin' ? "

" Fore-hammer again, Sandy," bellows the blacksmith, as he
snaps a horse's shoe, white hot on one side, from the fire, and casts
it on the stithy with a fierce stroke, causing a radiation in the
immediate neighbourhood of many a blinding irony spark. Whack !
whack ! whack ! sounds through the sooty smiddy, till we of the
younger and less-informed generation begin to think that this is the
ruling elder's evasive answer to the query as to effectual calling. It
appears, however, that, in our simplicity, we are wrong. By-and-by
the brawny arm of the smith begins to relax in its efforts ; and when,
through slow degrees, he at length ceases to hammer the cooling
iron, we hear him saying : ** In answer tae yer question, Jock Watt,
ni tell ye a wee bit o' my ain expeerince." Back goes a side of the
horseshoe into the blazing furnace ; loud roar the bellows once more
under the impulse of the blacksmith's arm, until, in the space of one
or two minutes, during which three or four of the company whose
business is over, and before whose minds a long journey in the snow
unfolds itself, quietly leave the smiddy with a jerky nod of the head,
in lieu of the more common loud " guid-nicht," Amos Gibb turns
round and begins his narrative :

" It may be known to maist here that when I was a laddie I did
a little bit at the fishin* in the Firth doon by the port o' Inver-
gavin, workin* in ane o' my feyther's boats; but some o' ye may no be
awaar that ae nicht, in a wild wind and onding o' rain, I nearly lost
my life in the skerries off Dunscrag head. The yawl struck a rock
and three o' us were pitched head forrit into the yelpin' waves. Ane
was lost ; it was lang Will Bagster, o' the Fish Wynd ; but the twa
ithers, in the mercifu' providence o' Heaven, were washit ashore.
My feyther was an ayld sea-dog, and he was ne'er a prin the watsfc^
^ut i was sair hackit aboot the head, and the cauVd %o\. m xa^ Wm^
'n bed iot fower wpaItc fri» the influetvza*, atC Aa^ '^'^ Vwyn^

68 The Gentleman's Magazine.

chiels, I thocht an* I thocht an* I thoch t, an* I could na* keep frae thinkin'
o* thae gruesome twa three minutes in the cauld waves o' the Firth.
Yell tak me, freens, whaun I tell ye, that in that kittle strait I was con-
scious o' my hail life passin* afore me, and aye a feelin' was in my
mind, * Amos Gibb, ye're nae fit for the guid place.' I feel the cauld
at my hert till this vera day. Weel, as I lay in my bed, the same
thing haunted me : *Amos Gibb, ye*re nae the man for the guid place;
an* if ye had gaen that nicht wi* your head to the mud, whare would
ye hae been ? * It was a fell time wi* me, I tell ye, an' I fairly shook
as I lay in my bed. My feyther the fisherman had sax books— nae
mair— but haith, I declare that few amang his mates had sae many.
There was a family Bible, a common Bible, and a Testament ; and
then there was three other volumes which theguidman aye spako*as
*the ithers.* * Put it aside the Bibles an* the ithers,* he would say if
anything had to be placed near the books. These * ithers* consistito'
a play-book, designiied * The Gentle Shepherd,* or some sich name,
the * Scots Worthies,* and a powerfu* treatise by John Bungan, callii*
* Grace aboondin* tae the Chief o' Sinners.* Weel, ae cauld eftemoon
— it was the bleak time o' March, the air was clear and sharp, and, as
I lay upo'my back in bed, there cam on a sudden a sweet glint o' sun-
shine through the back window and glanced upon my hand an* the
white sheet. * Sae bright withoot an' sae dark within,' thocht I to
myself. Then the sunshine glintit on the fadit letters o' the "Grace
Aboondin',' an' thinks I to mysel', * I'll hae a look at that '; an' up I gat,
fetchit the buik, an' back I lay in my bed an' read. What I did rwd
in that true history o' a wild sinner and a worthy saint I'll nae say,
but what I will testifi is, that niver since that day hae I been in ony
doot in my ain mind as to effectual call in'. Wad ye like to read the
buikie, Jock? if sae, it's at yer service this nicht. "

Jock, who had evidently desired to draw the smith into a hWi
and dry theological argument on the basis of the " Shorter Carrichcs'
(/>. " Shorter Catechism ''), does not (juite relish this way of disposing
of the problem, and yet, seeing no direct outlet from the dilemma,
rejoins, somewhat demurely, ** Ou, I, Maister Gibb, I'll nae question
it's a guid story, an' I wud like to read it.*

" That 'II be the same Bungan that wrote the * Pilgrim's Prohgris.'
interjects half-witted Daniel Geddes, from the Mains of CairotiL
" I've been followin* that queer peelgrim for three month gane bfi
but deil be in me if I've got him farder yet than thae hills o' diffee-
culty ; but Tm determinit e'er the short nichts set in to bring hia
clean through it a* to the shinin* shore an* the black river, whilk if
the last end o' *im, I'm tauld."

In a Scotch ^'Sniiddy'' - 69

Just at this moment a sharp knock is heard upon the smiddy
door, which has recently been closed to keep out the bitter cold wind
that still howls with fierce fury around the otherwise cosy shelter — and
safely thus closed, inasmuch as no other customer or visitor is ex-
pected after such a late hour in the evening. But the expectation
proves to be for once false, and so this thud resounds upon the upper
portion of the smiddy door (it is cut evenly into two parts) ; and, on
the fastenings being removed, there rushes into the midst of the
throng a person who is well known in Carglen. It is Francie Kemp —
the " politeeshun," as he is generally characterised by the rural folks,
to distinguish him from another Francie Kemp who follows the
beggarly profession of mole-catcher — a man who is the centre of
light and leading in all matters of public concern, amongst the local
ploughmen and other country people. His soul is big with eventful
news, and as he shakes his sides, and kicks his toes in order to clear
his boots of their snow-accumulations, he struggles hard to repress
his emotions, but without much success, for he abruptly gasps,
" Willie's dune it ! " " Dune what ? " cries one ; and " What Willie ? "
humbly inquires another. " What Willie ? says he ! " screams
Francie, giving a final kick with the point of his boot, and turning at
the same time upon this interrogator a look of infinite contempt, as
if to say, " Could there be but one Willie ? " Half a dozen other
astonished faces blaze their fury in the same direction, the good
people manifestly being aghast at the mere thought that any one but
the "people's William" should be spoken of in Carglen as "Willie."
There is Willie Angus and Willie Jack and Willie Ennie, it is true,
but only one "Willie." Meanwhile the blacksmith at one end, and
the blacksmith's man at the other end of the smiddy, pause in the
midst of their work to listen. Even we, on the cinder-heap, feel our
hearts beat quicker, and we await with anxiety the announcement as
to " Willie's" latest doing.

" Ay, sirs, he's dune it," says Francie in a melancholy key ;
" perliment's dissolvit, or, as ye may say, killit, an' a' the langleggit
meimbers are returnit clean back to them that sent them to Lunnon.
An' richt glad I am that it is sae," he adds in a livelier tone.

"Glad ! an' what for? " says Amos Gibb.

" Weel, ye see, first and foremost, for the guid o' the hail kintra,
but mair in espeecial for thae — ehem !— mangel-waarsels^ as they
ca' them."

" The roangel-waarsels, Francie ! hoo will perliment efiek
them?" says Amos.

*' Gae dir^k, smith," replies the accomplished politician, ^ Dao

70 The Gentlematis Magazine.

ye nae see that now the Viskent, wha will pit up on the ither side, will
be fairly dang into smithereens— lang will he rue the day that he
plantit the bonnie rigs o* the Hame Fairm wi* the new fanglit Inglish
rubbish, instead o' the honest neeps [i.e. turnips] tae which we hae a'
been sae lang accustomit. Deil be in me if I dinna heckle him till
he's blue m the nose at ilk ane o' his meetings aboot these same
mangel-waarsels." Then Francie produces a grimy newspaper from
his pocket and reads. The conversation proceeds from turnips to
other matters of parochial interest, and so on through questions of
ecclesiastical and general Scottish interest, to the concerns of nations
and the fate of empires ! Most of us in that bucolic throng are keen
for the conflict, and sanguine of the result; but perhaps we should be
a little less sanguine if we could look four weeks ahead, ^\l1at
tongue can be bold enough to declare, what pen so steep>ed in
prophetic gall as to announce, that, after the election, the obnoxious
" Viskent " will be returned at the head of the poll ? Of this un-
expected event, Francie, like most intei*ested politicians, will have

his own explanation. " It was a' the d hielanders frae Inver-

kirgaig that turnit the scale. Nae mair do they care for the guid o'
Scotland than a ham-eatin' Southron ; they think alane o' their dirty
sea-dyke— braakwater, as they ca' it, foul fa' them ! " Thus, the
champion of the anti- mangel-wurzel throng !

The hour is getting late now, and the smith has little heart to
resume his toil. " Time's up," he therefore roars in his loudest key.
Slowly the country yokels slide from their various resting-places, find
their legs, shoulder their implements, and wend their various ways.
We, too, jump from our cinder heap, and race through the snow.
Our ploughmen friends we shall likely meet again, but not so
the smith. His end, at any rate, was peace. Eight years ago
he was gathered to his fathers. It was a Saturday night, and he had
finished his labour in the old smithy in his usual manner, looked
into the byre to see if the " kye " were all right, fastened the lower
door of the pigeon-house, quietly walked into the spacious kitchen
where his wife was still busied with household duties, sat down in his
own arm-chair, and gently passed into a still sleep from which he never
awoke ! This was the last of smith Amos Gibb. That he was much
beloved is beyond question, for after his funeral a meeting was held
in the smiddy, Francie Kemp in the chair — or, to speak correctly, on the
furnace- bench ! After much discussion and many eloquent speeches,
it was unanimously agreed that a marble slab should be erected in
Carglen Kirkyaird at the expense of the farm -servant community,
with this epitaph : " He was a good man, and did good." Ffeq^,

In a Scotch "Smiddy." 71

Mr. Thomas Hardy, did you, in the course of a Highland tour in
which you found yourself in Carglen Kirkyaird, find out these words
carved by Peter Simpson's own hand, and like a freebooting plagiarist
put them into the mouth of that truest of your female characters, the
ill-requited Marty South in the " Wood landers," when she spoke of
her dead Giles Winterbome ? or is this one of those coincidences in
which beautiful and appropriate words seem to have an undying youth
and an international use ?

ALEXANDER GORDON.

72 The Gentlentatis Magazine,

AN INDIAN CRIME.

" The foul corruption of a sweet child's death," — Kingyoktu

THE crime it is proposed to briefly describe certainly exists in
Calcutta and in Bengal generally, and is not unknown, report
says, in the South of India. But the circumstances attending it, s
here related, are taken from record, or founded on observation, in the
North-Western Provinces. The adjective Indian is, however, not
inappropriate, because, as far as the writer is aware, the particular
offence is unknown elsewhere ; and, indeed, is suggested and led up to,
chiefly by habits and associations existing in that part of the East
A social outrage so striking very forcibly impressed itself on the
writer's mind, when he was commencing magisterial work in a dis-
trict near Agra, many years ago. And an account of it was written,
entitled " Foul Play in the Jungle," which — published in an epheme-
ral magazine, and long forgotten by its author as well as by everybody
else — is only mentioned because some of the facts here put doim
were doubtless put down there also. It may be safely affirmed, how-
ever, that not a letter of that account has ever reached England.

The crime is that of the murder of children for their ornaments^
And three strange points have been noticed about this terrible out-
rage. First, that it is generally committed without due provisioa
for its concealment, and often with circumstances of extreme folly.
Secondly, that the crime appears to be almost always discovered and
punished. The writer has never heard of missing children supposed
to have come to violent ends, about whom nothing further was
known ; for the people are with the authorities in this matter, and
will do their utmost to bring the suspected to justice. The thiid
point is that this especial off*ence does not seem materially to diminidL
And here it may be just said, that murders, if found out, do noC
necessarily reflect discredit on the police. Many women are put to
death in India, as in other parts of the East, from motives of jealou^.
If a man wishes to destroy his wife, and does not fear dying for the
act, Vidocq himself could not prevent him. And so with tUs
destruction of children \ a law could be passed prohibiting thC''

I

wearing ornamenls, but, if they do wear ornaments, no law can
prevent, and no vigilance hinder, persons who will risk being hung
from murdering them,

It will, doubtless, be remembered that, amongst Hindoos, the
son has the duly of performing the religious rites to his dead
father, and male children are on this accounl, amongst others, much
valued and indulged. And affection often displays itself by placing
necklaces round their throats, charms and horoscopes cased in silver
upon their arms, and bangles on their wrists.

The first instance of the crime that came to notice was one in
which the perpetrator was a herdsman, named Choonee, He was
employed by a farmer to take the cattle out to graze ; and usually
drove them to pasture in the early forenoon, and home again at sun-
down. The farmer had a lad aged some five years, who was very
ford of Choonee, and after the child had had his midday meal he
Id go out to find his friend on the Common Land. Hindoo
'boys of this class and age, from good supplies of farinaceous food,
■get lillle bow windows in front ; and with their rose-coloured turbans,
linen jackets and loin-cloths, look very innocent, foolish figures. But
besides his decent clothing, this lad wore a silver necklace, and
bangles on his wrists. One day ihe two friends were sitting together
in the shade cast by the broad leaves of the Butea, a stumpy tree
growing in copses. The rains were over, and even before they had
commenced the beautiful red flowers of the Butea had disap|>eared,
but it was in full foliage. Near at hand, the cattle were grazing.
Choonee, from time to time, moved a stone into the sun, because he
could judge by its shadow how the day was speeding. The herds-
man's eyes glittered as they fell on the silver worn by his small com-
panion, and after greedily watching it in silence, he asked the lad if
the necklace came off. It was easily undone, for it was secured only
by a loop passing over a button of twisted cord. The child took it
off, and put it in the young fellow's hands. " Now," said Choonee,
■' it would be funny if I could get the bangles off." So he used
gentle pressure and forced them open, saying it was a joke. He
promised to give them back directly, but, as if suddenly thinking of
it, exclaimed, " You have not seen the pigeons ! " The child was
very eager, and gladly accompanied the other to a disused well, at a
lorl distance. There was water far down, but the sides of the
ipper part of the well were of rough brick-work, and where bricks
lad fallen out, pigeons had made holes for themselves. Choonee
it, and peered into the dark shaft. '" I.ook down," he said,
child looked but could see nothing. "Stand quite close, and

74 The Gentleman s Magazine.

I will throw in a clod ;" so the little boy leaned completely over, and
Choonee, close behind him, threw in the clod. A hollow, echoing
sound and a splash, and then a flutter of wings, a fusty smell of birds,
and the lad, all excitement, saw a pigeon emerge, and craning to look
for another, received a treacherous push, and down he went head-
long. Not, however, into the black water, but falling irregularly,
alighted on a ledge perhaps twenty or more feet below. The
herdsman, having done the cowardly act, made off towards the catde ;
but on the way he caught a shrill voice calling from the shaft,
" Choonee, Choonee, I am not hurt ! " This slender, forgiving cry
suddenly smote the black heart with remorse. And Choonee returned
to the well He had a length of old rope lying by the Butea-trees,
and fetching this, he augmented it with his turban opened out ; and
letting it down, the lad in the well, agile as a small animal, got a good
hold and was drawn up. But the thief could not bring himself to
give up the silver, and strictly enjoined the child to say he had
slipped into a well, where his necklace and bangles, detached by the
accident, had been lost, and kind Choonee had helped him out.
When, however, the child got home amongst the women, they
wormed the true story out of him. It was the more sweet of the
little fellow to have been so forgiving, because he was quite aware of
what a bad turn had been done him. Choonee was arrested, and
gave up the silver ornaments. It was clearly an attempt at murder,
but, under the circumstances, the culprit got off with imprisonment
for a term of years.

In another case, a young carpenter had his workshop in the
street of a village. It was the end of January ; the sugar-cane was
cut, and the presses were all at work in the fields. The spring crops
of grain were ripening for the sickle, and the harvest would begin in
a week or two. A very busy time ; the women who could work were
wanted as well as the men. And a married girl who had a boy three
years old, had more than once taken him down to the carpenter's
shop and left him to play there, or fall asleep in a comer, if he
pleased, whilst she went out to the labourers to lend a hand at the
cane, or to frighten the birds off the corn. One morning she again
asked the young workman to look after the child, and he, good-
naturedly enough, promised to do so. Unfortunately, the child had
silver bangles on his arms, and when the woman came home in the
afternoon she found the carpenter working away, but her little boy
not there. The carpenter, when interrogated, said he was very sorry,
but, intent on his work, he had for a little while forgotten his chaigc^
and when the recollection suddenly came back the child was i

An Indian Crime.

75

ing. He, the carpenter, could only search in the immediate vicinity,
which he had done, without effect ; and he conjectured the little
thing had toddled home. 15tit no, he was not at home, and the
distracted mother imagined every misfortune : he had fallen into a
well; a wolf had carried him off; or kidnapt^ers — who pursued Iheir
trade in that part— had whipped him away with ihem. At night a
bullock was often tied up in the shed where the carpenter worked,
and a heap of chaff was stored in one corner for its use. This
evening the bullock would not be secured in the usual place—
snorted, started back, and tried to wrest its head loose from the
herdsman in charge of it. They turned over the chaff. Alas ! the
lost little child was lying there dead, strangled with a wisp of green
long-grass, and without his ornaments. The carpenter subsequently
confessed the ili-contrived crime, and produced the stolen silver.
It will be observed that the culprit had really made no provision
whatever for exculpating himself, in case of suspicion, or for hiding
the traces of his offence. For a few ounces of metal, which he could
not change into money without the greatest risk, he sacrificed an
innocent life, and closed his own career just opening to its honest
activities. He was sentenced to be hanged, and behaved rather
strangely before his execution. He sent for his mother, and told
her he desired that his body should be thrown into the Ganges
— the disposal of the body is left to relatives in Indian jails. His
mother, a poor widow, excused herself on the score of expense, for
the river was nearly twenty miles distant. But the young man got
angry, and exclaimed, "If you do not carry out my wish, I will
catch hold of your hand, from there." This dreadful word settled
It, and his mother, in genuine alarm, promised the Ganges.

It is certainly mostly boys who suffer this shocking cruelty ; but an
Instance of a girl is recollected. Of course, there were bangles
again, and this time anklets as well, which are often worn by female
children. And in the village where the girl's home was, an old woman
lived, whose habit it had long been to visit the edges of fields to cut
grass. Going on this task one early afternoon, the crone asked the
child to accomfjany her, and this the little thing gladly consented to
do. There is a tree, common in Indian spinnies, called the Arbor
trislis. It is a member of the Jasmine order, and perhaps derives its
sorrowful name from the fact that it loves the night, and chooses the
"sleep-time " for unfolding its flowers. They are fragrant, and lo.id
the air with sweet, faint odours. When the morning comes, and the
a shines out, then the prodigal casts away its blossoms, and they
wt ihe ground beneath. The tree is inconspicuous enough ; but

j6 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

the small flowers are white and star-like, and have an orange tube—
from which, indeed, a dye is made. The old grass-cutter led the child
to one of these NyciantheSy and bade her form garlands from the
fallen blossoms. For the little ones string them there, as they do
the cowslips with us. With patient industry on one hand, and this
pleasant sport on the other, the hours were passed through by the
two companions ; but when the sun was setting, the old woman
paused from work, and sat still awhile as if enjoying the calm of
evening. But she was only waiting for it to grow a little darker,
and to allow all stray labourers to disappear. For the glamour of
the accursed ornaments had dazzled her eyes, and bewitched her
reason and conscience. There was a field of the huge millet, six
feet high in places, close by, still uncut. And into the privacy of
the overshadowing stalks she beguiled her playmate of the afternoon,
and then and there, with the rough sickle she had used for the grass,
severed the little creature's throat. Such black treachery — such
diabolical cruelty — seems scarcely credible ; and one wishes that
human nature could be relieved of the stain of so foul an instinct,
as they would have relieved it in the art of the middle ages, by
depicting evil spirits, distinguished in their horns and tails from
wholesome mortals, and whispering into the hag's ear — nay, direct-
ing her very arm !

Later on, a case occurred in which a boy of sixteen, blind from
his birth, planned a very deliberate crime. It appeared that he had
for a companion an unprincipled young fellow of his own age.
This depraved youth, with every desire of wickedness, was wanting
in courage and determination ; and might, if left to himself, through
this very defect, have been kept out of mischief. His sneaking eyes
had noticed a handsome necklace round the throat of a neighbour's
child, and though he was covetous enough to desire it, he was
unequal to inaugurating any plan for obtaining it. He, however,
informed his friend of the ornament The blind boy, active and
strong for his years, and of iron ner\'es, told the other if he would
only decoy the proposed victim into a solitary place, he would be
answerable for the rest. The child accordingly was enticed, by
promises of sweetmeats, into a disused hut, and by the cowaid
youth stretched out, under playful excuses, on his back in a con-
venient place. The blind boy, feeling his way, and using coaxing
words, managed, when he had got near the little fellow, to kneel oo
his chest ; and with a short knife, carried in his loin-cloth, took the
innocent life. He then undid the necklace, and gave directions to
bis accomplice, who was outside, to conceal the body with bmmli

• ' An Indian Crime. ": 77

The coward, when the uproar arose, betrayed by his trembling lips
and haggard features the dreadful secret; and the whole matter
came dearly out. It may be recorded, without animadversion, but
in frank ignorance of the principle recognised, that the Superior
Court commuted the sentence of death passed on the blind boy to
transportation for life, in consideration of his infirmity.

A note, however, taken from a French paper, records that an old'
blind assassin who had, a few years back, murdered his wife through
fear that she meant to poison him, was saved from execution at the
Court of Assizes of the Basses-Alpes. " II doit" the journal said,
" \ son infirmity, il doit k ses cheveux blancs, d'obtenir les circon-
stances att^nuantes." The youth of the Indian criminal might
count for as much as the age of the French one— and then, perhaps,
the affliction just turned the scale.

It has been said at the outset that there is reason to fear
the crime under notice does not materially diminish. This
opinion is supported by a newspaper of considerable weight —
the Pionttr, of Allahabad— which, in giving the details of a most
singular instance, dating so lately as the spring of 1889, com-
mences with this remark : " The murder of young children for
their ornaments is so common in India that little public interest
can be taken in any new case." Unless, of course, it is exceptional
in its features ; and that the story now to be related is so, few will
perhaps deny after learning the circumstances. Facts are taken
from the Pionttr, but they have been re-arranged, so as to be
more easily followed. The reader is asked to notice, or may be
told, that all the parties in this little tragedy were Brahmins ; the
gentle priestly race to whom the fiction of the last century loved to
attribute all the benevolent virtues— in contrast to the ambition and
violence of the West.

A little girl named Luchmee had a playmate Toolsia, and the
latter lived in the house of her father, with her mother, her aunt, and
her maternal grandmother. Luchmee had been dressed up for
certain funeral ceremonies, and wore silver wristlets, silver anklets,
and an imitation coral necklace. She, of course, was anxious that
- her little friend should see her in her finery, and, being asked to play
at Toolsia's home — the two families were Panday, a priestly tribe —
had got leave to go there, with her ornaments in full shine. The
hours passed in harmless frolic, but as evening fell Toolsia and her
mother and aunt had occasion to go down the village ; and Luchmee,
who was to be sent for, remained with the grandmother. When the
lampt in the littl« h»— >' were lighted, Luchmee's father came to

78 Ttie Gentlemafis Magazine.

fetch her. He was told by the women she had gone home. But
this was not so ; and the father searched the village, visited every
friend, and looked high and low, but Luchmee was not to be found.
Then he called on the head farmer, who ordered fresh inquiries, and,
these not availing, bade every one keep a vigilant attention to cries
or footsteps in the night. About the mid-watch, when the moon
was setting, a barber, living in a narrow lane, and at the time
lying on his housetop, heard some one stealthily passing below,
and could just catch a figure keeping to the wall, and presently
was aware of a sound, as of a dropped package, in the court <rf
a house nearly opposite. He gave the alarm ; lights were obtained ;
the figure had, of course, disappeared ; but in the court lay the
body of Luchmee, with the cord round her neck that had ended
her life.

The females at Toolsia's house were examined, and the mother
and aunt admitted that when they returned from the village they had
found that the old grandmother, going on for seventy, had strangled
Luchmee, and taken her ornaments. Caste pride had closed their
mouths, and Toolsia*s father, when he came in, had also consented
to say nothing. In the night, with the knowledge of the others, the
grandmother, taking the little corpse from a grain-pit, into which she
had thrown it, attempted to shift suspicion by putting it into some
one else's house — without success, as we know.

This case surely presents a singular problem in human nature
The old creature was not in poverty, nor even in straitened circum-
stances : the ornaments were of no use to herself. Possibly she may
have thought of Toolsia; but still, she must have known her grand-
daughter could never wear them in safety. She had made no provi-
sion for the disposal of the body, nor for concealing the murder from
the household. No suspicion of any accomplice came out. Alone
the grandmother did it. Toolsia's mother and aunt were prostrate
with shame and fear, though they remained culpably silent. These
remarks leave the question of compassion or humanity out of con-
sideration altogether. But had the old woman no tenderness for a
child—no pity for the innocent and confiding ? Could she, in her
tottering age, withhold all sympathy from that other weakness unaUe
to defend itself against her cruel old hands ? No remembrance that
she herself was once helpless, and likely soon to become so again,
unless death forestalled her second childhood ! No respect for her
caste, whose members profess to look on life as a sacied thing '
scatter sugar for ants, place milk for snakes, sigh over a sick monker
and revenge a slaughtered cow I

A?i Indian Crime. 79

The grandmother was imprisoned, with suitable labour, for the
robably brief term of her life.

It has often been recommended that an Act should be passed,
prohibiting the ornamenting of such children as are allowed to play
or wander outside their homes. But sumptuary laws have again
and again been tried, and, generally, without effect ; and, moreover,
the idea of making vanity a crime is repugnant lo modem feeling.
The custom is one of those social questions for the settlement of
which we might reasonably look to enhghtened natives themselves.
The spread of education in the sea-board towns brings to this
country many superior young Indians, and the British public is
deceived as to Ihe extent of barbarism still existing in the Depen-
dency. Vast tracts of our possessions in the East are scarcely
civilised. The tendency of the cultivated Bengalee— the chief
representative of modern India— is towards politics, and politics
perhaps rather of an abstract than a practical cliaractcr. The
temptation is intelligible ; for the Bengalee has a turn for platform
speaking, and, with some drawbacks, for even writing leading articles.

But our position in the East scarcely admits of public politics.
The submission of foreign policy to general discussion is, for obvious
reasons, impossible. And for the common executive functions of
Government, advice is really not wonted. Every honest and sensible
Indian knows, and would admit, if he spoke his real convictions,
that for warding off aggression, keeping the peace, administering
(at any rate) criminal justice, for engineering undertakings and
sanitary movements, the rulers are infinitely more efficient than the
ruled could, under any circumstances, become.

But in social questions the natives are giants ; and we — infants.
The frightful cruelly, for instance, involved in child-widowhood— its
conditions, disabilities, and consequences— is a matter unfit for legis-
lation. We look on with pained and incompetent faces. Educated
native opinion alone can remedy the evil. The observation applies
lo many other customs and abuses, condemned by modern civilisation,
but not to' be reached by the Statute Book.

It applies, surely, to the crime we have had under review? If the
women could be shown that the sending forth of their children decked
with silver is a foolish and, under the circumstances, dangerous ostenta-
tion, they might be trusted lo discontinue the practice, or the male
heads of the families might prevent it. When once the habit
is dropped, these dreadful murders will cease, to be heard of again
no more.

J. W. SlIERER.

8o The Gentkntati & Magazine.

THE MAGPIE CATERPILLAR.

THERE is a class of animals which are allowed to pass their
lives in comparative peace, because they are not good to eat.
Many gaudily-coloured caterpillars, for example, remain unmolested
by insect-eating birds for this reason ; and it has been very ingeni-
ously suggested that their bright colours have been acquired for the
purpose of advertising their inedibility. A bird is supposed to be
capable of the simple arithmetical feat of putting two and two together.
It sees a bright-hued caterpillar flaunting its colours in a most open
way, and it at once concludes that that caterpillar had better be left
alone, as it will not prove to be by any means a pleasantly-flavoured
morsel. This somewhat complex piece of reasoning is believed to be
due to experiments made upon the ancestors of the caterpillar by
the bird's forefathers, which resulted in a general . impression that a
conspicuous appearance was associated with a nasty taste. Now
this is obviously of advantage to the caterpillar : it has a soft and
tender body and the least peck would injure it mortally. From its
own point of view the caterpillar might just as well be swallowed at
once ; and a disagreeable taste would be of no use unless there was
some way of letting the world in general know that it was there,
without having recourse to these fatal experiments.

All authorities are agreed that the currant moth {Abrascas grossu-
iariata) is an excellent instance of a " warning " colour ; not only
the caterpillar, but also the chrysalis and the moth are un^atable^
and they are all three conspicuously coloured The black, yeUow,
and white of the moth is repeated in the caterpillars, and the
chrysalis is yellow and dark brown.

I accordingly endeavoured to test the value of the theory in the
case of this caterpillar, with the help of some of the animals at the
Zoological Gardens.

One of the most inveterate eaters of insects is the little marmoset ;

in fact, monkeys in general are not addicted to fruits so much as

people think, although we associate them in our minds with xaOL

Never did any animal express such lively gratification as a

did when offered a magpie caterpiWaT \ \a ^\a \1 u\i down to the

The Magpie Caterpillar. 8i

bit ; and he had already only two hours previously enjoyed a whole-
some and liberal breakfast A capuchin monkey was next presented
with a caterpillar, which he took, it is true, with a somewhat languid
air ; but, finding it good, he sucked out the juices and threw away
the empty skin, just as a boy sucks an orange and disposes of the
peel. The same thing happened with a pair of capuchins which
dwelt in a cage by themselves remote from the common herd ; indeed,
here the male monkey declined to allow his wife to receive any of
the good things that were being dispensed. But it must be admitted
that this capuchin, and perhaps the other one too, sniffed rather sus-
piciously every now and then at the caterpillar as they were eating ;
perhaps, however, they were merely enjoying its fragrant bouquet.

Anticipating that the refusal to eat brightly-coloured larvae with-
out tasting them might possibly be due to their smell (and smell is
often a much more important sense in animals than sight), I had pro-
vided myself with various substances which appeared likely to prove
agreeable ; it was proposed to anoint the caterpillars with solution of
decaying meat, with fish oil, and such like substances. But this
precaution, as will be shown in the sequel, proved unnecessary.

The birds, on the whole, fought rather shyer of these caterpillars
than the monkeys did ; but with one exception they all tasted the
proffered dainty.

An American robin seized a caterpillar with great eagerness,
flew off with it to a spot at some little distance, and possibly ate it ;
but this conclusion is put forward with some hesitation.

The large ground-cuckoo of Sumatra, in the insect-house, swal-
lowed one after shaking it in its beak once or twice ; but then cuckoos,
at any Tate our English cuckoos, will eat almost anything in the way •
of a caterpillar.

Several species of tanagers, those often very brilliantly-coloured
little South American finches, tasted and tried sometimes repeatedly,
but finally declined to carry out my wishes completely. None of
these birds were pressed by hunger. Even the most advanced ad-
vocate of the theory of warning colours would hardly deny that the
animals in the Zoological Gardens are' well fed ; but on the other
hand it might be urged that they have acquired, through the gener-
ally too kind attentions of the visitors, a habit of picking and snap-
ping at anything presented to them on the off-chance that it might
turn out to be edible. It may be remarked, incidentally, that the
stomachs of some of the animals contain a curious and miscellaneous
assortment of articles: the stomach of an ostrich was ^\\ft.^^\^
copper coin of the realm to th^ am«M«* of cwec o\\^ ^ca^t\%\ ^

vol. CCLXJX ■'^ *v

S2 The Gentleman s Magazine.

rrir:«rcrr< r-if rr:ilI:Tred cr.e of its own teeth, a stone or two, a
:r =: t. i rir. rfi its-r. elder, and a half-penny. By-the-by, would
:r..- li::t: :•= r^iririr- ;5 :re23ure-n-ove ? It was certainly buried To
zt\j-r. :: 's.± ?-": tr: ::i'r.:5 2n:cle : a caterpillar was thrown into a cage
c:-.:: -r.'i i -.:i:.">:: :f ?r:-*l EriTish birds : eventually, after a slight
?:r.;^.:. i r.-.r. "r.iTr.cr. rrrved :he conqueror — but, as she flew
£--;. Ts.:'- 'rt c-:-:rT.. .ir :: ^ c.irk comer, her subsequent proceedings

A '. ::'.e *■ «> ::=-^-- e." ;r. :r-e rorro: -house, which is greatly addicted,
z^ r.-jiry :f :!-f fe >r.-.i!'- :ird> zzc. :o " meal-worms,"' chewed away at a
n*.ij- !r M-.i- !.'.:_- :':: i I:-^ ::r.:e. I think that it ended by swallow-
\r^ ::. : »: \T.t :ic:.:r.> •::' a lird in :he next cage drew away my
-::■:-: . r. -: :r.e cr :::;.- r.::r.:er.: : ar.yhow, the caterpillar had disap-
T-^z-rii— r_: i: r.-v r.-\e "i-eer. lerked awav. A little finch in the
Vi-:^— . z.\.:.t: \ "f:::vi".y Ci\:*:r.ed 13 have anything to do with this
•jr.:A".-v.;. . < r^ ': .:.?:. B-: tr.s -.sr.oi much evidence for the wam-
:r^ c :". . ur^ts : :: r;..'. rrcM :us*y r. diced, with observant eye and head
c.v<L-: cr. :".c >..:e. ::-.e Lxrressior.s of disgust exhibited by a brother
rr.j-. ^\■^.: :.:: : :i5::i :r.e larva. Now a'l these facts are in the way
cf ':-.r\.r.z '.rrij : r ::-:?::. jr.>. The first is the familiar one, that
"orv ::*..-.r.> tv-...: :< -r. :r.:r r.*i-r.*> 7o:>on " : the marmoset and the
c.Cn r-^ ■>:..;.: v»r..: u:.> c\:J.er.:]y caviar to the rest. In the
s c 0 vT r ^ : ; \ a • e . : '-: ■. r v. '. k i ■ :" : r c c re j.: - r c 5 — n earl y all the bi rds — did not
!hor»>.:^r.ly t:v. y. : >.iv ::-.e lea?: of it, the flavour of the caterpillar ;
bu: ::v.:ii'.y :hty :i".l ^^::^. *.r.e excc^'.ion < which could be explained
o". c:V.cr ^.t. v.r./.- Lr-dL.iv.r;::td :o nuke use of Avhat Providence had
\\\\ \\\ tixir w.iy ; :!.,.y w^re ::^: :r. the ica>: daunted by appearances.
Ar.vi ^o :>.e c.'.:tr, ."r:r< cr.-.r.e «. .^*ra:her badlv. althou:;h thev were not
LMtcn ov.trij:'.'.:. v^cciy cr.u'jj::*. however, in one or two cases, particu-
larly \vi:h >: ccir.iLr.s thr.: ha J been oiVcred to the curassows, the
oatcqull.irs were a; j Tircntly uninjured, and after a bit crawled away
in their usual uncertain fashion. The safety of these favoured few
\v;\s simi'ly insured by th.cir thick skins.

It nii^hl be obitctod to these experiments that foreign creatures,
wliich had had no i previous aco,uaintance with the caleq)i]Iar, were
selected. lUit this is no objection, because the theor)- of warning
I'olours does not assume ex])erience on the part of each individual
bird; inheriieddislrust of brilliant colours, jwrticularly of combinations
i>f yellow and black, is what is assumed. Still, one instance to the
contrary does not upset a theor)- ; it may be the exception that

proves the rule.

A simpler explanation of the presence of bright colours in uneatable

The Magpie Caterpillar. 83

creatures has however been proposed by Dr. Eisig ; this explanation
has been largely ignored by writers on the subject, and has never been
popularized.

The colour of the magpie caterpillar and of others are due to
certain chemical substances in the skin and to its opacity. A very
simple biological experiment will render this clear — merely to squash
the caterpillar, the skin will be then seen to retain the same gaudy
and contrasting tints that it had during life. Now, these pigments are
excretory products, and it is quite conceivable that they have a nasty
flavour. So the conclusion is that the uneatableness of such a
caterpillar is due to its bright colour, i.e, to the abundant presence of
disagreeable substances in the skin ; not that the bright colour is
independent of the taste and has been acquired as an advertisement
of it The distinction between these two ways of looking at the
matter must be carefully observed, though they are not necessarily
antithetical. If this way of looking at the subject be the right one,
it will be obvious that strikingly-coloured caterpillars need protection
in other ways. It would be extending this article unduly to go into
this question at length, so I shall restrict myself to the instance
selected. I have a flourishing colony of the caterpillars on some
shrubs, as have probably most other persons who possess a suburban
garden. It is a creature of most catholic tastes, and will feed on many
diflerent plants with equal zest ; this partly accounts for its abundance.
Unkind fate, in the shape of birds and spiders and ichneumon-flies,
may be accountable for a very considerable mortality, without greatly
lessening the average numbers of the insect. During the day time
my caterpillars hide themselves, but in the late afternoon they come
forth and crawl about pretty actively ; at that time of the day the
persecution of some of their foes at any rate has ceased. The
least touch caused them to drop from the branches, and it is quite
intelligible that the shaking of a branch by a bird would be quite
enough to warn them that it was high time to seek for refuge by
dropping on to the ground. Besides, as already remarked, a peck or
two may do no harm. These are some of the reasons which may
explain the abundance of the magpie motn.

FRANK E. BEDDARD.

o^

84 Tke Gentlentatis Magazine.

A WALK UP THE VALLEY OF

THE CONWAY.

IF any of our readers wish to spend a week in exploring a remote
and primitive valley in North Wales, by all means let them leave
the Chester and Holyhead Railway at Llandudno Junction, where^
on quitting the station, they will find themselves face to face with one
of the most beautiful relics of other days, the far-famed Castle of
Conway. The town which that castle was built to guard bears the
name of the beautiful river which here debouches into the sea ; and
the course of that river is well worth pursuing up to its sources in the
mountains of Carnarvonshire and Denbighshire, far away inland.

For the first ten or twelve miles the river is a somewhat shallow
estuary, flowing under banks which rise abruptly on the one side,
while on the other they are level and sandy. As we get further from
the sea, the river grows smaller but more rapid, and here and there
the valley narrows, the sides of the hills on either side being planted
with larches, firs, and beech-woods, while peaks of granite tower
above, bare and naked and grey. Here and there upon the river
we may still see a descendant of the ancient Britons using his coiade
as he fishes or crosses the stream ; and if we are travelling on foot,
there are few better turnpike roads, even in England, than that
which follows the course of the valley ; while if the tourist should find
himself tired, there is on the other side of the valley a railway to &B
back upon.

On the west bank of the river, on the road between Conway and
Llanrwst, is Llansantffraid, otherwise known as Glen Conway • but it
need not detain the tourist long, as it has no very great attractions,
though near this place, at a spot called " Cymryd," or «« Crooked
Ford," was fought a sanguinary battle between the Prince of Nordi
Wales and Eadred Duke of Mercia, in which the Welshmen gained
a complete victory.

The first place of importance that we reach as we make our wty
up the valley is Trefiriew, pronounced locally Trevor ; it is some two
or three miles short of Llanrwst. It was formerly a p?ace of ipi

A Walk up the Valley of the Comvay. 85

mportance, as nearly all the slates from the quarries around the
ralley were brought hither for shipment \ but the opening of the
lulway has carried most of this trade to other seaports. Pifty years
a single local merchant used to export from 40 to 50 tons uf
lilies from Trevor for North America. In the summer months litite
Mmers ply oil the river daily between Treffriew and Conway ; and
n a tiny village it has grown into a town. At one time it was
e to which only a few visitors resorted, for the sake of drinking
e waters of a mineral spring ; but now Treffriew abounds in lodging-
houses with "aparlmenls to let," new roads have been made, trees
have been planted, and seats for the weary pilgrim or the lounging
idler have been placcdat intervals— thanks to the agents and managers
of the Gwjdir estates. Near Treffriew are several large mountain
lakes, abounding in trout — not easy to be caught, except by the most
experienced of Isaac Walton's disciples. We may be pardoned for
mentioning here that Taiiesin was a native of this place ; the tradi-
tional remains of his court are stiil to be seen near Geirionydd, where
a monument was erected to his memory by the late I^rd Willoughby
de Eresby ; but, as Taiiesin lived in the sixth century, when records
written, to say the least, were scanty, we cannot be very sure of the
truth of the tradition.

Continuing our walk in the direction already indicated, wc
approach Llanrwst, in our way passing by the romantic district of
Gwydyr or Gwydir.

There is an upper and a lower Gwydir Castle, the one perched
high up on the rocks among the woods, while the other, which is the
seal of Lord Willoughby de Eresby, stands at the foot of the moun-
tains in a pleasant park, which is quite level ground and is washed by
the river, which here flows broad and deep, It is said by some that
Gwydir ' is derived from a word signifying waler-Iand, and a more
watery place it would be hard to find ; but others ascribe the name
to two words denoting a sanguinary battle, referring to a contest said
to have been fought here between Griffith-ap-Cynan and Trahaiarn-
ap-Caradoc.

At the roadside near Gwydir, at a spot where four cross-roads
meet, is a tree known as Pren-Gwyn {the Blessed Tree), under the
spreading branches of which the poorer classes were in the habit of
meeting in primitive folk-mote, to discuss their wrongs, their rights,
and their general interests. In its side was a slit, like a letter-box,
into which they could drop any statements of wrong or claims for
redress, or requests for interviews with the Lord of the place, the
' Cwy OT \Vy it ihe arwknt Wtlih word for w

86 The Gentleman* s Magazine.

head of the Wynnes. There, too, they made agreements and ratified
contracts, much as was done in mediaeval towns under the shadow o(
the market cross.

One of the chief retainers of the house of Gw}'dir was a notorious
robber and outlaw, David-ap-Jenkin, of whose prowess and craft all
sorts of strange and romantic stories are told. He was at one time
a strong partisan of the royal House of Lancaster, and in that capacity
he wasted the town of Denbigh and its suburbs with fire and swofd,
in return for which Edward IV. ordered William Earl of Pembroke
to lay waste the mountain country of Carnarvon and Merioneth.
Fancying that the foe was slain, or at all events suppressed, the
troops under the Earl were feasting in the park, when they were
suddenly alarmed by showers of arrows sent down upon them from
the mouth of a cave high up in the cliffs which tower over the river
Conway. The conquerors had to retreat pell mell, and David-ap-
Jenkin, though outlawed and proclaimed a traitor, led for many yean
a charmed life in the fastnesses which he knew so well, and probaUj
died peaceably in old age, as neither the time nor the place of his
death is recorded.

Early in the eleventh century the site of the market town of
Llanrwst was covered with dense scrub and brambles. A little latei;
though the exact time is rather uncertain, it seems to have been held
by nine landowners, all farmers, and a few fishermen, who occupied
huts or hovels, thatched with straw or reeds, on the river bank*
I'he farmers having more corn than they wanted, but no customen^
resolved to hold a market at a place called Bryn-y-Botten, on the spot
now covered by the Market Hall, and they invited their neighbooR
as far northward as Llansantffraid, and as Festiniog southwards, to
come and exchange their wares for corn. But, alas ! the good peopk
found to their cost that the " Taffies" of Festiniog were "thieves,*
for the latter returned home carrying off half the cereals and
leaving nothing in their place ! So keen was the recollection of the
wrong that no fair was held at Llanrwst from that day down to the end
of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century, wbei
it was revived by the Lords of Gwydir under the name of the New
Fair, and it still continues to be held on June 20. The story goes
that on the revival of this fair the men of Merionethshire brought to
it large flocks of sheep and goats, while those of Denbighshire came
attended by scores of black dogs, and that hence arose the
names of " Merioneth Goats " and " Denbigh Dogs."

The Town Hall of Llanrwst, an old-fashioned building, r»
arches, stands in the middle of the market-place ; it w^

A Walk up the Valley of ike Conway. 87

1661 at the cost and charge of Maurice Wynne of Gwydir. The
upper floor was at one time used as a sessions -ho use, and is still occa-
sionally used as a lecture-room and concert-hall.

The town contains its Grammar School, two hotels, several
chapels and sundry public institutions ; but its chief pride is the
parish church, which was built in 1470-80, on the site and in
place of an older structure which had been burnt in the raid of the
Earl of Pembroke on Gwydir and David-ap-Jenkin, as related above.
It consists of a perpendicular nave and chancel, to which a southern
aisle was added in 1633 by Sir Richard Wynne of Gwydir, lo serve
as the Gwydir chapel. This chapel contains several curious monu-
ments and relics, such as the stone effigy of Howel Coetmore and
the huge stone coffin of Llewelyn the Great, besides some very curious
brasses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, let into panels
on the eastern wall, among a quantity of fine oak carving, mostly of
the previous century. In the body of the church is a very fine and
perfect rood-loft between the nave and the chancel. It is made of
dark oak, and richly carved with niches for small images. It was
brought hither from the neighbouring abbey of Maenan, when the
latter was demolished after the Reformation.

At the confluence of the Conway and the I,lugwy nestles Bettws-
y-Coed, whose name denotes " a warm place of shelter." This place
was first made known to tourists by David Cox, who used to come
here every summer on sketching tours, putting up at a little inn, the
"Royal Oak," where he was glad to pay his score by painting a
sign,' Even down to half a century ago Bettws-y-Coed was chiefly
famous for its summer and winter cattle fairs, and, between those
times, as the place to which cattle of North Wales were taken to be
shod before being driven up to London for Smithfield- "At that
time," writes an old inhabitant of the place, " I remember that the
work of shoeing was carried on here for several days at a time, and
that none but very strong men were employed in the operation, as
the poor beasts were not shod while slanding upright, as is the cast
with horses, but were tumbled over and shod by main force as they
lay on their backs. Dealers and drovers were the only visitors, and
artists and tourists were unknown."

The new road between Bangor and Shrewsbury, made by Lord
Penrhynto spite Sir Robert Williams of Anglesey for defeating him in

' This sign wu painted in Ihe course of a single day, and, \an^ aCler Cox'i
clcalh. the goods of mine host haiing been sciieii fordebi, ii liecame ti.e subject of
« law nil, which wti ultimilel^ decided in favour of the laie lju\y Witlongtiby
'• Cutk, M owiwr of the fieebold.

88 The Gentleman's Magazine.

17S3, ixisses by Bettws-y-Coed. It was opened in 1815, the new
bridge across the Conway being called Waterloo Bridge.

The old bridge, Pont-y-pair, means the " Bridge of the Caul-
dron/* and is not misnamed, on account of the water flowing down
into a seething abyss, out of which no living creature, we fancy,
could cscai^e alive. Another old bridge, dating from the fifteenth
century, scarcely less romantic in its situation, bears the name of the
•* Brewer's Pool."

Here, within the memory of living persons, stood a few old
houses which clearly dated back to the Tudor times, and perhaps were
as <>K1 as the davs of Owen Glendowcr. In some of these the beams
which supported the roof were curved, and came down on a bend to
the floor, thus doing away with the necessity for walls. The tradition
believed at liettws runs that at the time of Owen Glendower's rebel-
lion Henry IV. issued an arbitrar}' edict that no Welshman was to
be allowed to build a house higher than that the rafter-beams should
rearh the ground— in other words, should not have side walls at
all. lUit even at that date it was found possible to drive a coach and
four, not only through an Act of Parliament, but through a royal edict
So the cunning Welshmen hunted the woods on their shaggy hillsides
for (rooked timbers, which they utilised craftily, shaping their abodes
like the hulls of boats turned bottom upwards. It is only quite re-
cently that the last of these primitive abodes has been swept away.

The old church of Hettws is dedicated to St. Michael, and, as the
story giK's, suffered severely from a visit paid to it by the troops of
Oliver CroniwelL l>ut this is doubtful in the extreme.

About a mile and a half off is Elsi I^kc, which is very deep, and
the trout that abound in it are ver)- difficult to catch. The lake's
bottom Ls said to be covered with pitch pines ; if this be really the
case, it is a proof that the temperature of the climate in Wales
must have been considerably warmer some centuries ago than it is at
present. The rivers hereabouts used to be largely netted by
poachers, and the residents used to build basket-traps to catch the
salmon and trout which frequented the Conway and its tributaries,
the I.lugwy and the Ledhr, which meet here ; but these have been
abolislied by the Commissioners of Fisheries, except in one or two
instances where the landowners were able to show their possession
of an ancient and long unchallenged right. The Llugwy comes from
the souili-east, rising on the mountains of southern Denbighshire;
but the Ledhr springs from out of the bogg}* sides of Moel Siabod
and the other monarchs of the Snowdon range.

The falls at Bettws are known to every tourist in North Wales,
and have besides been so often painted and desaibed that we need

A Waik up the ValUy of the Conway. 89

not dwell on them here. The good people round about, in spAc ot
their long-esUblished NonconTormity, still believe that the spirit of
Sir John Wynne is pent up in a watery prison in the ba^n of this
fall, on account of his wickedness in persecuting the Roman Catholics
in the days of the Tudors or the Stuans.

In the neighbourhood are to be seen several cromlechs and other
antiquities, to each of which some weird legend has been attached
till now, when the railway and the constant visits of English tourists
have knocked out of the good people hereabouts so many of their old
faiths and superstitions.

The valley of the Ledhr, and all the hills and mountains which
enclose it on either side, are wild and weird to a degree that can
hardly be conceived. Almost every peak has its name, or, if not, is
associated in the minds of the natives with stories of robbery and
violence, or with some " uncanny " incident. At that lone farm on
the side of yon mountain tarn lived an old miser, with his still more
ni^ardly housekeeper, who was bedridden, but he suddenly disap-
peared, and has never since been beard of In that dark pool below
yon waterfall lie at an untold depth the bones of a man who years
ago ground the poor to death ; at that ford was fought a bloody
battle between the Welsh and the Saxons, when the former, on gain-
ing a victory, burnt the leader of the invading troops on a cromlech
as an offering to Moloch. On that farm the horKS were houghed or
killed, and the oxen burnt alive in their stalls, by a villain who lived
by deeds of robbery and violence, his hand being 'against every man
and eveiy man's hand against him, until he came to an untimely
end, being found dead on the road in a fit.

The first place of note which we reach, still journeying south-west-
ward, is Pont-y-pant, where the little river Ledhr tumbles down
some rapids between most picturesque rocks, shut in on either side
by a lofty range of mountains. Here has lately been erected an
hotel— quite a " hall in the wood "—which is much frequented in
summer by artists and fishermen, and by honeymooning couples also
during the rest of the year. If they wish for isolation, tranquillity,
and picturesque scenery, here they can reap all three advantages.

Our nent halt is at Dolwyddelan, one of the most primitive
places in all North Wales. There are great doubts as to the meaning
of the name, some seeing in it the name of a Saint Gwyddelan, who
is said to have lived in the seventh century ; but they give no proof
of her existence ; while others more probably interpret it as marking
the thickness of the forest — the Trees of Elan, or Eleo. The south-
west portion of the parish was ciar -vm* le^
towaiids Capd Cimr •

go The GentUfnatis Magazine.

to call a station just beyond Dolwyddelan by the absurd name of
" Roman Bridge," the bridge over the Ledhr here being quite modern.
On the side of a spur of Moel Siabod — a noble mountain which towers
over Dolwyddelan — is a spring of water, a bath in which, according to
the local folk-lore, will make weak and infirm persons young again.

In a glen to the south of the parish there lived early in the
eighteenth century an old lady — the wife of a farmer named James —
who was a noted harper, and who used to play on her harp while her
cows were being milked, and afterwards danced on the hill-side with
her men and maidens as part of her devotional exercises.

The castle of Dolw)'ddelan is ascribed in the guide books to
the fifth century of the Christian era. But whatever may be the
actual age of its foundations, the walls of its superstructure are
cleariy of Norman date ; and they confirm the story that Owen
Gwynedd, who died in 1169, left the building as a bone of contention
between his sons. The elder, lowerth, was not thought worthy of the
kingdom and crown because he had a broken nose, so he was partly
dispossessed of his rights by his brother David, whose notice he
escaped by occupying the remote fastness of Dolwyddelan Castle, in
the wild woods. Whilst living here lowerth's wife bore him a son,
who was christened in Dolwyddelan church, and became known in
aftertimes as Llewelyn the Great. The spot is still shown, near the
castle, where he practised his military exercises. The history of his
life has been often told, and it is worthy of note that in his turn he
became the father of another Llewelyn, the very last Prince of Wales
of the ancient Celtic blood, the same who was betrayed and killed at
Builth in 1182. Three centuries later, namely, in 1485, the Castle
was purchased by one of the Welsh race of Ap- Meredith, who
removed the parish church from its old position to a meadow near
the bed of the Ledhr, where it still stands, surrounded by yew trees,
probably of the same day, though it is now used only for funerals,
having been superseded by a new church built between it and the
site of its predecessor. The church has still its rough-hewn open
benches, coeval with its walls, and a fine monument on its north
wall to its founder Meredyth.

But Dolwyddelan is famous chiefly for the slate quarries by which
the entire valley of the Ledhr hereabouts is surrounded. These
quarries are pretty much of the same type, and, save in exceptional
instances, as at Penrhyn and at Festiniog, are of about the same size,
seldom covering more than four acres.

Lord Willoughby de Eresby, as the owner of the Gwydir estates,
grants leases on a royalty to persons who like to tiy their fortune in

A Walk up the Valley of the Conway. 9 1

a slate quarry. These leases are usually of five or seven years, and
the terms are a royalty of half a crown per ton raised— in other words,
of about 4 per cent.

The slaty earth lies between and under the huge boulders of
granite which project from the sides of the mountains. In its con-
struction it is simply mud, indurated in the course of ages by the
intense pressure of the rocks ; and it is found in layers which, sin-
gularly enough, always run east and west, and are never found running
north and south.

The mines here, unlike the coal mines of Wales and of Cornwall,
are not sunk by perpendicular shafts, but by horizontal adits driven
into the hillside. Into this they are carried for distances varying
between three hundred and four hundred yards.

The solid masses of slate are got out of the mountain by the
simple operation of blasting, which has to be directed, of course,
with much care and discretion, for fear of accidents. The huge
masses of native slate, when they first reach the yard, are rough and
shapeless, but they are quickly reduced into shape and form by being
placed under a large saw worked by water-power. They leave this
machine in oblong squares about three feet by two, and from four to
six inches in thickness, and are then split by hand, each block
according to its depth, after which they are cut to the exact length
and breadth required, according to a measure, some by the operation
of a revolving saw, and others, of the coarser sort, by hand. A skilled
workman can turn out as many as ten dozen slates in a day.

Those slates which, owing to some flaw or imperfection, do not
come up to the full measure required are put aside in a separate
stack, reduced in size, and sold at a cheaper rate. Occasionally
the slate quarries of Dolwyddelan are rather slack of work, and
the number of hands employed is consequently not so large as usual;
but, when the times are busy, it is not an uncommon occurrence for
a single quarry to turn out twelve tons — in other words, about 150
dozen of slates in a day. Of all the slates that are being used in
the building trades about London and our large centres of industry,
in all probability four.fifths or five-sixths come from out of the hill-
sides of Carnarvonshire and Denbighshire ; and of these, again, a
very large proportion are natives of the valley which wc have now
traversed, and at the head of which we find ourselves almost at the
very foot of that monarch of Welsh mountains, Snowdon, which has
lately been purchased by Sir Edward Watkin, doubtless to be made
the subject of some engineering experiments.

EDWAV^

92 The Gentlentaiis Magazine.

FINES.

IN the good old days, which some of us with aesthetic or anti-
quarian tastes regret will never again be restored, there were
certain customs and exactions in vogue calculated to damp the hilarity
of that "raerr)', merry England" which people, utterly ignorant of the
past, so often love to talk about Our ancestors, it is true, were not
bothered with the decrees of county councils, the rules and regula-
tions of local boards, speeches in the House of Commons, the
Irish question, the investigations of the income-tax and other in-
spectors, the shrieks of the locomotive, or the expressive strains of
the barrel-organ. Yet their condition, like that of the policeman in
the burlesque, was not on the whole a happy one. If we compare
the past with the present few will decide that the former " takes the
cake." Englishmen are given to grumble at the interference of
Government and of the upper classes on certain occasions, with their
comforts and pleasures, but, as a compensation, let them be thankful
that the extortions and restrictions which once existed have been
abolished for ever. In the present nineteenth century the most
fruitful of Belgravian mothers can dispose of her daughters in marriage
without let or hindrance, and without propitiating the sovereign with
a handsome fee. The neediest dandy might petition the Crown in
vain for the hand and estates of some great heiress. Hodge can
till his lands, if he have any, without being compelled to pay his
landlord a heavy tax upon all that he produces and consumes. His
son can marry the girl of his choice without that unholy interference
of the amorous squire. If a peasant snare a hare or shoot a pheasant
he is pretty safe to get his six weeks from the "great unpaid/' but he
will not have his eyes put out, or be boiled alive, or be burnt in the
hand, or strung up on the nearest tree. If a scoundrel commit a crime
he will assuredly be sent to prison ; and, in spite of being able to read
like Dr. Johnson or Lord Macaulay, he can no longer claim " benefit
of clergy." All Houndsditch, nowadays, can safely flaunt its wethk
and gems in the very face of the most rapacious monarchi withoot
anticipating any rough visit from the dentist of the period. Jade

Fines.

Tar and his brother, Tommy Atkins, need dread no longer the gag
and sudden seizure of the press-gang, or service in the fever-stricken
plantations. In these days, peer or peasant, though he may have to
pay smartly for it, is certain to obtain justice j nor can either ever be
called upon to contribute to any aid or exaction unless sanctioned
by the laws of the land.

Vet these immunities were the exception in those good old days
of yore. On all sides the peasant was oppressed and overworked ;
he had to serve his lord in the wars; he had to have his corn ground
at the manorial mill and was taxed for the privilege; if the son of his
lord got married he made him a present, if the daughter entered into
the nuptial state she also received a present, orif nothing was offered
ihe lord seized a horse or cow, or a litter of pigs, or anything that the
wretched " villain " possessed ; on the other hand, if the daughter of
the peasant got married, the only present she might receive was a
visit from the squire. The yeoman and the apprentice, though their
slavery was not so degrading, were severely restricted as to their
movements, their dress, iheir diet, and on all occasions when called
Upon had to contribute either in money or in kind. Nor were the
country gentleman, the gallant knight, and the noble lord entirely
free agents. They had to arm and keep their r«tainers to serve the
Crown or against it; they had to pay a convenient tax, )-clept "rehefs,"
to their sovereign, for leave to fortify their castle, for leave to come
into their property and for leave to bequeath it, for leave to marry
their daughters, for leave to send their sons abroad, for leave lo act
as guardians — in short, their pathway through life was strewed with
leaves from the crown. Occasionally these burdens were so severe
that the much oppressed subject rebelled altogether and found it
easier and more profitable to roam at his own sweet will throughout
the forests of the country as an outlaw.

To those wishing to examine the truth of these statements the
parchments of the past need only to be studied. Upon their well
preserved membranes will be seen what was the nature of the gift
banded over to the sovereign, the fees to be paid for the custody of

mds and wards, the work that the labourer had to give grati,'; to his

indlord, the tithes demanded by the monasteries, the dues for knight-
vice and the wearing of armour, the sumptuary and dietary laws
d the rest. Among these documents, so full of ihe life of our early
t, Ihe valuable collection of Fine Rolls occupies a prominent
To the historian, the antiquary, and the cenealumsi tliev are

if the greatest service. Running from the sixth ■ -if

Ung John, 1304, to the end of the reign 01 l

94 The Gentlematis Magazine,

1483, they contain matters touching the domestic tmnsactions and
fiscal economy of the kingdom not to be found in the pages of the
most observant chronicler. The entries on these rolls which are of
the first importance are those touching the dues which had to be
paid to the sovereign on the death of the tenant who held his lands
from the Crown j and as in those happy feudal days the sovereign was
the one great landlord of the country, the revenue he derived from
this source was pretty considerable. If Sir Alured Vavasour de
Brascebrige passed over to the majority, a writ was at once issued to
the shetifT or some other ofEcial, commanding bim to take into the
king's hand the lands, tenements, or chattels of the deceased. Shoold
Sir Alured have died without an heir, all that he possessed reverted to
the Crown ; should his heir at the date of his death be a minor die
Crown was the ward and trustee ; whilst if the heir was of age he vi)
called upon to pay a tine for the livery of the inheritance. Supposing
Sir Alured to have been a rebel and to have abjured the reahn, Ui
lands were forthwith forfeited to the Crown, when they were eithe
given to a favourite or sold to the highest bidder. Thus, the sover-
eign, what with the death of tenants, the wardship of minors, the
liveries of heirs, and frequent seizures in turbulent times, managed
to keep his colTers fairly filled. Occasionally the death of a tenant
was anticipated and the mandate issued to the sheriff to take posses-
sion before the breath was out of the moribund's body ; also it appevi
from various entries that the sheriff often acted upon his own respon-
sibility and took into the king's hands the lands of a deceased tenant
without even waiting for the writ.

Upon this subject of succession to property the Fines throw some
new light. I'Vom one entry wc learn that a tenant quitting the
country to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land was consideiol
dead in law from the day of his departure, and the next belt
succeeded to the property. Thus, Henry de Scales starts fix
Palestine, and at once the sheriff of the county is directed to gtad
livery of his lands to Geoffrey, the brother next in succnsin
Occasionally wc find instances of heirs obtaining possession of the
inheritance before they are even out of their minority ; for instaixx.
Hugh de .Mbing, brother and heir of \\'illiara de .Mbing, late Earl d
Arundel, makes a line of 2,000 marks— about ^^20,000 of ofl
money — to enjoy the lands of his brother, and also those whid
descend to him from the Earl of Chester, until he shall come of age
A young man was of age at one -and- twenty, and a )'Oung
sixteen. When a tenant died, the custody of whose heir
to the Crown, the king, as we have said, when the heir wii

either retained the profits of the estate till the heir attained his
majority, or else, if it so pleased him, sold the wardship or granted
it to some favourite. The value of such wardship, of course,
depended upon the nature of the estate and the duration of the
minorit)-. and when sold large sums were often paid for it, Thus we
rend, in one of the entries, that Simon de Montfort, Earl of
Leicester, paid to Henry the Third 10,000 marks (say about
^100,000 of our money) to have the custody of the lands and of the
heir of Gilbert de UmfraviJle, with the marriage of the heir.

The Fine Rolls not only contain a variety of matter touching the
succession to property, but numerous entries relating lo the marriage
of heiresses and widows, assignments of dower, pardons and forfeitures,
aids and taxes, affairs of the Jews, and to similar subjects. Some of
the entries throw a strange light upon the customs of the day which
is not shed by our printed authorities, Plaa aux dames. Marriage
and giving in marriage was among the favourite resources of the
exacting sovereign to swell his exchequer. The tax was as simple and
as easy lo collect as our income-tax. For in those days no heir could
marry without the royal consent, whilst the heiress was entirely in the
power of the sovereign, who could offer her any husband of her rank
he thought fit ; should she refuse her lands were forfeited. Occasion-
ally these fines were most exorbitant. Thus we read that Geoffrey
de Mandeville paid Henry the Third 20,000 niaiks that he might
marry Isabel, Countess of Gloucester, and possess all her lands. In
addition to fines being paid by guardians for the right of disjwsing of
wards in marriage, widows who were wel! left prayed that they might
marry whom they pleased, pledging themselves that the men of their
choice should not be enemiesof theking. These petitions of course
were always accompanied by the necessary number of marks. Apart
from marriage, there was a regular tariflT for the granting of other
privileges. Fines were paid to be exempted from knighthood, either
entirely or to a certain dale ; for the recovery of l.tnds forfeited to
the king, because the owner 'came not to be bound with the belt of
knighthood '— nnti ventt ad rtj^em til turn cingulo mUitim dii^erel ; for
leave of absence from sailing with the king jn his expeditions to
Normandy and other places beyond the seas i or for exemption from
bearing arms in the service of the king. Then again fines were
j-.aid because a man had no heir by his wife from whose estates
such service was commanded, or because another man did not
|>ossess a certain quantity of land, or a third was a sub-deacon, and
other excuses ; for grants of fairs and markets, for leave lo itadc,
for bccnse to hold or abandon ceruin offices, for the favour of''

96 The Gentlemaiis Magazine.

king and the like. In short, everything could be bought, from an
heiress to a judgment, from the remission of a sentence to an
offence against the forest laws. Nor was money only accepted-
palfreys, falcons, hounds, cloth, &c., were as welcome as marks.

The Fine Rolls are in an excellent stale of preservation, the
parchment clean and flexible, and the ink unfaded. But the hand-
writing, like that in all our earlier documents, is minute, the contrac-
tions are numerous and far-fetched, and consequently the entries on
the membranes difScult to decipher. Fortunately the student need
not initate his brain and damage his eyesight by endeavouring to
ascertain the information recorded on these rolls. Two volumes,
containing extracts from all the more important matters to be found
in the Fine Rolls, have been edited by Mr, Charles Roberts, with an
exhaustive and scholarly preface, and published by the late Record
Commission ; their pages well repay perusal.

TRAMPS AND THEIR IV A YS.

THE ways of the ingenious tramp, like those of the no less
ingenious " Heathen Chinee," are peculiar. Indeed, they arc
past finding out, if we may judge from the ludicrous failures of those
inquisitive persons who attempt lo explain them to a suiTering public.
How often have I laughed, how often have my brother tramps
laughed, at the grotesque assertions and " revelations " of those who
imagine that a casual conversation with a stray tramp or two is
^ufticient to enable them to indulge in a dissertation on the manners
and methods of tramps in general ! 1 once knew a young lady— of
cuursc since I abandoned the " road " for a more conventional mode
of life — who fell head over ears in love with an itinerant phrenologist.
He was not a tramp, mark you ! A genuine tramp would scorn the
connection, for even in these degenerate days tramps have not sunk
to the level of phrenology, nor any other ology except " copology,"
which, for the benefit of the ignorant, I may explain is equivalent to
" take," and is therefore indispensable to the vagrant vocabulary.

This said feeler of bumps was not remarkable for manly beauty —
far from it. He had a dumpty body and a pair— I suppose they
were a pair— of short bandy legs. He also carried a squint in his left
eye, which I verily believe was rather acquired than natural, for he
was a sly dog and seemed to be always winking at someone. Of
course the young lady in question did not fall in love with him on
accotint of these physical embellishments. What was the cause of
her infatuation, then? Simply this: he could speak seven languages,
in all of which he had, as she declared, made love to her. Here was
~5 maiden with a soul —more soul than sense.

Now, I happened lo know that if this young lady possessed any
rong points— and, being a woman, she had many— language was
tabily not one of them. Of course 1 refer lo quality as distinct
n quantity. As a matter of fact she resembled most of our popular
)vel writers, in being unable lo string together sis decent English
intcnces. I ihercfote asked her, not unnaturally, how she knew he
speak seven different languages. " Oh," replie(4 '

VOL. CCLXIX, NO. I9i5.

98

The Gentleman s Magazine.

greatly piqued, "I have heard him." What could I say to that?
She was too logical for me, so I gave it up. It ultimately transpired
that the fellow was a perfect dunce, possessed, as most dunces arc,
of more than sufficient impudence to compensate for his lack of
learning. He succeeded in feeling my lady friend's bumps, as well
as those of one or two decidedly weak-minded gentlemen friends :
drew five shillings from each of his patrons, suhauditur dupes ; and
decamped without giving them their promised " charts." Thus we
have at least one instance of phrenology teaching practical wisdom,
for these people were wiser after the lesson, though they did not
appear to take kindly to the method of instruction.

This stor)' has suggested itself to my mind more than once when
I have read or heard the remarks of " flatties " on the curious doings
of tramps. Quite recently the Rector of Rettcndon delivered a
lecture at the Chelmsford Museum on " Tramps," and the Z^tf//K-^'<^a'j
thought the subject of sufficient importance to call for comment in
its leader columns, under the title at the head of this paper.

There is no doubt a growing interest in the doings of that nomadic
portion of our population that rejoices in the name of "tramp."'
This is probably the natural outcome of an increased regard for the
well-being of humanity in general, which is a characteristic of our
times.

At the j^rescnt moment we have at least one Member of Parlia-
mcnl devoting his entire energies to the passing of a Hill intended to
give the authorities some additional control over the children of our
perpetually moving population— those who live in vans, and so forth.

We have also a somewhat novel movement, started by the "Church
Army," for putting an end to tram]) life, or, at least, for reducing the
number of tramps. It is proposed to regenerate the itinerant band
by getting them to enter the ** Church Army Tramps' labour Shelter'
on certain conditions. It seems that the tramp who desires to forsake
his old life must satisfy a committee of three working-men evange-
lists that he is sincere in his asi>initions after respectability. To
prove himself a hoju) fide jK^nitent, he must work for one month at
chopping wood at twopence a day, another twopence a day being
banked to purchase him clothes. I wish this movement success; but
at the same time I warn the public aj:ainst depending upon the
*' Chun h Army Tramps' Labour Shelter '' for its supply of wood.

Perhaps it is only natural that people who undertake to descnlie
the lives of tramps should make the funniest possible mistakes^ They
cannot be expected to know much of what they believe they under-
stand. I am inclined to think that if the reverend lecturer ^

Tramps and their Ways. 99

Chelmsford knew what a probation is necessary in order to acquire even
a passable knowledge of the subject he would hold up his hands
in pious horror.

The method of this enthusiast is characteristic. He sees a tramp
consult some mysterious marks upon a post, and choose his road
accordingly. Curious to ascertain the meaning of these marks, he
examines them, and to his astonishment he finds that some are Greek
characters. Here is a discovery indeed. Fancy the woc-begone
tramp being a dabbler in the classics as well as in buttons and tapes
and " needles that will not prick ! "

Having deciphered these Hellenic hieroglyphics, Mr. Webster —
that is the reverend lecturer's name — arrives at the popular, and
therefore natural, conclusion that they are intended to guide tramps
who may subsequentiy travel the same road to the " good cribs,"
warn them against the bad ones, and so forth.

Now, it is one of the most common errors to suppose that tramps
take pains to inform each other of those houses which are "good
for" something in the way of "scran" (food) or "rhino." The
truth is that, if tramps take pains at all—and they will take no
more than they can help — it is in precisely the opposite direction.
The only occasion upon which the tramp will impart information to
another is when two are "travelling" together and go shares.

I will recount a curious and perfectly true incident in illustration
of what I say.

"Mickey the Mouchcr" — I never knew him by any other name,
and I believe that was the only one he himself was aware of— was
looked upon as one of the best " cadgers " on the " road," and, like
all his class, he resented any poaching on his preserves — that is, at
his "good cribs." He had the reputation of knowing every house
that was " good for a cowld pratie " in the counties of Oxford, Berks,
Wilts, Somerset, or Gloucester.

He was travelling through Berkshire, a county well known to the
fraternity for being " gammy " (bad). The J.P.'s of Berkshire were
extremely unpopular in the common lodging-houses, and no one
knew so well as Mick where they were located.

One day he became aware that he was being followed by a great
hulking fellow who had passed the previous night in the same
lodging-house as himself The fellow was new to the "road," and
was ignorant of the method of going to work. Mick saw his game
at once. The man was following him with a view to seeing to what
hoqses he went, and then calling after him.

lOO The Gentlematts Magazine.

On coming from a large house that stood on the road side, 1
stopped and allowed the man to overtake him.

" Top of the mornin* to ye," said Mick.

" MorninV replied the man.

" How are ye getting on?" asked Mick.

" Bad," was the reply. " Ain't had a blessed bit o' grub
mornin* yet."

" Ah, thin, it's sorry I am for ye, my lad," cried Mick symps
tically. " May be ye*d like to be put up to a good crib?"

" I would, indeed," replied the man hopefully ; " I'm starv

Assuming a tone of great confidence, Mick said, " D'ye see;
big house ferninst ye, beyond there?" pointing to a large white h
that stood some distance from the road in a spacious park.

" I do," replied the man.

" Well, me honey, jist ye go there, now, and pitch a good 3
Go to the front dhure and ye'll see the old gossoon himself, ma]
and if ye do ye'll get a migic (shilling) as safe as Moses. Thi
round to the coachman, and he's good for an old miltog (shirt)
may be a pair of kicks (trousers). Oh ! it's a noice man that s

coachman is Here, stop a minit !" — the man was already hurr

in the direction of the gate leading to the house, and Mick
to shout. " Thin go to the kitchen dhure and axe to see the coc
Hivin bless her soul !— and ye'll be afther gittin* grub and 1
toke and panem, mate and praties, and the full o' a foine basi
broth."

The man was far away up the drive leading to the house,
Mick continued his way till he reached a " boose crib " (pul
house), and there he ensconced himself to await the developmei
events.

In about an hour he had the pleasure of seeing a trap driven
in the back of which was seated the poor " greenhorn," handci:
to the local police-constable. The trap was driven by old sq
Copem, J. P., one of the "hottest" magistrates in the whole coi
of Berks, who was taking his prisoner to the nearest lock-up.

Now, with reference to the marks observed by Mr. Webster, i
had followed the tramp whom he saw to the next house visited, ii
probability he would have acquired a more accurate knowledg
what the man was doing. The man had been preceded b
colleague, but that colleague was not "cadging." The forerui
was preparing the way, in all truth, but not in the manner comiiK
supposed. The fact of the matter is simply this — there
tnunps in partnership, and those two tramps were '* d

Tramps and their Ways. loi

will venture to predict that this term is not included in Mr. Webster's
vocabulary of padding-ken (lodging-house) slang, and I will therefore
hasten to explain it.

" Dropping " is a most ingenious system of getting a living on the
" road." It was invented some forty or fifty years ago, by whom I
cannot say. For years it remained one of the most profitable callings
to which the tramp fraternity- were accustomed, for, strange to say, it
was practised by comparatively few, and those few took the greatest
care to keep their trade-secret to themselves. The modus operandi
was as follows. Suppose a tramp — say the son of a tramp who had
" run away," for they invariably run away as soon as they are old
enough to earn a living — finds himself with ^v^ shillings wherewith
to start in life. And let not the reader, by the way, think five
shillings at all a large amount to be possessed by a youthful wanderer
of this class. He sends three shillings and fourpence to Birmingham,
whence tramps at one time got most of their wares, commonly called
" swag," and for that sum he gets in return four thousand needles.
He pays tenpence per thousand for them, and the sizes are sixes and
sevens — two thousand of each. There arc twenty-five needles in
each packet and forty packets to the thousand. He thus has one
hundred and sixty packets, which he retails at one penny per packet,
and the four thousand needles bring him in thirteen shillings and
fourpence — ^just four times their cost. This is good profit, and
would soon make his fortune if he could practise his calling on a
sufficiently extensive scale.

Now the tramp does not take these needles from door to door
and ask people to purchase them. If he did he would probably sell
sixpennyworth in the course of the day. He " drops " them, and
thus sells three or four shillings-worth. He cuts some brown paper
— or white, if he is a fastidious worker — into square pieces, about
five inches by four, and these he folds down on each side so that the
folds overlap. Then each end is folded, and thus a small package
IS formed, about two inches by one and a half in size, one end being
inserted in the other so that it will not fall open. In this package
are placed two packets of needles side by side, one packet of sixes
and the other sevens. A little strip of paper is then inserted in each
package, bearing the following formula: " The bearer, who is out of
work through impaired sight while working at his trade of needle mak-
ing, will be thankful to the purchaser.— Price one penny per packet."
Thus each little package brings twopence if the customer buys it ; or
'^nit packet of needles only may be taken and the other returned with
'or the one kept. As the needles, or " snells " as these

« « «

102 The Gentleman s Magazhte.

wandering merchants term them, are sold, more are sent for, and
thus the stock is kept going.

In cases where two tramps travel together, say chums, or father
and son, one goes on in advance and " drops " the packages. That
is, he leaves them at every suitable house. The other follows two or
three hours afterwards and " picks up " — that is, the second calls for
the packages " dropped " by his colleague. The road they shall travel
is roughly mapped out beforehand ; but the first man uses well-
known signs to guide his follower, just as a runner in '^ hare and
hounds '* scatters bits of paper as he goes to keep up a trail for those
who follow. At many houses where " dropping " has. become well
known, and is considered tiresome on account of frequent calls to the
door, the servant will refuse to take the little package in.

"Is it to be called for?" she demands, and the "dropper" is
practically bound to answer " Yes," or he runs the risk of having his
'* snells" put on the fire or in the dust-bin. If he confesses that it
is to be called for — " Then we don't want it " is the reply, and he has
to take it back. In order to let the " picker-up " know where there
is a package and where not, the mysterious signs noted by Mr. Webster
are used. The common material for making these marks is a bit
of chalk or pipeclay ; but where this is not forthcoming the stem
of a pipe, a knife, or anything handy is used as Mr. Webster points
out.

Now it is natural that Mr. Webster, being a man of classical
attainments, should come to the conclusion that these marks usedbf
tramps are Greek letters and mathematical signs, for one of them
resembles the Greek thcta^ that is the small letter (^, not the capital
There is another which is an exact imitation of the small psi — that
is v/^. The delta A is also used, and sometimes thei// is written in
such a manner as to be easily mistaken for the Greek epsiion (f).

But I have never yet come across a tramp who used these signs
as Greek letters. The resemblance to Greek letters is quite
accidental. This is not conjecture, but absolute fact. The manner
in which the resemblance to Greek characters is brought about needs
only a brief explanation.

If a man who is " dropping " leaves one of his packages at t
house, he places on the gate-post, door-post, wall, or in some
conspicuous place near the door, a mark in the form of an " O," or
a crescent moon. This informs the "pickcr-up" that a package
has been left at that house. If the package has not been takoi
in, or from any cause none has been left at the houses thes
a straight line is drawn through the " O '' or the crescent mooOi

Tramps and their Ways. 103

thus forming 0 (Jhetd) or ^ {fsi), as the case may be. This is called
'* crossing out " a house.

When a journey is being traversed from one town to another it is
necessary to indicate the road which the "dropper" has taken, and
for this purpose larger and somewhat dilTerent signs are used.
Again, a house, or a group of houses, may lie off the high road
some distance, down a lane or across a field. If the "droi)per" turns
out of his ordinary course he places a mark to indicate this. At
the point where he has branched off he selects a gate, a post, a
large stone, or any object that will hold a mark, and makes a sign
similar to a shepherd's crook, with the long tail or stem pointing in
the direction he has taken (-^). The " picker-up" follows the course
indicated by this sign, sees at what houses the packages arc left,
and then shapes his course according to the signs he observes. For
instance, if the "dropper" has gone further down that same road
he indicates the fact by a mark similar to that which he left at the
commencement of it ; if he has returned to the main road he
places on the last house he visited a mark similar to a half-moon or
semicircle in a perpendicular position, and from the inside of this
draws a straight line, pointing back in the direction he has gone,
thus : ( — . If this straight line be shortened it becomes c (epsilo/i).
These marks undergo much modification. Sometimes o — is used,
and the o being elongated (thus : 0), and the straight line drawn
through, makes B {theta). Other marks are : -°- , l_, l. , (-^^ and so
on. The reason for these modifications is that two men working
quite independently of each other have been known to cross each
othei^s track, and thus confusion, and sometimes considerable strife,
has arisen. Different " droppers," therefore, use different marks for
the sake of distinction.

It must not be thought that needles are the only wares sold in
this manner — linen buttons at one penny or twopence per dozen,
according to size, tradls, and a variety of small articles have been
made a source of profit.

Some eight or nine years ago, when Messrs. Raphael Tuck
& Sons first published their penny "Portrait Gallery," a series of
chromo-lithographs of statesmen, soldiers, and other celebrities, the
little carie-de-visiie pictures were placed two and two in envelopes,
with a neatly-written "ticket " or invitation " to the i)urchaser," and
retailed at threepence each instead of one penny as they were marked
in the shops. Gladstone and Disraeli were brought face to face in
this ingenious way more often than ever before, and the pair of
political antagonists sold freely at sixpence, that is threepence each.

I04 The Gentlematis Magazine.

To my certain knowledge as much as twenty shillings have been thus
taken in one day, and when Beaconsfield died the 'cute vendor ran
him up to sixpence, and continued to sell at that price till the
publishers ceased to supply the portrait separately, and thus crippled
the lucrative business. These portraits cost only eight shillings per
single gross, and three gross were supplied for twenty-one shillings.
Thus, what cost twenty-one shillings brought a return of no less than
;;^5 8j., and when the retail price of Beaconsfield was doubled this
became, of course, ;^io i6j.

The particular " dropper " who " worked this lay " dressed welli
and frequented only towns, and those the most fashionable, as, for
example, Bath, Cheltenham, Leamington, Tunbridge, Southampton,
Portsmouth, &c

" Dropping," pure and simple, has gone very much out of fashion
with tramps recently, the reason being that it has become " stale,"
except when done upon some novel plan. The " dropper " to whom
I have alluded above never left his packages at the door in the
ordinary way. He dropped them through the letter-boxes, and the
portraits were always enclosed in clean, cheap envelopes, and thus
found their way into the hands of many who would not have touched
the old-fashioned package to which I have referred.

I do not wish to make any random assertions, but I do make
bold to say that to this curious system of "dropping" commerdal
men owe the origin of the present system of "billing" and "cir-
cularising " their customers, and of advising shopkeepers of the advent
of their travellers and agents.

There is, or used to be, a type of tramp that is rarely met with
now. I mean the " shallow bloke," commonly known as a " dry-land
sailor." Not that "dry-land sailors" are not to be found even now, hot
it is rare indeed that one of the real old-fashioned sort is met with.

To " run shallow " meant to go about the country half naked.
A genuine "shallow bloke" knew not the luxury of a shirt; he
scorned to encase his feet in boots, always preferring to *• pad the
hoof," i.e, go bare-footed. Frequently these "shallow blokes*
travelled in " schools," that is, in companies of four, five, and ax,
and wherever they went they made the streets hideous with their
unearthly howling of nautical ditties, in which the refrain, " And the
stormy winds did blow — ow — ow ! " was always conspicuous.

These men were anatomical curiosities. One would be mhm
an arm, another would lack a leg, a third would exhibit a wilhcred
limb done up in tight bandages. Scarcely one of them would k
found physically perfect. They would stretch in a line acrcMi di

Tramps aud thctr Ways. 105

slrcel, the two i;xtreme men pushing iheir hats in the face of every
passer-by, and sundry curses, sometimes loud as well as deep,
followed the " unchariiable " pedestrians, while ail the blessings of
Heaven were invoked on the head of the "kind gentleman " who
dropped a copper in the obtrusive ehafeau.

These "shallow blokes "were a terror to the ordinary tramps.

They were noted as being the greatest blackguards travelling. Their

blasphemous talk was simply hideous, and shocked even old and well-

I seasoned tramps. Happily they are now nearly an extinct race. It

^b a fact, though not generally known, that scores of these vagabonds

^^BUlilaled themselves for the purpose of working upon the feelings

^^^ a charitable public. One of the most common methods of

I ^"acquiring" a withered limb was to bind it tightly with strips of

linen, and thus stop the circulation of the blood. Loathsome

looking wounds were manufactured by inserting in these bandages

an old copper coin, which gradually eat into the flesh.

A somewhat pleasant contrast to these itinerants were the
"lurkers," more intelligibly described as " begging- letter gende-
men," a class of men not unknown at the present day. They would
cany a neat little roll of pictures, two or three gentlemen's combs in
a little satchel, or any other light and fancy article, just to "take the
granny off'' — in other words, for the sake of appearance.

Their object was not to sell these articles, but to beg "over
them." They usually had a plausible tale to tell of better days, they
could produce letters from this gentleman and from that clergyman,
'i'hey did not go in for copiicrs, but for silver and gold. It was no
unusual thing for one of these to receive from a sympathetic old
gentleman or credulous old lady a "half a thick 'un " or a "thick
■un" (half-sovereign or sovereign). Clothes they used to get in
plenty, and they were always well dressed, for which reason they
were often dubbed " flash blokes " in the common lodging-house.
.Some of these men had really seen better days. I have known
broken-down University men, occasionally an officer of (he army or
navy — and these men made no end of money by visiting old retired
officers of the Services.

One old man I used to know always begged in French. I
remember him rushing up to a gentleman who was ridin;; on horse-
back down the Pittville Road at Chellenham, and astonishing him
vi\\^-~^^ Ah ! moitiUiir Ic iif^oeiant : je suis bUn ahe de roui voir!"
and the old chap rattled away at the rider with such Gallic volubility
the latter at length gave him a half-crown to zfi nd of him.
A very funny incident occuned in Soutlismpion in the year 1871.

io6 The Gentleman s Magazine.

An old Frenchman, born and bred in Paris, but who was exiled a
number of years ago for some political offence, used to get his living
by calling upon French residents in this country, schoolmasters,
tutors, ministers, and any others who were likely to be useful to him.
His wife was an Englishwoman, but, having been reared in France,
she spoke French like a native.

There used to be a French minister in Southampton, and I believe
there is one there at the present time. I know there is a French
place of worship there to which the Gallic sailors are wont to go.

This old French cure was a soft-hearted, gullible sort of man, and
when Henri called upon him he sent his broken-down countryman
away rejoicing with a piece of gold, though I believe the good man
was by no means rich.

Now, it so happened that Rachel, Henri's better half, called not
two hours after her husband had been, and even the innocent cure
** smelt a rat." * But Rachel was an adept at her craft. She soon
talked all round the charitable old man, disclaimed all knowledge of
the " man who had called previously," and succeeded in getting suf-
ficient money from her victim to " pay her passage back to la belle
France"

Henri and Rachel so enjoyed the recital of their mutual adven-
tures that they got decidedly " elevated " that night. On their way
to the lodging-house at which they stayed Henri was attracted to the
window of a picture-shop by a beautiful engraving of the "Capitulation
of Paris " which was there displayed. He became riveted to the spot.
The surrender of Paris, which had so recently taken place, was fresh
in his mind, sundry nips of brandy were still fresher — or, perhaps,
fouler — in his stomach, and he danced, cursed, raved, and cried in
front of the picture-shop. He shook his fist at the engraving, he
vowed vengeance against the Germans, he cried : " Vive la France !"
^^ A bas les Alle^nands !" and all to the intense amusement of a
considerable crowd of people who had collected.

In vain Rachel, almost as " tight ■* as himself, essayed to lead
him away. He would not go, he wanted to i^erser le sang of all the
Germans in creation. All at once Rachel felt a smart blow on her
shoulder, and at the same moment a squeaky voice cried out: "Ha,
ha I ha, ha ! Je vous connais mainlenant, madame ; je vous connais,
je vous connais. Non, non, vous ne connaissez pas cet homme,
cela n'cst pas votre mari. Ha, ha! Je vous connais, je vous con-
nais." And the little French cure^ for he it was, danced about quite
as much as Henri, prodding Rachel with his umbrella all the while.

Rachel and Henri passed that night and the next fortnight in
durance vile. PEREGRmuSf

I07

TABLE TALK,

A Rousseau of the Gutter.

AMONG the long series of reprints of early French literature,
undertaken in Paris, the most noteworthy was the " Biblio-
th^ue Elz^virienne," which, after passing through the hands of
various publishers, was supposed to have expired with the latest,
M. Paul Daffis. With " difficulty and labour huge," I obtained, in
the course of thirty years, a complete collection of these works in
their red-cloth covers, bearing the Leyden sphere of the Elzevirs in
gold. Between two and three hundred volumes, including editions
of Rabelais, Corneille, Ronsard, Villon, La Fontaine, Brantome,
early French dramas, chronicles, romances, chansons de geste, &c.,
&C., and a complete collection of the works known in England a
couple of generations ago as the Shandean Library, rest on my
shelves, and are pretty often taken thence for perusal or reference.
' To my great surprise the series has this month recommenced under
new publishers, MM. Plon & Nourrit. The latest addition to the series
is before me, and marks the opening out of a fresh interest. It consists
of a MS., hitherto unpublished, of Restif de la Bretonne. It is possible
that I may some day deal at some length with this curious and in-
teresting—albeit not wholly edifying— eighteenth-century celebrity,
who has been called the Rousseau of the ruisseau^ or street gutter,
who was himself a printer, and has left behind books enough — often-
times set up by his own hands — to justify a bibliography to himself
in the shape of an octavo volume of over four hundred pages.* If ever
autobiographical revelations deserved the lately invented term of
" human documents," they are those of Restif. I am now concerned
- only with the appearance in an old series of the book entitled
" Mes Inscriptions," a journal intime^ which has been discovered in
the Archives of the Bastille, now in the Bibliothcquc de TArsenal.
This work, obviously seized by the police, covers the years 1780-
\ I787t and is, assumably, a portion only of a longer work. It is a
curious and useful supplement to the autobiography published

* Biiliegraphk it Tcanofrttpkie de ious '
lar P. L. Jtcol), UUiophilt. ^

io8 The Gentleman s Magazine.

under the name " Vie de Monsieur Nicolas," and other works of
the same author, and will attract the attention of all collectors of
Restif, who are not confined to France, but exist in this country.
Copies of his best known works brought from six to eleven
guineas in last year's sales. The record of the proceedings of
Restif is from day to day, and the entries show signs of the
decadence of his physical and moral qualities.

The Bull-fight in Paris.

VERY far from groundless prove to have been the fears I ex-
pressed as to the possible establishment of the bull-fight in
France. The shows, barely less revolting than those in Madrid or
Seville, which have been tolerated in the Amphitheatre in Nismes
and in other southern cities, have now extended to Paris, where they
have been established with a distressingly small amount of opposition
or protest. Already the sickening details of horses gored to death by
the bull have been sent over, and a man even has narrowly escaped
with his life. Some of the facts narrated are too horrible for mention.
No steps whatever appear to have been taken to arrest this national
degradation. I am no prophet of evil. I make bold, however, to tdl
our neighbours that the establishment of the bull-fight in France
will inevitably lead to national and political decay and ruin. We
ourselves, in common with other nations, are hurt by what is now being
done. Spain, even in these days of quick travel, is still remote, and
those Englishmen who can be corrupted by the worst form of mond
leprosy surviving in Europe are few, and belong principally to
classes so used to sport as not easily to be shocked. To Paris^
however, all classes of Englishmen are attracted, and a percentage
of these is certain to be lured to whatever is deplorable or vicious.
I urge upon every lover of animals and every believer in the degrading
influence of cruelty to abstain from these shows, and so far as in
them lies to cover the shame of their nearest neighbours.

SVLVANUS URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

August 1890.

CHAIRS BY THE RIVER.

By J. Field.

I.

•* "\7'0U'LL be stopped at Sultanpur, you see if youVe not," said

X my host, Major O'Kelly, R.E., as he stood with his arms
resting on the window of the carriage in which I had taken my seat.
'* If that Ghorwara bridge stands the flood that is on its way this
minute, why, I know uncommonly little of bridges, that's all. The

traveUers' bungalow is a sty— and the food ! So I dropped a line

yesterday to Marston. Trust him for looking after you. Time up,
guard ? All right. Good-bye, old man, and good luck at home ! '*

It was before the days of unbroken railway communication
between the North-West of India and the great western harbour.
Wide gaps still made the journey too inconvenient for general
adoption, and in the rains the uncertainty of getting through in a
given time was heightened by the not unfrequent collapse of one or
other of the great bridges which span the streams down which the
ninfall of Central India runs its wasteful way to the sea. It was
August ; the monsoon was more than a month overdue and had at
last broken over the great plateau with a vengeance. Engineers had
long shaken their heads over the Ghom^'ara bridge, which dated back
to a time when architects and contractors had little practical experi-
ence of the force of a river which rises forty feet in a night. As I
looked at the flooded country through which the line to Sultanpur
ran, I began to have doubts of our even reaching that terminus, from
which all ought to have been plain sailing to Bombay. It would have
been wiser to take the other route.

I was a captain at that time, and was going home on nek k*

▼Qu ccuux. NO. 1916.

no The Gentleman's Magazine.

after an attack of cholera. It had been a bad year, and I had left
more than one comrade in the sandy burial-ground of Alikot The
new route tempted me — it looked so short on the map compared with
that by Calcutta and Point de Galle. But now I began to fear deten-
tion and reckon up the number of days to the departure of the
P. and O. steamer that I wanted to catch.

Sure enough, at the very next station to Sultanpur, I caught
the word '* Ghorwara" in a conversation that was going on between
the station-master and the guard, just outside the window of my
carriage. Yes, four spans were gone, and now there was nothing for
it but to wait at Sultanpur until the Company might be able to
organise arrangements for getting passengers and luggage across—
three or four days at least.

The travellers' bungalow was not so bad, after all. The rains had
washed away a twelvemonth's accumulation of unconsidered garbage
from the compound, which was further embellished by a delicate
green veil of three-days-old grass, not to mention splashy pool8» their
margins garnished with frogs as yellow and as noisy as canary biids.
The inside might certainly have been cleaner ; but, by the time I had
tubbed and established myself in a crazy old Chinese chair in the
verandah, I felt little disposed to grumble. Old Ahmed, the servant
with me, was pretty certain to be able to do somethittg in the way of
dinner, and the luncheon-basket, which O'Kelly's hospitality had
stocked with a supply intended to meet the not very improbable con-
tingency of a break-down, had put me in a position to await the
result of his exertions with comparative equanimity. I had hardly yet
regained my strength, and no lotus-eater, " stretched out beneath
the pine," ever enjoyed his inaction more than I did as I lay at length
on the shaky wickerwork and delighted my weary eyes with the tissue
of green and gold which the rays of the declining sun were weaving
with the young leaves of the tamarind-tree which shadowed the poich.

The road ran just outside the compound, and I remember watch-
ing with some interest a large horse, evidently ridden by a European,
which came along at a sharp, level trot. It disappeared for an inctant
behind the tall edge of gaunt cactus, then the sound of the H^ttfrin^
hoofs turned to a quick thud as they left the metal and swung roond
through the gate with unslackened speed. The horse was reined up
just in front of where I was sitting, and I saw that the visit was to me:

It is not often that one sees in India man and horse so well turned
out. The horse was an Australian, a " waler, " as we call them thfrt ■
big chestnut thoroughbred, with a coat like satin, and a headasfiaotf
a Nedjd Arab. He seemed to be used to standing with tfaeicni'oi

I

Chairs by tJie River. 1 1 1

B neck, for the rider dropped them as he pulled up, Kitting far bacic
Eln his saddle with his boots stuck out in front and his hands in the
' pockets of his short flax-cloth jacket, with a perfect sans g^ne which
in anyone else would have been considered to have a touch of swagger
in it. But it was impossible to look at Marston's burly figure, with its
grand chest and shoulders, or to listen to the frankly dominant tones
of his cheery voice, without accepting his manner as the outcome of
a thoroughly genial nature. The whole man was in harmony with
himself: the perfection of his semi-sporting costume (be had just
come from a meeting of stewards on the race-course), the silver gloss
of bit and stirrup -irons, the elaborate curl of his heavy brown
moustache— it was all part and parcel of a certain inborn compl.'iteness,
which expressed itself spontaneously in all his belongings.

"Captain Hillyar? O'Kelly told me to look out for you. Well,
you will have to make the best of it with us for a day or two. I hope
your journey has not been a very fatiguing one. You look very far
from well yet,"

There is a right divine in natural superiority which makes its
familiarity flattering. Just so a good-natured fifth-form fellow might
speak to a youngster fresh from home, confident that his conde-
scending notice cannot fail to be welcome. Marston's manner was
more than taking— it took possession of you, placed you under his
wing, and assured you that your weakness was in good hands.

t Strange to say, I felt only pleasure in his patronising interest.
L "A little done-up with the worry of getting from the station," I
laid. " I hoped to have got through straight."
' "A day or two's rest will do you no harm. You will be in heaps
pf time for the mail. But instead of coming down for you with a car-
kiage, I have only come with an apology. A friend has quartered a
couple of babies upon us for the night. We want you to come and
dine this evening, and then, to-morrow morning, you must come and
stay as long as the river will help us to keep you."
I Of course I said I was very much obliged.

"That's all right. My wife will pick you up in the tonga on her
jf from the band. And now I must be off. Come up, you red

He gave the horse a friendly tap on the shoulder with the toe of
s boot, without picking up the reins, and the beast was rmmd and
f like a shot. He could train his horses to do anything with next

o trouble, I have heard. Some men can,

112

The Gentleman's Magazine.

II.

It was hardly dusk when Mrs. Marston turned her pair of grey
Arab ponies into the compound. I had not expected her so early;
but by good luck I was ready.

From nothing but my couple of minutes' talk with Marston, I
had got an impression that his wife would be as perfect as the rest
of his appointments. A failure in that item would have infallibly
left on his manner and bearing some certain trace of non-success;
his assurance would not have been complete had it not rested upon
a conviction that his supreme triumph was in the central enterprise
of his life.

Was it, I wondered at the first glance I gave to the little equip-
age, by some humorous design of making the beautiful creature I
saw still more suggestive of a princess in a fairy tale, that her
husband had given her an ogre as an attendant ? The native groooi
who went to the horses' heads was certainly one of the most uncouth
specimens of humanity I ever chanced to behold. He was, I imagine^
an Afghan— short, squat, bow-legged, with an enormous chest, and a
head that might have belonged to a giant. His beetle-brows, nose,
and one eheek, were divided diagonally by a sword-cut that must
have sliced his skull like a pumpkin, to judge from the scar it had
left. The expression was not malign : the submissive good nature of
a brute that hardly knows its own strength, or the surly surrender of a
bear to its tamer — which is it ? I can never think of Mrs. Marston
without that grisly figure at her side.

She was only a girl, hardly one-and-twenty, I should think. Voj
beautiful, more so perhaps than any woman I had ever seen,ta
with a certain simplicity of grave girlishness in look and beariiifg
that struck me even more than her beauty. If she was shy, her
shyness did not take the form of embarrassment. She was perfectif
composed, and yet I do not think I ever knew anyone get thiou^
the necessary formalities of greeting with so small an expenditure of
words.

I hoped she had not left the band -stand earlier than usual oniBf
account.

" Harold told me when to come," she said as I took my place rt
her side.

She drove well, keeping her ponies up to their work, and str^
no nonsense. They had no blinkers and next to no h^
were spirited little beasts enough. When one ^

Chairs by the River. 113

bite his comrade's ear off, she admmistered correction with great
decision.

" Harold says that must be checked," she explained.

I was amused at her speaking of her husband by his Christian
name. It seemed to place me at once among their familiars. But
her manner was that of a person on duty, impersonally polite—no
more.

•* He told me you were coming to dinner," she said presently.
" Are you coming to stay afterwards ? "

I suppose she wanted to know, and took the shortest way to find
out It was direct, certainly.

" Colonel Marston was good enough to ask me to stay until I
can get on. It will not inconvenience ^'^/z, I hope."

"Oh, no!"

She spoke with a little surprise, and then smiled — by a second
thought, as it were. Her smile came doubtfully, as though in
sharing her amusement so far with a stranger she were going a
little beyond her limit I think she understood that her question
might not have seemed hospitable and wanted to efface the
impression, for she began to talk.

** You have come from the North-West, hav*n*t you ? "

"Yes, from Alikot"

" That is where they have had cholera so badly ? "

*' Yes ; I have been ill with it, and am going home on sick leave."

She said no more for a minute. I thought the subject was
dropped ; but no— the tone of her next question showed that she
had been considering me from the new point of view my words
supplied, and had decided that a certain relaxation of manner was
permissible.

" Is it very bad to have ? "

" Not so bad as to see other people have, perhaps. **

**No? That is our house, by the little mosque."

We drew up under the porch, which was already beautiful with
creepers, stephanotis, and the sweet, misnamed Indian honeysuckle,
and I followed her through large, cool rooms, exquisitely fresh and
fragrant, to the verandah on the other side. Then I saw that we
were on the high bank of a river, across which one looked over the
great plain, already grey and indistinct in the twilight.

Chairs had been placed outside on a carpet spread almost on the
^e of the sandy cliff, below which the river spread wide in flood.
* not pause in the verandah, but took me straight out, giving
"•nrant u the did sa

114 TJie Gentlematt s Magazine.

"Harold said you were to lie down in a long chair unt
came," she said, and I thought I could perceive in her ton<
satisfaction of a person who has found a clue to a puzzle. "
you were to drink a glass of sherry. They will bring it
moment."

There was something so simple in the literal way in whici:
acted up to her consigne that I felt, and I dare say looked, a
amused. It was like being taken in charge.

" He will not be long," she said deprccatingly, as I obedi
took the chair and the attitude imposed on me. It was forti
that I have no prejudice against a glass of slierry before dii
Like it or not, I imagine I should have had to drink it. Until
husband came, I was an invalid and under orders.

Then she sat down in a low chair nearly opposite, and see
I thought, a little at a loss. She had probably been told to ai
me until he came in, and did not quite know how it was to be c
I was inclined to help, but was curious to see how she ir
manage. So I acted up to my rdk of sick man, lay quiet,
sipped my sherry in silence.

By-and-by she began, rather shyly :

" Do you like India ? "

" That is rather a large question, Mrs. Marston. I must Io<
my answer a little. I like a long chair on an evening like this
well."

It was one of the evenings that only come in the first bres
the monsoon — perfectly still, the air heavy with the scent of w»
and teeming vegetation, and almost palpable in its luxu
oppressiveness. Below, the river slid along full from bank to 1
a broad band of weltering silver, with a strange, hushed whisp
solemn sound. The sky was clear, but far away beyond
darkening plain the faint flicker of distant lightning showed i
mittently what seemed pale phantoms of cloud. It was quite
now ; under the trees that shut us in right and left the gloom
gathered and spread, and seemed to be crawling out upon the
open space where we sat.

Perhaps I was still weak ; my voice showed it, I dare say, fo
went on :

"You must have been very ill. I am afraid you are
tired"

" Your husband is determined to make me an invalid, so I
resigned myself, you see. I had made up my mind that I was «
well again.''

Chairs by the River.

'5

"A great many people died, didn't they? Harold told me how
, it was there. I hope none of your friends ■— "
" Every one is like a friend in a small station, you know. The
knan I missed most I knew least of, perhaps. But how do^'ca like
idia, Mrs. Marston ? Is it like what you expected ? "
"Just at this moment~-not before."
I asked her to explain,
" I thought death would always be very near," she said quite
HBmpIj'. " People talk so much of snakes and things — and cholera
too. Like a book with pictures — ' The Dance of Death ' — I saw
once. And everybody has been so well and so gay since I came
But it must have seemed like that where you have been."
"Yes, rather, at one lime. Death is not a bad companion after
1, when you get used to him. There is another picture I dare
u have seen — ' Death as a Friend ' — where he comes just as the
sea and the night goes away. Perhaps some people make him
% welcome — as your husband is making me," I said, laughing,

was so neatly dark that I could hardly see more than her

^lite dress vaguely blurring the gloom. There is something

rangely impersonal in a lalk in the dark. One forgets the person

^ind the voice when hearing is not helped by sight. Mrs.

Marston had ceased to think of me in trying to realise the experience

I had gone through.

"That is awful," she said, as if to herself; "more awful than
being afraid. I think I could be brave about dying, if A* were with
Kie. But to wish to die and to be glad when death comes — are
Heople so unhappy as \!ct3X.—good people ? "

V^ "\Vhen the day has been a very long one, don't you think one
^bghtbegtad if evening came a little sooner than one expected?
^ke was not unhappy, I think, the friend who was in my mind when
Bespoke. He had carried a heavy load very bravely, and death
^Ked it olT his shoulders, and he could lie down and be at rest."
^r " Will you lell me? " she said very gently. " Not if it pains you,
^Du know."

^1 Che sard, sard. I felt I was doing an unwise thing ; and yet I
^H it. She wanted to hear a sad story, poor child, that her own
^B>iMness might taste the sweeter afterwards, perhaps ; perhaps the
^B gloom and silence of the gathering night made her thoughts
^Bd a fearful pleasure in hearing of death and sorrow. And I — the
^ng itself was so fresh in my memory, and yet my weary journey
^^pe the scene seem so remote. And then, explain it as you may,
^B '''t Bince that a compulsion was upon me.

ii6 The Gentleman's Magazine.

III.

" I WILL tell you if you like," I said.

" When I rejoined the regiment at Alikot last year, there
man a few years senior to myself who had been transferred t<
my absence. He was under a cloud. They said he had inisb<
in action in the Crimea ; but no one seemed to know what tl
story was. He was a very quiet, reserved fellow, with a tongu
could sting when he chose to use it, which he hardly ever di
man who might have been popular ; brains, good looks, ever
in his favour — only that old story against him. But that was ei
He was one of the best officers in the regiment ; but it was
discipline that made the men obey him, and only civility that
him tolerated at mess.

" I need not tell you the chance that made us house-mates,
lived under the same roof for four months, and I got to like hii
to believe that there was something wrong about the story, fi
not the man one could ask, you know. His manner kept o
pertinence ; but, perhaps, it kept off goodwill as well. But
curious about it, and I set myself to find out the facts. I h
largish acquaintance, and it wasn't difficult.

" It was in the June of 1855, just over fifteen years ago. H
then a lieutenant with his regiment in the Crimea. They ha
advanced trenches guard one night, and there was a sudden att
one of those sharp little brushes the Russians used to giv
fellows now and again, Fve heard, just to make their own youn
keen. No possible use, you know, but trying enough to our
nerves, coming in the dark and as sudden as an earthquake,
all over in five minutes ; and then it turned out that my frien
missing. They thought he had been made prisoner or someth
the sort for a moment, and then all at once he appeared. H
he had been sent by the officer in command with a message t
battery in rear of that part of the trenches. They were firing
from howitzers into the town, and these shells it seems ever
and then burst at the muzzle of the guns and made it very ui
fortable for the trenches they were firing over ; some men had
bit. This was quite true. I believe the fuses had been in stort
since the Peninsular War.

" As bad luck would have it, the officer who sent him had
killed. I don't suppose any one would have doubted the
the story, if he had not mentioned that another officer r

Chairs by the River.

l\^

dose by when the order was given. Indeed, he said there had been
a question which of the two should be sent. So, almost by chance,
this man was asked what had passed.

"He said he had heard nothing of the sort, in an oFT-hand way
enough at first, as if he did not choose to be mixed up in the matter;
but when he was pressed on the subject he asserted distinctly that
the order had «o/ been given. My friend had not reached the battery;
he had turned back on hearing musketry firing, he said.

" Well, there was a private inquiry, and the result was that the
Aing was hushed up, passed over without my friend being formally
ixoneraled. There had been a sort of rivalry between him and the
ther fellow ; but it was incredible that any man could be guilty of
i fabehood under such circumstances. The whole thing was in the
^iment, and the commanding officer was able to burke it. He
robably thought the young fellow's nerve had failed him, and wanted
|> give him another chance.

" In stories, you know, a man always retrieves himself by some

illiant bit of dare-devilry or another. I don't know if it really

s generally happen so; at any rate, in this case it didn't. The

Kir fellow was sent home sick almost directly ; indeed, I believe

e was too ill to have much voice in the matter of the inquiry, and

I don't believe he was under fire again to the day of hts death.

" Half a doaen years later, the two men met in the most unlucky

It was in Madras somewhere, and this time there was a lady

1 the business. She had come out in the same ship with him, and

ere had been talk of an engagement. As Satan himself would

e it, the other man turned up, fell in love with the lady, used the

d story unmercifully, married her, and nearly succeeded in driving

B unlucky rival out of the service. I believe he had lo withdraw

n the club ; but he was loo dogged lo fiinch, and he was certainly

X the same station with the couple when the lady died, not two years

after her marriage.

'■ That is what I learnt. Now for my own share in the business.
Choler,!, you know, sometimes strikes a man down like the blow of
a tiger's paw. He may be about and well at sunrise, and dead by
mid-day. My poor friend and I had our tea together at day-break ;
when I came in from ihe butts he was past speech, I asked to look
over his papers. I knew nothing of his affairs or his family ; but I
had been more with him than any one else.

"Il sounds strange when one thinks of the free-and-easy way men

raerally live together when ihey share a house ; but I had never

a in hU rooms till I was called in to see him die. They were

ii8 The Gentleman's Magazine.

as bare as they well could be: the barrack-furniture he had
for his outfit when he joined as an ensign, I dare say, poor feU
next to nothing else. I noticed one thing. On the white wall
close to where his face must have turned as he slept on the
pallet-bed, a cross was traced in charcoal. I did not know he
at all given that way, and so looked at it, I suppose. It wa;
accidental ; the lines were doubled, and cross lines scrawled to
the ends, so that there was a star at each point A damp sp
would have made an end of it in a moment, it was so faint. £
remembered the shape.

** There were next to no papers — nothing to tell us who ougl
be written to. Hardly a letter — bills docketed and notes a
regimental matters. But in the only box his servant said he
locked there was an envelope with a couple of letters in a L
handwriting ; and there was a long tress of chestnut hair. I d
like to read them, and took it all to the Colonel. But he said
might give us the information we wanted. So I took them out o
envelopes in his presence, and first just glanced at the signature

" The name was that of the man who had brought such ruin
my friend's life. They were from his wife.

'* She was a good woman, Mrs. Marston; what the letters toU
horrible enough, but her part was as clear as God's sunlight.

" I suppose her husband had met with some dangerous accic
She wrote in a kind of passion of supplication, entreating
friend to write one line of forgiveness to his poor dying enemy,
had confessed to her, she said; all he wanted was to make his
fession public, but there was no time. The doctor had told he
would not live to see the sun rise. As she wrote, he was lyin
white and as still as he would lie in a few hours in his coffin ;
then it would be too late, then he would be beyond the reach of
giveness. He could understand her still ; perhaps he would sdl
able to hear her read the message she knew the answer would •
tain. She knew it, because she had injured him too— it was
memory of that wrong that made her sure,

'' It was like a cry for mercy, written all in a breath, as it wer
her husband's bedside, I dare say. I can fancy his eyes folloi
her as she wrote— eyes with the terror of death looking out of tl

" The other letter was different. The handwriting was labou
as though every letter had cost her a struggle ; and the exptes
was quite cold and simple. She wrote, she said, with a feeling ol
deepest humiliation. At the first moment that it was safe tc '*'
she had reminded her husband of his promise. He ser"

Chairs by the River. 119

\ fiDigotten what had passed between them, and declared that he must
have been speaking in delirium. It was the duty, he said, of people
who nursed the sick not to pay attention to ravings which only
showed that the brain was off its balance. He had forbidden her to
lefer to the subject again. 'My own duty is clear to me,' she ended.
• You have my letter ; my testimony is ready when you call for it.'

'* Inside the paper which held the hair was traced feebly a cross
with stars at the points, like that on the wall. Perhaps they had
stood together on deck and watched the Southern Cross.

" The hair must have been cut off when hope of recovery was
gone There could have been no thought of how that thick, silken
strand would be missed. He had refused to strike his enemy through
her, and he went on carrying his burden of shame.
'*But she knew it, and she thanked him.

"The Colonel and I talked the thing over and sealed up the
letters. While we were waiting the result of the inquiries we had
made about my poor friend's relatives, came my own illness. After-

: wards we arranged that I should take them home and explain the
matter to his brother, who, it seems, is in rather an influential position,
and he can do as he pleases about it. But the other man has left the
service, his name is no longer in the Army List. So I don't see what

; can be done to him, even if the thing were capable of proof, which

I it isn't

\ '* But I think it was as a friend that death came to him, Mrs.

\ Haiston."

IV.

r

^ While I was telling my story, lights had been brought into the

\ verandah and the table laid for dinner. Servants were moving to
'' and fro, the hush and darkness in which I had begun were gone.
\ Mrs. Marston was silent for a minute when I stopped.
y " And did she — did she stay with him afterwards ? " she asked,

i- " Till she died, I believe. It was not more than a few months."

• "I can believe it all," she said, after a pause, " all but that

. To go on h'ving with any one guilty of baseness like that ! It seems
'. impossible."

K " You could not have done so, Mrs. Marston ? It was her duty,
^ I I suppose."

K "I don't think so," she said, with an energy of conviction which

artled me. '* Nothing in the world should have made me go on

•thinx the same air with such a wretch ! I would rather

120 Ttu Gentlematis Magazine,

Marston had come up quietly as she spoke, and was stao
close to her chair. He laughed with great enjoyment.

" Whom are you denouncing, Alice? I did not give youc
for half that amount of energy. And now, if you are comp
enough for the ceremony, perhaps you will permit me to intnx
Captain Hillyar. Hillyar, my wife pretends to be very shy
strangers, so I sent her to fetch you without any information, ei
that you were to be found at the travellers* bungalow — just to n
her learn to trust to her own resources. Has she been goin]
like this all the time ? You must be exhausted."

I had noticed that she never called me by my name.
looked up to him like a child, her face full of delight.

" Captain Hillyar made it very easy," she said. ** I didn't \
know what to do if he wouldn't drink the sherry."

" And whom were you vituperating in that way, if you pica
Hillyar, you must tell me how you managed to raise such a st
while I wash my hands."

I followed him into his dressing-room. It was exactly as if I
known them all my life.

" Well, what was it all about ? " he said, laughing, as he st(
bare-armed and -throated, and stooped to plunge his head into<
of those enormous copper vessels that serve in that part of In
as wash-hand basins. " The little woman was fairly under way
an oratorical display, when I came up and spoiled sport. I die
know she had it in her."

" We had been talking about the cholera, and I was telling 1
about the death of poor Morris, my house-mate. Did you ever m
him?"

Marston's head was pretty well under water as I spoke. 1
kept it there for half a minute, and had to clear the water from
eyes and moustache before he could answer.

" Morris ? Met him somewhere or other. What about hii
Yes, I heard he was dead."

" I dare say you may have heard the story that stood in his i
all through the service. I believe it was all^a lie, got up by an infer
scoundrel."

" Stories are always true," said Marston, indifferently. " Tb
is always something in them. That's my experience, at least Tb
was a good deal against Morris, I fancy. What was this one?*

I told him in half a dozen sentences, as he stood bmshii^l
hair before the glass, with his back towards me. He was i
practicalf common-sense person whose advice tvould

W Cliairs by the River. 1 2 1

B^d I felt, too, under a sort of obligation to disabuse him of &
firejudice nhich he shared with so many others of poor Morris's
ncquaintanccs. Not to have mentioned the names would have been
Bi»urd in this case. Marslon probably knew the circumstances, as
Hf did myself, and might possibly know what had become of
^■owcaster, the man whose name had disappeared from the Army List
^H " And so you are taking letters home?" he said when I stopped.
^B should like to see them."

^V "Old Forster and I sealed the packet," I said. "I have it, with
^Btes and so on, in my pocket-book."

^1 "Hardly a safe place to leave money in, that travellers'
^Bngalow," he said carelessly. " It hasn't a very good name."
^H I touched the breast-pocket of my coat.

^B " No ; three or four hundred rupees are a temptation, and servants
■KIways know what is in a portmanteau,"

K We went in ioul, rather) to dinner. It all comes back to me like
b picture — not as a scene in which I was an actor. The dark table,
^hat touched with points of shimmering light, where silver or crystal
^Hught the glow of the lamps which stood at a distance, each bril-
^Bntly illuminating the while napery below it, and attracting irresist-
^By the winged legions of nocturnal insects ; the depth of soft colour
^B the great crimson flowers that decked the black polished surface
^Bthe table, like ofTerings laid upon an altar to the night, within
^Kose boundaries we seemed to be intruders ; the tinted alabaster
^H Mrs. Marston's beautiful child-like face, luminous in the trans-
^bient gloom— I can ste it all ; but without the power of realising my
^Brn presence. It is incredible to me that I should have been there
^■thout some premonition of the future, and everything I can
^■member of what passed has to be detached by an effort from the
^Bowledge which came later.

^K The dinner was perfect in its unpretentious wcAez-c/i^, and admir-

^Wy served, despite the difficulties which the first rain never fails to

^Kcasion. Our talk was of that eflbrtlcss and superficial sort, into

^^Uch it is natural to fall when the thermometer is at 90. Mental

^^fertion at such a time is even more exhausting than bodily, and

^Knce is very apt to induce premature somnolence. Marston had

^K secret of that light, half aggressive word-play which makes

^Boinder inevitable. Recent sickness had left me little energy for

^BiversaCion, and Mrs. Marston seemed to be habitually silent; but I

cannot remember a single break in the succession of pleasant

nothings which went on as long as we sat at dmner. I have often

tried to recall the sequence of what was said among us, curious to

t 7?

The Gentleman s Magazine.

ilivovrr ill*- luoiiK-ni at which Mansion made up his mind to action,
• f»'! I li.iv*' iifvcT surcvodcd in determining ii

I ihiiik Mrs. Marslon would have likec. c:rec:Iv afier we sat
d'lwn, til p) iin with our interrupted cor.verNiii.^r- B-: he stopped
Ik I wiih a woiil.

" No. wo won't have a:'.y burr.ir.c 5-r;e::i, W^ -ir.: :o make
c'.ipMiii Hillx.ir torce: :ho ':vi.: ; r.:e he h-is ::~e ihri-zh."

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Chairs by i/ie River. 123

)ddly enough, as I thought afterwards, the first thing that
red to me after he was gone was a remark upon the appear-
ince of the groom who had accompanied her to the travellers'
lungalow.

" Colonel Maj^ton must have chosen him for his looks," I said,
' He quite doubles the value of those pretty little Arabs. They look
ike a pair of King Solomon's horses guarded by a Djinn. They are
lis especial charge, 1 suppose?"

" I think I am his especial charge," she said. " He is head man
n the stable, but he thinks he belongs to me. When Harold gave
ne the ponies for my very own, he told mc that he was given too.
3e quite believes it. His orders come through me. Harold will
lot say a word when I am there."

" That cut across his head must have been a heavy one."

"It was through that that Harold got him. He was escaping
rom a blood feud in his tribe, up on the frontier, and Harold found
lim, gashed like that, and sewed up the cut himself. He is rather
nad, I think, you know. He believes he is only safe as long as he
itays with us."

" He is a sturdy escort, Mrs. Marston."

" Yes," she said, with a little well-satisfied smile. " I hope he
may never have to strike anyone in my defence. He would strike
hard."

Then we t.-dked of other things— her riding, and the big game
ihe had seen her husband shoot. He seemed to have shared
^erything with her, taking her about with him, and giving her a
eal, practical part in all he did. She had carried his second gun,
nd had seen a charging tiger drop almost at her feet

" He says he feels safe with me behind him," she said, with
vident pride. " A native once got frightened and let off his second
un, and the bullet went through his shoulder and all but killed him.
lo, 1 never feel afraid Harold does not make mistakes,"

"We all do sometimes, Mrs. Marston," I could not help
aying.

" H.irold does not," she said, simply.

That is an instance of her tone in speaking of him.

1 should think that, as far as her own claims were concerned, it

vould be hard to find anyone of less assumption than Mrs. Marston ;

ml in speaking of him her manner took at once an air of assured

i.rriorily which I almost wonder th,it I did not feel amusing. She

: i( t.nly took off her own shoes, as it were, before mentally entering

. bat ahe expected others to do the same, and would

124 ^^ Gentlemafis Magazine.

have felt her religion outraged by a refusal. And I did not refuse.
I knew nothing of Marston, of course ; but £dth is terribly convin-
cing, and my voice fell involuntarily into the same reverential key as
her own.

To be believed in like that must have something terrible about it.
A man's life is but a flawed and seamy business at the best, and a
saint would feel like an escaped convict with the dread of detection
dodging him, in the presence of such absolute Daith. I wonder he
did not give it up and say, " Depart from me, for I am a sinful
man." Imagine the strain of living constantly up to an ideal self held
before you in the mirror of a stainless mind.

By-and-by he came back and sat down. I was to be driven
home in his buggy at half-past ten, and it was dose on that now. A
servant came up and said something to him in an undertone.

" Call him here," he said in Hindustani " Darya Khan sends
to say that old Stanby has gone lame again, Alice. Your ponies will
have to come out."

I protested. I felt that the walk would be pleasant, and said sa
It was not three-quarters of a mile.

" Well, we will hear what my wife's retainer says. I dare say it
is nothing : an excuse to come up and be scolded. There is no
keeping that fellow away."

The man came into the little circle of light. Grim, hideous,
shambling in gait, with something in his look I had not noticed
before — a look of abject fear. If he had been a dog he would have
been grovelling and whining. He stood silent, shifting from foot to
foot, and awaiting his orders from Mrs. Marston.

*' Speak to him, Alice," said Marston. '' Ask him what is the
matter."

Her Hindustani was very imperfect ; but she had received her
order, and she spoke without the least embarrassment. The man
knew hardly more of the language than she did. I translate their
conversation literally; it was, of course, limited to the simplest
words.

" Dar>a Khan ! "

" Sahib ! " (In a growl of abject humility.)

"What has happened to the horse?"

" Lame."

"When?"

'* I took him out of the stall ; then it appeared."

" Much ?"

" Does not put the foot to the ground."

Chairs by the River. 125

" Make ready my horses."
"Sahib!" (With a side-long look lo Marston.)
I inlerposed. I really meant lo walk, I said. Mrs. Marston
turned to her husband for instructions.

Marston told ihe man in an off-hand way that I did not want
the pony -carriage, and intended to walk. The creature hesitated,
looking from him to her with a sort of helpless terror. Marston
laughed.

"My authority is not enough for him without my wife's. Alice,
say in your best Hindustani, ' Do what the Sahib tells you to do.'"

She paused for an instant to construct her sentence. Then she
produced il, very seriously, of course, with the Uule stress on the last
word which the form of the language necessitates, so that what she
said really was :

" What the burra Sahib tells you to do, thai do."
" Your order has been given."

He looted low and disappeared in the night ; but as he went he
toked at me. It was so strange a look, that I glanced inquiringly
t my host.

Mrs. Marston had noticed it too.

" Did I say that right, Harold ? " she asked. " He looked at

1 Hillyar so oddly."
" Very nicely indeed. There was a gravity about it that impressed
1 Khan a good deal. I dare say he thought that you were much
ded at your order being set at nought, and holds poor Captain
Hillyar responsible for your highness's displeasure."

" I really should not wonder," she said. " He is very odd. But
I will try and learn to speak like other people."

I ihmk she waged constant war against the natural chill of her
Her farewell to me was quite cordial, poor child. She
»d up to wish me good-bye.

" I wish you would have had my ponies, Captain Hillyar. We
■ill send to fetch you lo-morrow quite early. Be sure you are
y to come directly,"

Marston wanted to walk back with me, but I would not let him.
I I turned, the two were sUnding together in the little circle of
jht, his hand on her shoulder.

V.

126 The Gentleman's Magazine.

Very dark it was, of course, under them; but there was no losing the
way. Fire-flies are not very common up there, but the heat following
the heavy rain had brought a few out, tiny flecks of green lire flashing
and vanishing in the blackness. Everything was very still ; the sound
of my own footfall was all I heard.

As I walked along I thought of the evening I had just passed
My mind had worn crape so long that happiness took me by surprise.
Life seemed a brighter thing than I had fancied it. Of course the
board was chequered, but after all there are only two pieces in the
whole thirty- two whose destiny it is always to move on black squares
I had come away with my memory full of pictures — scenes of sweet
domestic enjoyment, vignettes in which little details of the pleasant
past, which was so soon to be repeated, were reproduced with pho-
tographic minuteness. Years and years afterwards I chanced to pick
up an " Arabian Nights," and, in the scene between the good spirit
Maimoune and the accursed Djinn, I saw the grave loveliness rf
Mrs. Marston as she laid her fatal command on her brutish vassal

Suddenly I heard, close to me, not a footstep, but a deep-dnwn
breath. I turned, my left arm thrown up in instinctive defence.
The next instant it received a heavy blow, and I was pitched over
the embankment, on the edge of which I had been walking.

Something followed me headlong like a wild beast, and blundeicd
over me in the darkness. I was left the higher on the slope, and
regained the road before my assailant could grapple with me. Half
a dozen yards are not much of a start when one is handicapped wiih
a broken arm, but that instant saved my life." Isuppose I shouted lor
help ; all I can remember is the sound of horses' hoofs coming upat
a gallop, and the fear lest they should come right upon tne as I b?
in the road. I had half parried a second blow with my walking-stict
and was nearly stunned. I can vaguely recall the talk of my rescueis
as they helped me along to the travellers' bungalow, and then, clearly
enough, my arm being set by the doctor who was hastily fetched
The whole thing must have been over in twenty seconds. I had not
even been rol)bed.

Ry-and-hy 1 wns in bed with a splitting headache and my ana
in splints, trying to sleep, and only falling, over and over again, into
that miserable intermediate state in which dreams and realities
intertwine themselves in an endless maze of painful consciousne&
A dozen times over I was convinced that I was lying in a long chaiTi
telling some strange story to Mrs. Marston, some story in which hfl
husband bore a leading part. And then the chair changed ID t —
railway-carriage, under which I was lying cnishedi andManloiislafl

River. 127

ig at me with his hands on his wife's shoulder. Whenever I
d in my uneasy sleep, some variation of the same nightmarish
rision presented itself— always, the same actors and always the same
mnduding tableau.
^HF Waking up atler 3 night so passed is uncomfortable enough. I
^Hfe feverish and wretched as I watched the grey light of a rainy
^Hbning straggle through the Venetians. Prcsentiy my servant
^^mughi me a cup of tea. A sahib had come in the nignt, he said — a
friend of mine who wanted to see me. By-and-by he came in.
It was Holroyd, of the io4lh. He was returning from leave, and
d managed to get across the river somehow and come up on an
He was going on by the hne I had come by. But the
b was to wait for the mails, and did not start till the afternoon.
tMyhead ached hideously; but I was glad to see him all the same.
e he had heard of my adventure. There was nothing very
ii out of the way in it, and nothing for conjecture to build upon,
e scoundrel had thought a sahib might be worth knocking down
uuj looting, on spec. — and there was an end of it.

So wc dropped the subject aftera few minutes, and began talking
in our acquaintances and all that had happened since we met a
' i:ple of years before, as men do. Holroyd was rather amusing in
- comments. He was full of prejudices, and no respecter of per-
-% with insight into character enough to make his criticisms
--|ent. Me, personally, he had always treated with kindly com-
---«aioo, sa a poor thing not to be blamed too severely for natural
^luiioa of intellect : and in this character I came off so much
'•.Vx than most of his acquaintances, that gladly I accepted a
'uiprocnise not very flattering to my avsmir propre.

I was not in the least surprised to hear that he had the lowest
r^ible opinion of Marsion, who, I dare say, reciprocated it cordially.
T ■Toj'd was just the man to totally disregard Marston's assumption
' '.'Jpeiiority, and this must have fretted him like a hair-shirt.
" I bav'n't seen the fellow since the race-meeting at Bangalore in
-^ ~ be said. " I knew he was up here. Go and call ! Not if I
I-'.-* ii. So he's married again ! Well, what sort is she ? "
■ Quite a child. Very prcity and nice. I didn't know he had
;n married before."

" I dare say he doesn't exactly imist upon talking of her. They
: in^ hit it off. She was a good woman. There's a bad drop in that
^f. This won't turn out well, neither. Vou wait a bit and see."

"Well, they're very fond of one another now, at any rale. And
'-KeiQS a hospitable fellow enough. Come, you hav'n't seen him
-f ibe last ha]f*do»n yza.j%. You might be charitable, for once."

cc

128 The Gentleman s Magazine.

** Hoqnuble 1 As vain of his house as he is of his boots, that's
aboutallofit Neveratpeacedllhecanget some fool to tell him how
much better his horses are than other people's, and his dinners, and
his wife She carried a lot of vanity for him for a bit, just at first,
till she found him out, poor souL I wonder which of my friend
Howcaster's villainies it was that she came to know o£ He sailed
ufuommonly near the wind in his racing matters in those days. But
a woman would hardly understand that"

Howcaster I I thought you were talking of Marston here ! "
Same thing. Changed his name four or five years aga Got a
pot of money with the new one, I hear. I hope it may have made
him decently honest It's more than he was when I knew him."

" Do you mean to tell me that Marston's name was Howcaster
six years ago ? Did he marry in Madras ? "

** He did so," said Holroyd, indifferently. " Seems to interest you.
Lie down again. What is wrong now ? "

*' Holroyd," I said, ** for Heaven's sake, let's have no mistake.
Are you sure — absolutely certain ? This is the Devil's own business.
Who is that riding into the compound? Holroyd, for Heaven's
sake, don't let him come in here. My arm's broke, I can't defend
myself. Keep him out, in the name of God."

Holroyd stared for a moment ; then he said quite imperturbably :

"If you don't choose to see him, he won't come into this room ;
make your mind easy about that"

He went out upon the verandah. In another moment I heard
their voices.

Marston had recognised him, and some short greeting had passed
between them. Then I heard him speak to his groom as he
dismounted. Then —

" How is Hillyar ? " His voice was quite close, he was on the
steps of the verandah.

" Arm broken and knocked about the head Can't see you ;
asked me to say so."

" Some mistake," said the other, now on the verandah. " He
expects to see me. If you will be so good as to stand aside " (with
some asperity) " I will go in."

" Captain Hillyar asked me to tell you that he could «^/ see you,"
said Holroyd, doggedly. " I don't suppose you want to go in against
his wish."

" Be so good as to let me pass," said Marston. " My business
with him is connected with duty." (This with great hauteur.)

*< Now look here, Howcaster," said Holroyd^ coolly^ *' what is

Chairs by the River. 129

e good of making a row? If you like to bring the doctor, he may
e the responsibility of letting you interview Hillyar. That is his
kok-out. Till then, yon don't enter thai room."
Silence followed. Then I heard a hotse ridden away.

VI.

That day has left an impression of profound wretchedness on my
I came out of the panic of sudden terror in which I had
sealed to Holroyd for protection with a strange feeling of
morseful shame. The conviction under which I had spoken faded
, effaced by the memories of the evening. Marston had come
n the moment he heard of my accident with offers of help and
alily, and he had been turned away from my door. It sounds
, but I believe I cried in thinking of the little hospitable
rations Mrs. Marston had doubtless made for my reception,
if what she must feel when her husband lold her he had been
' hearing refused admission to my room. Bodily weakness
, us terribly conscious of the pathetic. In my suffering and
laustion, the question whether Marston had or had not planned
y murder seemed of small account ; and all I wished was that what
pliKd done could be recalled, that I could close my eyes and open
Bern again to see him standing at my bedside — guand mime,

I thanked Holroyd, of course ; and to this day the thought of him
Klious to me. He asked no questions when he saw that I did not
Blunteer an explanation. It was an X quantity added to the
n of figures Marston had on th? wrong side in the account he
It against him. He closed it finally that evening, and I have no
pubt gave full weight to that mysterious item when he summed-up
] struck the balance.

e doctor looked in in the course of the morning— a grave, sad,
mt man. There was more fever than the injuries accounted for,
aid, and he promised to call again early in the afternoon. I heard
ilroyd ask him if he had seen Colonel Marston. No, be had not
m that morning.

d so the day went on, wearily and painfully, as it does before

e begins to adapt oneself to new conditions. My thoughts had

n to flow back and busy themselves in arranging and weighing

tncc. A great indignation against Marston slowly took posses-

D of me— not on my own account; strange to say, my own injurieSi*

] for hardly anything in my anger. No, it was the shameleiH

130 The Gentlenuifis Magazine.

effrontery with which he had suffered his wife to build up die £sibric
of her happiness upon the foul morass of his life, to embark all that
she posseted in a ship whose rotted timbers only hung together by
paint and varnish. I considered what could be done to save her —
what poor Morris and the woman he had loved would have wished.
At last I made up my mind that I should be justified in destroying
the letters. I determined to voite to Colonel Marston and say that
I should do so, at the same time declining all further acquaintance
with him.

My resolution was taken too late. About three the doctor came
in. His depression seemed deepened into gloom. He examined
my injuries silently, and then asked the usual routine questions with
a strange abstracted manner.

I thought something was going wrong, and asked him point-blank
what was the matter.

" No," he said, '* no. There is fever, but that will pass, I. tnist
No, your arm is doing favourably."

He was hardly listening : his mind seemed to be preoccupied.
How it all comes back to me ! — the dull, grey light in the empty
room and the unceasing rush of rain on the roof.

All at once he said, as if with a sudden resolution :

" Captain Hillyar, you dined with Colonel Marston last night
Did you remark anything strange in his manner?"

I stared in surprise.

" Colonel Marston shot himself an hour ago," he went on, with-
out waiting for my reply. ** His wife is raving mad. Poor child !
Poor child 1 "

I have passed through Sultanpur since, but I have never had the
courage even to look from the window of the passing train at the
group of trees that shelters Marston's house, or at the cross that
marks the cemetery where he and his wife lie side by side. They
stand together in my memory as I saw them last, the light of love on
heir faces, and all around them a blackness of great night.

^31

THE FUTURE OF AFRICA.

••• T S civilisation a failure?" asks Truthful James, beset by a horrible
J. misgiving; "and is the Caucasian played out?" AVithout
yielding an unqualified assent to the latter half of this double-
barrelled query, we may — while emphatically negativing the first —
still admit the possibility of the fact suggested by it. History repeats
it8elf*-and that not once or twice only ; and if we compare our own
era with others which have preceded it, it may seem more than likely
that, in one sense at least, " the Caucasian is played out." Nations
and races have their rise, their period of dominance — overlordship
or hegemony, whichever we like to call it — and their decline. But
civilisation — ^which I take to mean that progress of the race which,
halting, blundering, frequently recoiling and returning on itself, has
yet been, on the whole, an onward and upward one — still goes on.
One race reaches its height, sinks, and falls, and, in its fall, hands on
the torch to another, whose day is only just beginning. Such — as a
•urvey of history shows — has been the general course of social
evolution, by which we mean the Divine education, through mistake
and failure, of that complex, enigmatic, helpless, and yet all-achieving
being we call Man.

Attention has often been drawn, sometimes in bitter cynicism,
flomedmes in deepest sadness and despair, to the unmistakable
analogies to be perceived between our own country during the latter
half of the present century, and the Roman Empire from the days
of Tiberius onward. It is foreign to our present purpose to follow
out in detail the various points of resemblance : the unwieldy extent
of dominion abroad, the social discontent at home — the crumbling
of old £uths and old ideals, the spread of intellectual knowledge,
and the weakening — real or seeming — of moral obligations — all these
have been dwelt upon again and again. I would only remark, in
passing, that while no doubt a great deal of what has been said on
"^he subject is true, it seems to me the outlook is by no means so
opeless as it has appeared to some among our noblest and best
aoqia llacDonald» I think it is» who has pointed out that the

132 The Gentlemati s Magazine.

progress of the world, apparently a circle, as it were, is really a
so that, when we seem to have come round again to the sam
we reached a thousand years ago, we are really above it. Ou
corresponds, alas I only too well to the age of Tiberius. Vet i
points it is better, if only in that we are ashamed of doing
which then no one felt to be wrong ; and'it is these pointj
represent the advance, the higher plane to which the spiral asc
brought us. So that, even granting — which we are by no
prepared to do — that the present age has exhausted all the p(
ties of Europe, we see that the world has not been left where
at the beginning of the Christian era ; it has advanced, and
the advance may seem trifling, God's Providence^ which
Eternity to work in, can afford to wait

Again, the decadence of the Roman Empire, hopeless
outlook may well have seemed to a St. Augustine or a Sidonl
not the decadence of the world. Out of that seething lb
cauldron — as Charles Kingsley puts it — of the wrecks of kingdo
the dross of nations, new states were even then springing into
and the Empire, already dead, lived again in their life. Ron
them their law and their civil institutions; she handed on t(
the religion which she had received, but in her decrepitude
not worthily assimilate ; she supplied them, in some cases,
language to be moulded into fresh shapes by their own youi
living thought.

The question suggests itself : Who is to carry out the ps
Where is the raw material to be found, out of which, moulded
stored-up experience, the civilisation of the future is to be si
Who is to work out in nobler, truer practice, the theories we I:
imperfectly acted up to? The great Oriental Empires ha^
their day, so have the Latin races ; the Teutons have seemingly
the zenith of their glory. Whether the Slavs are to come 1
European stage, to play out the last act of the drama which
with Alfred and Charlemagne, remains to be seen. Persor
think it very probable, though it is hard to say what they will
of it. America is, so far as regards its white population, m<
replica of old-world civilisations, more vigorous in its Teuton
so in its Latin elements. Whether the aboriginal stock dyii^
the Northern Continent, is equally so in the central and soi
seems at present an unsettled question.

Whether Japan and China — now, after centuries of sed
modifying their national characteristics by intercouise wit
western world — are destined to see any vigorous life of thi

The Future of Africa.

'33

jifficult to decide. It may be that the activity shown at present
t a reflex froin the stirring life of the West, and may turn out
e the last spasmodic struggle which precedes dissoluiioa Both
" I, socially and morally, elements of decay which have been
J lo societies in all ages. These evils are not, so to speak, crudi-
S incident to the raw-material stage of society, which will disappear
"i growth and culture^they are deeply-seated diseases, exceed-
y difficult to eradicate, and, unless eradicated, fatal. Bui this is a
1 on which I would sf>eak with extreme diffidence ; and it is,
r all, foreign to my main purpose, which is, to inquire whether
tre exist, at present, any races which can properly be termed raw-
I, and which stand in the same relation to Europe of the
sent, as the Alemanni and the Gauls, the Goths, Saxons, Jutes,
i Vandals did to Rome of the past.
t seems lo nie that we must look for an answer to this question
c much-discussed and hotly-debated Dark Continent. "What
B be made of Africa?" is a query which has often been put, with
rying connotation, according to the questioner's standpomt, by
Iglishmen, Germans, Belgians, capitalists and philanthropists —
■sionary and other. We think of Thomas Clarkson exhibiting his
I of West-Coast knives, "country cloth," and palm fibre
^keis, to the Czar Alexander, in order to prove that the African
S an intelligent and even rational being, perfectly capable of legiti-
me industry and commerce, and to induce the capitalist with money
C, to speculate in india-rubber and gum-copal rather than in
He of course— in deadly earnest, if ever man was — had the
dfare of the African for his chief consideration, but he was not
; appealing lo ihe pocket of the Guinea merchant ; and he
1 to demonstrate, with this object, that a great deal could be
e out of Africa. The same has been asserted, over and over again,
r English explorers, with practical suggestions for Manchester con-
tion, and German explorers with dreams of " Kolonialbesit-
ri," and by a Belgian Company which waves "a banner with a
e device," and has sounded its trumpet before it pretty loudly
r the last dozen years or so. And, all the same, there is a pre-
^iTuling impression that, as a whole, "Africa doesn't pay "—even
tenuous, much-tried, hard-working Cape Colony (which, after all,
! somehow scarcely realises lo be part of the Dark Continent),
1 Witwatersrand shares may be up in the market, and specula-
s making a biy thing of it out on the reefs.

at? 11.13 that awful mysterious land, girt about
»utidrjr, with its mighty lakes and mountains and

« it GtutUwuais Magazine.

bcocs of the earth seem to have the
tnartn^ Hsni fclI en ^e= : vidi its huge primaeval beasts, and

2£ £o some anknown prime of the

X >e:si s: jxsc isd strax^ely hidden from the sight of
r^f Tanx^ mi-^ i: •nrr;*^ a ^■iTtf for Manchester cottons, or a
jdl-^jna: u Jc=mci ^oisrs. or an oodet for the surplus pauper
TcciMinit re ZuT'jce • '^*'it was :: thus covered with darkness —
r:-;i^ vtoiiraiirr ±rzcr rcisce "o^^Jedze and contact — kept utterly
:-.;-^c mc ruas.'vs ir rr-.r"cc :? r^ movement of the world's his-
?.-rr ^ Scan: v.cni szt. cc xococz: of ixmate, indisputable, and

y,Trr:essciass. I sbccld prefer to apply (with a differ-

: : . :." :." - •=* = tbe West.
-^'' lis 5Ci.rc:c iTc-:*«rs lie scirae

ci vL ri: cr»-l;sei co? cxt." swd an African traveller not
3c ^^K^ ccm: ii?: ?j uc rrstfs:: »:-^b, *• bu: it will not be in my day

W* . rrv: ^sitber ^11 ru: rrj'^je take place for the sole behoof
ir^Qtf i: ^\f r>? »* rs ^tiircs who tx>w talk so loudly of developing
- evyicLrrsi: * ^ Fu: — n =iT Se a £incifjl notion — jret I be-
lx%v ;*m:. ■•S:c: :hi: div cjcksw a cinlisaaon such as the world
ivver >iw >r:Vr? — ^i j-%-_iJZ.:ci is nucLi above ours as ours is
sc\\:rcr :." :'jl: .*c :"*v; xrczjr. EzrTJre — will emerge from that wel-
tcr.r,i vhi,^ o: ri"^rcr:>-, irj± *h 'e :cll:wir^ to a certain extent in
vxir rvV^c^tCivs. rcyrx:s:r:: y^-i^s c: u-.cc^h: and conduct which we

Al". :r-i: 1 r.-^x' rvai :r. :>.e ^u'^>^:t h-is sug^rested to me, over and
vnvr apxir, :ha: .Vfr.v-a .: :> >> hcmc^er.cous, in spite of its diversity,
that I oanno: *ru: r^v-^*^ :: ^ a whole- is a country in process of
iv\n^u:;v^r- 0<\:\v:c^l y sreakir^, this would seem to be implied by
the char.jies uh.oh h-ivc taker, rlace ever, within the knowledge of
ixvf n: traveller? — c'.,;. the alicntuT-s in the level of Lake Tanganika.
The lyjvs o: ar.inul ar.d \5:-:c:ab".e lite seem, in part, to represent
an as;o which has elsewhere rai5>ev: away. From the ethnologist's
jx^int of view, a transiuor. sute :s ev^ualiy apparent. There is a
shiftmg and shaking going or. — an unsettling of boundaries and
mingling of races, which recalls the davs of the I'clkerusimdcrung in
Kuiupe.

The \*exed question of African ethnogra4)hy has not, I suppose,
been entirely settled ; but itseems pretty dear that, apart from socb

The Fiiiure of Africa. 135

Itinctly immigrant races as the Arabs and the Ethiopians of

lyssinia, there are three, if not four, distinct stocks. First, those

ho may be considered the aboriginal or prehistoric Africans, a

lishing race, whose remnants exist scattered up and down the

mtincnt, as Bushmen and Hottentots at the Cape, Wambatti in

B Aruhwimi forests, Akka on the Upper Nile, and so on. Perhaps

ley correspond to the dwarfish, cave-dweliing savages who seem to

We inhabited pre- Aryan Britain, and, indeed, all northern Europe ;

irtainly they seem in some points — as far as our knowledge goes —

I resemble them. They present a very low type of humanity, and

leir language — where they have kept their own, and not adopted

It of neighbouring tribes— is characterised by the famous " dicks,"

1 has caused some writers to doubt whether it ought to be classed

\ articulate speech at all.

Secondly, we have the Bantu family, stretching from Natal to
lice Victoria, and from Zanzibar to the Congo mouth, and cha-
icierised by a wonderful uniformity of speech. Mvilkr, and others
lowing him, enumerate a Negro race as distinct from the Bantu,
mprising the tribes on the Niger and the West Coast. Certainly
dr languages present curious and radical divergences from those of
e Bantu nations,' and there are other marked differences which we
il touch on later ; but the physical characteristics appear to shade
r from one to another in a very perplexing way, in the district
iween the Oil rivers and the Congo estuary ; and it is not easy lo
[jlw exact racial distinctions.

I Thirdly, there is the Hamitic race — a type so different from the

::eding that it would seem, at first sight (in spite of the familiar

Kiations of the name), to be distinctly un-African. But the

^mites are, so far as known, the aborigines of that part of Africa

Juch ihey inhabit They include the Berbers, Tuarges, and Kabyles,

pm whose ancestors Dido bought the site of Carthage, the ancient

■ptjans, and their descendants the modern Copts ; as well as the

:i and Galias, with the allied tribes in the district of the Upper

:, and the " Unknown Horn " to the east.

I Midler reckons as a distinct group the " Nuba-Fulah " race, in-

iing the Nubians of the East, and the Fellaias of the West. This

kssification, however, is merely an uncertain and provisional one ;

d it may be that the tribes thus bracketed together are not really

' The reluiionship to each other of the langiuiges in this group ia by no means
ved, and in some cases exceedingly doubllul. The appellalion ij, as Dr. Cusl
Mike, ■ convenient heading for unclassilicJ languages, which cannot be proved
,0 any kaown family.

136 The Gentlematis Magazine.

related. On the whole, this group, lighter in colour and more
marked in feature, presents a higher type of humanity than the black
races, properly so called.

The American Indians are, in all probability, a d>nng race.
Their development attained its highest point in the civilisations of
Mexico and Peru — civilisations which were already beginning to decay
before the incoming of the Conquistadores. The brown races of the
Pacific islands — whatever their origin — seem also to be decaying
Has Africa any racial vitality, or is she in like case ?

Now, it seems to me that the racial vitality of Africa is simply
enormous ; that from the earliest ages the impenetrable contiDem
has been, so to speak, a reservoir for the storage of force.

The strong vitality of the black race — I use the more compre-
hensive term here for convenience' sake — has survived sufferings
which would long ago have swept a declining people off the face of
the earth. The rock-tablets of Philas recount the number of negroa
slain or made slaves of by Amenophis III. The Mohammedan
conquest of North Africa inaugurated the slave raids carried 00
in our own day by Mlozi and Salim Ben Mohammed. In 1440
Antonio Gonsalez brought home (from Rio del Oro) the first Guinei
slaves ever seen in Portugal, while a hundred years later, in 1563,
Sir John Hawkins laid the foundations of that trade which Claik-
son, Wilberforce, Buxton, and Sharp gave the best years of thdr
lives to abolish. On a larger scale, even, was the Spanish and
Portuguese traffic to. the New World, which Las O^as, in Ui
anxiety to spare the native Caribs, unwittingly initiated. In 1651,
Jan Van Riebeck, landing at the Cape of Good Hope, foonded
the colony which, in "commandoes" and Kaffir wars, has con-
tributed its quota to the " harrying of Afric."

Add to all this the intestine wars and slave-driving forays iriiick
have been carried on by the natives among themselves since the
memory of man ; the almost universal burial " customs " and odtfr
ceremonial human sacrifices, which reach their height in the
despotisms of Dahomi and Mwata Yamvo's kingdom ; the equdf
widespread belief in witchcraft, which demands a life for every deitk
taking place from natural causes ; and the havoc wrought by diseiffi
and liquor introduced from abroad ; and the wonder is — not that the
coast tribes have deteriorated — not that whole districts, onceflonrisk-
ing, are now depopulated ^but that Africa has any population at aL

The Caribs of the West Indies have been all but exterminated iP
less than the 400 years which have elapsed since the diaooftij''
those blands. Many North American tribes have utteriyj

Tks Future of Africa. 137

within even a shorler period. The island of Tasmania has been
entirely cleared of its native population in less ihan a century ; and
the aborigines of the Australian colonies — whose centenary we only
celebrated last year— seem to be dying out more or less rapidly.

As it is, the state of affairs in Africa reminds one of Charles
Kingsley's words concerning the old Norse Vikings : " The loss of
life, and that of the most gallant of the young, in those days, must
have been enormous. If the vitality of the race had not been even
more enormous, they must have destroyed each other, as the Red
Indians have done, off the face of the earth."

It is ihe great Bantu race which, spreading over the whole central
portion of the continent, and showing, amid its diversity, such
remarkable uniformity of speech and other characteristics, seems to
represent the most characteristic aspect of Africa. The distinction
between it and the negro race is one somewhat difficult to draw —
it may, indeed, be non. existent;' for, though the difference between
a Zulu, or a small -featured, almond-eyed inhabitant of the Lunda
uplands, as described by Livingstone, and the typical Guinea-coast
negro, is so marked— the tribes of the lower Congo are difficult to
distinguish from those of the Niger delta, though the former speak
Bantu dialects, while the latter do not. But practically and broadly,
the difference amounts to this : the Bantu is a primitive race, the
Negio a dfgradiJ one.'

Taking the highlands of South-Eastern Africa as the head-
quarters, perhaps the starting, point, of the Bantu race, we may find
in the Zulus and Matabele its highest average type. We see a pastoral
people, roving the country with their flocks and herds, and living in

' Were it pennusible to slail 3. Iheoiy, I might suggest thai the negroes aie
really drgeoeratc Bantus, enslaved by clans of the Nuba-Fula (or EthUipic) race,
wbose language lliey bave pail iatly adopted. ThU would account for the languages
(whose nlalioDship has yet 10 be dclermtaed) dllTeting totally in type from the
Bantu. The reigning familiei of the great despotisms appear lo be usually of a
lighter colour and higher tfpe of fealuie [haa the hnlk of ihe natives ; and Speke
seenu lo have looked upon it as certain that Ihe kingsof Uganda originally cntne
Trom Abyssinia. As for the Nuba-Fula people lhcinselves(Allanlid^in aomecUssi.
ficalions) they are a puzzle. They may be scattered fr^ments of the great Hamillc
rac«, ihe most progressive part of which attained its culminating point in ancient
EfnT'- l*"' '''* whole question of Aftlcnn cthnographj is a complicaled one.

' I most acknowledge my indebtedness for this idea to Ihe Rev. 1). Clement
Scoll, ot Ihe Blsntyre Mission, Nyassaland, who suggested it in the course of an
nticme!y interesling conversation, in February 1SS7, in which he cooiraited ihe
Jy negative religious consciousness of the " primitive " Manganja and Vi
the " degraded " religion of positive idolaters, as ihe Hindoos and Pat '

138 The Gentleman s Magazine.

a more or less military organisation, under powerful chiefs. They
only till the ground intermittently, and when this is done it is the
task of the women. When sufficiently powerful they live, to a great
extent, by forays on their weaker neighbours — ^like the Welsh and
Highlanders of a former day. They practise polyganiy — when tbcy
can afford it, and buy their wives like cattle — but, in a rude sort of
way, the tie is recognised and respected. And frequently, especially
in districts where living is hard, and her aid is valuable — as among the
poor Manganja of Lake Nyassa, who between Angoni raiders and
Arab slavers can scarcely call their souls their own — the wife is treated
with some amount of consideration. Mr. Scott describes a Man-
ganja and his wife hoeing yams together in their garden-patch, he
taking his fair share of the work, and only proud of the fiact that,
being stronger, he can get to the end of his row more quickly than
she. She is not a person lightly to be disregarded, as Mr. Scott
found out on one occasion. He had been in treaty with a man
who was to accompany the mission-party as carrier, and the latter
had already consented, when his wife, who had not been consulted,
marched up to him, and clapped him on the shoulder. " You are
not to go and carry the white man's things. You are to come with
me ; I want you at home. Do you hear ? " And the obedient
husband turned and went

The Bantu's ideas of the Unseen are vague and formless. He has
no worship, properly so-called— his use of charms to avert the cvfl
influence of malevolent nature-spirits and the ghosts of the dead can
hardly be included in the term. His religious consciousness is, 00
the whole, negative. It is curious to observe how idolatry appeals
more and more distinctly as we cross the continent from east to
west, and at the same time the system of charms or fetishes (nJttsk'
grign\ or mondd) becomes more and more elaborately developed
Cameron figures small idols very roughly kneaded out of day, and
placed under little roofs outside the villages. These, I think, b^in to
occur in the region west of the Lualaba. Further west, they become
larger ; their attributes are more distinctly recognised. In the
region of the Congo cataracts, Johnston found idols typifying the pro-
ductive powers of nature. Passing to the West Coast proper, ne
find, in the Niger delta, Dahome, a kind of mythology, with a
regular system of idol-worship, unspeakably loathsome and degraded
in character, and combined with human sacrifices.

In like manner, in the department of morals, near Lake Nyasa^

we have, at worst, the primitive animal ; in Dahome, deliberate devitj

' sought out of them that have pleasure therein." Some of tUilv

been anHbalcd to European influence— it may be so, especially on the
^eooil ; but 1 should be inclined to suspect that those strange, un-
^^wlesome, blood-stained despotisms of the West Coast have some-
^■bg to do with it, at any rate as a fostering influence. What is
^Hb«n of Uganda rather bears out this idea. However, be the
^^hn what they may, such is the fact ; there is no need to say any

^^ Id liice manner, it seems to me that there is a distinction to be
drawn in the matter of cruelty. Reckless of human life primitive
ran is everywhere, and tolerably callous to the sufferings of others.

I His notions of what constitutes a fair fight are of considerable
Ittade, and. knowing no higher law than self-preservation, he feels no
fepunction in knocking witches and other objectionable persons on
k head at the earliest opportunity. But there is a. difference
■twecn this and the fiendish delight in blood and torture for their
n soke, which marks, say, a Domitian or a Mwata Yamvo. And
mt K precisely the difference between Banlu and Negro.
Cannibalism cannot be treated as an isolated fact, but it is by no
meana universal ll does not seem to extend farther to the soulh-
osiihan the Manyema country, between Tanganika and the Upper
'-ongo, or Lualaba. The Zulus have a tradition of a man-eater — a
monstrous being who lived in a cave, and was scarcely regarded as
numn — proving that the;', at any rate, look on the practice with

Taking the mass of the African continent, and the Bantu race as
. shoie, 1 do not know that the latter — allowing for differences of
ifmpcrament arising from climatic and other causes, which need not
aecettarily be inferiorities— are very much worse savages than our
Voneand Saxon forefathers. UIn^iligaza wasted the land of the
c (ar and wide, when his Matabele "slew till their hands were

y of the spear "—but he probably did not cause more destruction

■ Guitorm. the Dane. The chiefs of the Langa-Langa, on the
H Congo, drink palm-wine out of the skulls of their dead enemies.

\, the Lombard, treated the skull of Kunimund, King of the

, in a similar fashion ; and, moreover, be made Queen

jnd, the dead man's daughter, drink out of it likewise, and so

K by his death, as whoso will may read in his Gibbon. King

■ Bwyki, the stalwart chief of Iboko, used to drink his twelve

IS or so of massanga in the course of a day — but what of Norse

■ uid Saxon tliant-s, when the horns of ale and mead went round?
ps»r DOthing of the Reverend Thangbrand, sometime missionary

I, who ou^t to have known better, being a cleric.

140 The Gentlematis Magazine.

But, it may be said, while the Zulus, or any other African race
you like to name, may have plenty of savage traits in conunoo with
the old Teutons, whence we sprang — is there any touch of the hermsm,
the poetry, the aspiration, which made these latter something more than
mere savages? I think there is. One hears a story now and then
that stirs the blood like an old Norse saga. Not very long ago, two
Englishmen went shooting into Lobengula*s country. He allowed
them to go, on condition that they would confine themselves to
hunting and not search for gold, and provided them with an escort
of two hundred men, who were strictly charged to prevent them from
*' prospecting.** The Englishmen, however, entered the gold-bearing
country in spite of them. Lobengula heard of the matter, and
immediately had the Englishmen escorted in safety beyond his
frontier, but sent for the Matabele, and told them that, as they had
disobeyed their chiefs orders, they must die. And the two hundred
stood up, in line, and were speared, one by one, dying without a
word.

Or take another instance, which comes, not from the works of
Mr. Rider Haggard, but from Moffat's ^ Labours and Scenes of
Missionary Life in South Africa " — where, so far from being intro-
duced for the sake of effect, it is related with a decided air of
disapprobation, as a particularly shocking occurrence— the story of
Umziligaza*s Induna, who, found guilty of some crime, was told that
his death -sentence would be commuted, for the white man's sake,
to one of exile and perpetual disgrace. He would not accept the
offer. " O king, afflict not my heart — I have merited thy displeasure.
Let me be slain like the warrior ! . . . No, I cannot live. Let me
die, O Pezulu 1 " And then, never flinching, " he was led forth, a
man walking on each side. My eye followed him till he reached the
top of a precipice, over which he was precipitated into the deep pool
of the river beneath, where the crocodiles, accustomed to such meals,
were yawning to devour him ere he could reach the bottom."

Umziligaza himself, the resistless warrior, the stem ruler of his
people, with his iron justice and open-handed generosity, and the
great tender heart, which felt the white man's nobleness and clave to
him instinctively— is a Homeric figure — one that would have glad-
dened the soul of a saga-man of old time. So, no doubt, but more
grimly terrible, were T'Chaka and Mpanda ; so also, but gentler and
more truly and loftily heroic, is Khama of Shoshong.

It is no part of my intention to follow out the parallel in detail

I merely suggest a comparison. Nor do I wish to imply identity of
character and circumstance ; history is apt to repeat itself but each

The Future of Africa, 1 4 1

time with a difference. The differences in this case need not be
insisted on ; they are many and obvious, as might be expected in a
nee which is to furnish an entirely new type of development.

Of the three divisions of the Old World, two have already con-
tributed their quota to human progress. Asia developed thought,
Europe work — what is left for Africa ?

Taking Asia as the brain, and Europe as the hand, will it be
thought fanciful if we look upon Africa as the heart of humanity ?

The East (with which Greece under one aspect may be included)

is tlie home of science, philosophy, contemplative mysticism. In

;V the West, we have the Greeks with their ideal of citizenship and the

^ commonweal — the Romans, with their ideal of law, order, and the

gtrong hand of the ruler ; and modern Europe, with its development

: of commerce and industry. We of the West — Europe with England

. at its head — have had to learn, and, so far as in us lies, to teach to

. die world, the lesson of fair- play and justice— theTgreat, stern, inex-

*!' orable law of righteousness. Poorly and blunderingly enough we

have fulfilled our task — yet who shall say we have not done it at

an?

But after justice comes love — after the law comes the Gospel.
V» The head must govern the heart while the heart is wayward and
^"untrained, but once turned in the right direction, it becomes a law
,^'*iinto itself, and a surer guide than the understanding. It is so with
^the individual — perfect, all-embracing, all-enduring love is the last
^Wld hardest lesson of life. " Add to brotherly kindness !(rce '* — love
'in its highest and widest sense. Even in our national life we are
jnning to know a little of this — to be swayed by sentiments and
liderations which wduld have seemed mere foolishness to Caesar
Pericles. We know what it is to be Christians— in the fullest
in our private and personal relations ; we have a Christian
of citizenship, and can point to many — and yet, alas ! too few
•who have fulfilled it ; we are even beginning to grasp the idea
a State may be Christian in its relations to another State. Yet
knows but the race crushed and oppressed for so many ages by
and others — despised by us still — may be the one chosen to live

It this ideal ? >

' This idea had often occurred to me before I found that it— or something
fe it — had been expressed by Miss Martineau, in The Hour and the Man,
^Mpt it is originally due, in my case, to a sentence of Mrs. Beecher Stowc*s —
Uk itmck me fordblyt X cannot tell how long ago, but certainly before I was

jmn old — tnd of which I can now only recall the words, *' God has chosen

Y Afiries ia tlM fimi^^
voi* CXLXn L

142 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

Our civilisation has not done all that might be expected of it —
nay, there is much in it (whether inherent or accidental I will not
stop to inquire) which is positively antagonistic to the highest good
Wliy is it that Gordon — a mythically heroic figure against the
background of Khartoum— would seem, amid ordinary English sur-
roundings, somewhat unreal and uncanny to the average English
mind ? WTiy is one struck with a sense of incongruity in trying to
imagine a white — or at any rate an English — Khama ? Surely — if
we know that what is good therein will survive and be the seed of
yet higher good— it cannot be matter for regret, even though this
boasted civilisation of ours should perish — or rather be tried by the
fire which only destroys in it that which is worthy of destructioa

It seems to me that most of the general assertions which have
been made about the African character have started from mistaken
assumptions. There is, on the one hand, the so-called "Exeter
Hall " theory, which assumed that the negro differed in no essential
point from an uneducated Englishman, and that when you had
taught him to read and write (after, of course, persuading him to
wear clothes — which usually did not fit him), you had put the key of
knowledge into his hands and might safely leave him to his own
devices. On the other hand, we find it stated that he belongs to a
radically and unchangeably inferior race, and that his only destiny is
to serve his betters, because he is imitative, like all children, and,
like the Celts and Teutons in their child-like stage; because his
nature is largely emotional, and he has a dog-like capacity for hero-
worship ; because, though he feels injuries deeply at the time, he
easily forgives them (considering the fierce vindictiveness of some
acknowledged savages, some of them of very low type, one would
think this trait was susceptible of a double interpretation) ; because
Hayti and Liberia have been miserable failures, and because, since
Africa has been known to our august selves, we have perceived no
great improvement in the natives thereof.

Granting the truth of this latter clause — which, as I shall try to
show presently, 1 am not altogether disposed to do — does it not
savour of what some one has called " Macaulayan cocksureness," to
assert that thus it must be for all time, and that the race has no pos-
sibilities of development for the future ? Who knows how long the
Germans had pastured their flocks in the clearings of the Hercynian
Forest, before Caesar made their acquaintance through the medium of
Ariovistus and his host ? It has been contended that the African's
essential inferiority is proved by his physical structure- I am not
qualified to enter into the anthropological side of the question ; but

( 6f Africa. 143

«Qiili] onlynocc Ihat many peculiarities which we consider objection-
alAf ire ihc result of climatic and other unravourable conditions, or
of hihhs inddcnial lo ihe savage state, and would disappear with
imjitovcd ways of living ; also, that the race, Ijke tlie country, may
Ik in process of formation, and that wc cannot foresee the type that
iiD uiijaiaicly prevail.

Tbt tlic African nice ia not at present fitted lo be a ruling race
< inaat be questioned ; neither were the hordes of Cimbd and
rpflom who poured down on Italy in the time of Marius and Sulla.
Whtllier they ever will be is another matter : personally, I think not,
iibja ruling race is meant one conquering others and upholding its
rfl»et by force. The Teutons having once learnt of Rome sufficient
M iho* them their own sirengih and her weakness, overran and
i-:fl(|uen;d her kingdoms. Whether ,\frican barbarians will over-
nnand conquer the kingdoms of modern Europe, time will show.
1 Jin disjKJsed— but this, again, may be laughed at as mere fancy —
inLSink not ; and that herein will be that difference which is always
runifewed in ihc re[>eiilion of history. The reign of physic.il force
Lwlrudy drawing to a close. Perhaps it may be reserved for them
ii) inaugurate the era of moral force.

That Kayti and Liberia sliould be failures both laughable and

iiiiitntable, need not surprise anyone who will examine the matter

' i;t(uliy. 'i'heir order of de\*elopment has been forced and

inilicial. The whole organisation of society and government is a

'rude imitation of what in Europe has been the natural outgrowth

(.frJaraclcr and surroundings in the course of cenluries, and is as

pctesqueasthe appearance of the average negro in average dre^s

The imitative spirit is not necessarily iho outcome of a

Fndal type — though it may belong lo a low stage of develop-

It may be the result of the honest admiration and reverence

by a rude and primitive race for a more advanced one. The

IS imitated the Greeks, as the Germans of later ages imitated

French : in both cases the mere imitation had a disastrous effect,

the stimulating influence of what was best in the foreign

itions was a lasting benefit. In the cases we are considering,

imitation is entirely irrational and misdirected. The forms have

transplanted ^of the spirit and purpose of tlie institutions little

or nothing is understood. Little wonder that the Libcrian and

Hiyttan constitutions " will not march."

^^H Ko African is suited for town-life, as we understand it, and town-

^^■ii Ihe great characteristic of Eurojiean civilisation, so ihat the

^^Bnpu wc have seen at reproducing the latter involve a violent

-f • ■•• W'»

. . a. »* t

/ W — • ---» •

> _ . *•. ,

M mm- . %

\
\

«- -:

■ ■ ■ ■

. - -. J *....'*. .L. . " t.H

■■ ■ ■ * ■■*-» a \' •

.• . .. -..■• ft. .>«^ « ^ "'V. fc

■ - I a

... • - ' ' . . ..r.L. \t.>

• m

- - - . . . V ^ ■ ' « .■..» cr-

, .. ■ ...1..,,

».■.•■' , '■■ • ■ !■-•■ .-•■■.— .-■-■■ ■■ T " ■ -'ri I r I ' ' .*' f • • ;- .."i ■ j'-iil 1 r, • ir

. . . .

Liat L..W a .2_i.. -■..'. k..j.._... ' - ^ 1. •.! i.'.o ..■- •....« >, « »ll.r.'>. in

' Garcn^-anzc^ pji. 173, 174.

» /^/^. pj). 16, 22, 23. ^^ce also -'/«-■.'/ a.' .//>.■'.■ J : Lcshtj I: cr Ait^^r^ I:^ by
the Rev. J. Mncl.tnzic.

b(Ss be denied. But surely this state of tilings may— in pari at
i traced lo Ihe mistake alluded to above, and the temper
h originates it — a certain business -like, unimaginative, peculiarly
1 habil of mind— which need not prevent a man from being
txccllcnl cili/en, a fervent Christian, or even, among his own set, an
ftjutnl and sjiihtual prcarhcr — bul which is utterly unable to enter
irkings of an un-English mind. It is a suggestive fact that
kc grtatest and mosi successful of British missionaries have been
th, dowered with ihal ptr/irvidum I'ngenium,' that spark of Celtic
d imagination, which the canniest of Lowlandeis carries hidden
put him somewhere. Be that as it may, recent missions, profiting
le blundere of their predecessors, appear to have considerably
Rifled their tactics in this respect. The Blantyre Mission on
t Hyasaa h carried on entirely in accordance with Livingstone's
Ptom the report of a Baptist missionary in an entirely
I qoailer— the Lower Congo— I late the following, which
ir itself 1
■i*!ter nf imporlongc li»a Itcqine promiatnt . . . the t|iicslion of dress.
TdrongBy that hc muti be very careFuI not Tn denaiiiinaUse our native
... It it a rjucslion concerning wliich there are many opinions out
. Pmorully I hnpe thni oui converts will be Chiislian KonRos, and not
> to cilace their nalion>liiy, lest theylhereliy lose iheir iniluence over

t efforts lo civilise Africa, religious or secular, have hitherto
d lo comparatively little. The most considerable attempt to do
cale lias been the Egyptian occupation of the Equatorial
1, of which we have just witnessed—apparently^lhe disas-
Whatcvcr may have been the motives of the Egyptian
JOTemment— nnd the late Khedive was probably weli-intenlioned
—there are few parts of ihe world on which so much disin-
hcroism and sheer hard work have been expended lo so
le ptirpose. Baker, (.'.ordon, Emin, one after another strove to put
'b atiardiy and bring Cosmos oul of Chaos, and all has gone for
I, and the noblest of the tliree has perished in the attempt. All
B before, only, seemingly, more hojieless still. One could almost
k that no good could come from the efforts of so accursed and
d-slained a thing as the Khedivial government — so corrupt in its
a of the worst points of East and West, that the individual good

' ■ tl majr b« mpntiuneil thai lliU v.a.s wiiUci
^ of the Sl-iKcIi— ixmneil in Ugggo last an'
■ Una fton Rev. W. llolman Benlley. i

befuie Mr. Stanley'! cclcbtaled
imn— hud seen Ihe light.
1 BapHu Misiiana-y Htrald tot

146 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

*

intentions of its head, and the nobleness of the instniments he secured
to work out those intentions, were powerless to redeem it Can it
be that all the rotten fabric of Turkish power, touched up with French
varnish, must be swept away before the rush of Omar Saleh's hosts,
fighting, in their own wild way, in the name of God, of purity and
righteousness— just as it was necessary, once before, that the so-called
Christian Alexandria should go down before the hosts of another
Omar ! We can only say, in all reverence — God knows.*

Taking a wide survey of the field of history, and realising the
helplessness of man, individual or collective, before the dread might
of the Divinity that shapes our ends, we sometimes feel inclined to
despair, to sit down with folded hands and say : '' Allah Akbar ! —
we are nothing. We cannot alter the course of the world. Why
should we make any effort at all ? " Yet not to this are we called. We
may, in utter unconsciousness and even against our will, be made
to work out the design of the Highest ; we may also, while knowing
it but in part, or scarcely at all, work it out consciously and gladly.
We do not know the course in which history will shape itself; we
do know, in a simple, practical way, the things which make for the
kingdom of God By doing those things, we may set our stitches
aright, though we cannot tell — unless, looking at what is already
finished, one may now and then dimly guess — what the pattern of
the tapestry is to be.

A. WERNER.

* I have not entered on the question of the influence of Islam in Africa. The
subject would require a separate paper to itself. But I cannot help thinking, with
Canon Taylor and others, that, cruel as is the suffering involved, the Mohammedan
conquest is (for part of Africa, at least) a necessary step in evolution— a PmpctraHo
Evattgeluaj if one likes to put it so. The easy, sunny, tropical nature needs to feel
the terrors of the law, to pass through a course of discipline akin to the austerity
of Judaism, before it can rise to the height of the Gospel. This consideration
suggests another cause for the unsatisfactoriness of negro Christians. So many
of them are practically Antinomians.

147

AMONG ROOKS.

]., T) RIGHT moonshine as I throw up my window, but the moon is
J3 abready sinking in the west The sky looks grey, with that
ij. peculiar yellow tinge that seems to prelude the snow. But by the
time I have reached the yard gate a pink glow comes over the sky,
die stars disappear, and eastward the sun bursts in red. At any rate,
there is ^ fine golden thread outlining the horizon, which spreads till
it reaches the sea line, and by that time all nature is awake. The
wbite hoar frost that covers the ground sparkles and twinkles in the
Hght ; the longer tufts of meadow-grass lose their frosting ; the fir
IStees gain in colouring. Farther afield the plough-land is grey, rather
than black ; but the fairy-like branches of the elm-trees outline hard
ibid leafless. Our mud flats, thinly coated with water with the
incoming tide, are already astir with seagulls, flecked here and there
with grey heron.

Striking away far into the country, a change comes over the
scene ; broad daylight gains rapidly — man and beast are afleld.
'\ In wet open ditches pools of frozen water are as yet unthawed by
.sunshine ; but in more favoured places birds are astir, splashing or
drinking. Curls of grey smoke wreath from the cottages ; work-
tramp by with baskets shouldered.
On the common the yellow furze is already in blossom. Sud-
denly a golden ball appears above the horizon ; its beams widen,
and presently the whole country is coloured. No longer dull yellow-
grey, the tints are exquisite. The moon, pallid and ashamed, sinks
^ below the horizon.
CI Horses are still feeding in the fields on wisps of hay put down
')r them: the hard high road rings like iron under one's feet.
U)oks float lazily by, one by one, barely skimming the ground ; their
ests in the trees, far away by Charbro Towers, looking in the dis-
»ncc like thatch. Why is it, by-the-by, that rooks always prefer
mpany, and are most often found feeding among cattle, sheep,
n animals ? Over the nea^lv.trimmed hedgerows they come with
vaded wiogi^ ''^^ rising

148

The Gentlematis Magazine,

quickly again. Walking about with stately tread, hopping sharply
with tail raised ; getting up at the least sound, or running swiftlj
forward.

Now that ploughs and harrows are frozen in the fields, the rooks
find life a hard matter ; and the turnip and swede pits are tlwir
favourite feeding places ; likewise the stubble fields, where sheep are
penned with the lambs, for many a hollowed tempting root is heie
ready to their hand. However hard blows the wind, however frozen the
plough-land, rooks always seem to know where to find a meal. They
have long since studied science, and always fly facing the wind, as
if their long feathers acted as a sail — when ruffled, retarded tbdr
progress.

Everywhere the hedgerows are lined with sparrows, the rick-yaids
filled with starlings. At various points along the road tall trees vt
sentinelled by rooks. By twos and threes they keep watch and ward
over the immense feeding flocks, outstretching their necks and
expanding their ragged wings to give a cautious " kraw " in case of
invasion. Has anyone ever timed rooks ? It would give wf
curious results. As nearly as I can judge from rough calculatioii,
they must fly about a mile in five minutes. From the rapid flapping
of their wings, this could probably be exceeded ; they seem to haie
immense powers of volition even in wind. In Dorsetshire at this
time of year (I speak of the month of February) all our flocks of
inland rooks are accompanied by gulls : at eight miles from the sd
I suppose this is not unusual. Much smaller birds — larks— abo
patronise the neighbourhood of the rookeries, and apparently accoo-
pany the larger birds in their search after food. May they possibif
feed on the lice with which the rooks swarm ? — far larger insecB
these than the partridge parasite. It is a pretty sight to start a iiock
of rooks and watch them getting under weigh ; the white unda"
surface of the larks glittering like silver above them.

Scaring rooks from fields in old days must have been pibti
work : boys then earned u. a week, and thought themselves «d
paid. This has now reached better things, and 2s, 6d, isthestf
total. Gramnivorous as they are, rooks do good as well as harft
Daniel, who was nothing if not original, gives the following redpeiv
scare rooks : " Take i quart of train oil, i quart of turpentine^ |^l U
of gunpowder ; boil together, and dip pieces of rag in it, fix on stkbl ^^
in the fields : the proportion requisite is four sticks for an actt' '
wonder how many rooks have been scared by this wonderful pic|W^
tion ? Curious as it is, these birds never live in the trees thcf ^B ^^
in, and fly sometimes six miles from the one to the other. Ii>^f ^

henticated cases in the Dorsetshire area of rooks c
» their nests.

Alrendjr, as I futlow ihe rooks' flight, I come nearer and nearer
ir building -place, and lake out my glasses eagerly and follow all
mo^-ements. Sad to say, as yet this year no alterations are
ent. But the birds are visiting and looking over [heir nests,
1 haurd the c;uess that, by the first week in March, they will be
busy repairing them. Here is the site of our best rookery, or
DC best known to fame, as I jotted it down in my common-
•book:

flit old brick wall hounds the enclosure, lichen-coaled, green-
mossed ; the lodge gateway is wreathed with red pynis japonica.
Snowdrops cover the ground on either hand as you approach the site
; a thick undergrowth of wood screens all near approach.
trees are the veritable habitat in which the majority of nests are
by twos and threes, in the topmost boughs, where the main-
support is no bigger than a fishing-rod. These, probably,
fte nests of the improvident younger couples, whose eggs would
TOjr likely be sent below by the first stiff gale of wind.

The few old birds now in the nests ate calling to each other

budly at intervals, as if seeking for a consultation on the nests to be

iwcupied. Some of these must be an immense age, yearly re-

piittd ; some accumulating by the efforts of the younger members

of the establishment Rooks live to he very old ; wiseacres say they

iiuin a hundred years. Individual birds have been recognised for

king periods by, say, a lost toe, a twisted beak. Their life history

fiM yet to be written in its entirety. That they are cautious birds

jots without saying, and immensely cjuick of hearing ; a stick

.ing under their nightly roosting-place will cause them to gel up

cloud. Perhaps when nesting they lose some of their apprehen-

like the wood-pigeon ; probably the hen bird when sitting can't

people beneath. The fact remains that, through frequenting

in habitations in the shape of isolated country dwellings, the

his an instinctive dislike of the human eyc(espionage?).

arc weather and hour glasses to all people who live near

flying high when rain is coming, and calling a good deal to one

They observe the same feeding hours, leaving simultane-

flocks, thereby distinguishing themselves from the crows, who

\nuther distinct feature is of course the bill, feathered

ihe crow, and rook of first year ; thereafter, the bare

I— Kurvy, if we may call it — below the bill, marks the

[ Rooks 1

150 The Gentleman s Magazine.

rook. There is no doubt that, in their hunt for food, they do a good
deal of damage, and in boring for grubs uproot young grain and
turnip. The starling is equally a defaulter, and lately I have found
a number of young plants so injured by his biU as to be practically
hors de combat for the ensuing spring.

Two to three ounces of barley have been removed from a rook's
crop : given a flock of 100 rooks feeding five days a week only, for
about three weeks, the net loss must be very large.

About May the young birds begin to fly, battles over nests and
food are well over ; rook shooting begins, says the Almanac — to my
mind a horrid sight I believe the old fashion was to shoot them
with crossbow and pellet, which pnctice survived for many years in
Norfolk. Crossbows, by-the-by {yide British Museum), were first
used in die chase in the days of the Conqueror, and not used in war
till the time of Richard the First

" Missiles, quarrells, arwes," says a very old book, " were used
largely for rook shooting. A battle royal between herons and rooks
was once witnessed by me ; the ground was strewn with feathers and
with wounded birds, and the fight lasted three days, in which eventually
the rooks came off victorious." If the rooks' nests are pulled out,
or the trees cut down, the birds in a body forsake and abjure the
neighbourhood.

In former times rookeries were recognised as part of manorial
tenures ; many old Elizabethan houses had nesting places attached
thereto. They were sup{X)sed to keep down slugs and snails and
undoubtedly "fine** the meadow grass. The aristocratic look a
rookery gives is acknowledged, by many a query in the sporting
papers, as to the best way of cultivating their friendship. A man may
build a mansion, but he cannot purchase a rookery. Rude and artificial
attempts have been made occasionally to introduce nests in likely
places ; possibly stray birds may come across and fancy them. I
have never yet traced such an event

Hopping awkwardly from branch to branch, with a big mouthful
of grass, retiring to rest on full crop, it is difficult as you look at
him to recognise what a quaint fellow is the rook. Conservative to
a degree, he drives off all intruders from neighbouring nesting places,
as zealously as a hive of bees under similar circumstances ; and he
marries and intermarries among all his relatives and friends, till *' every
other fellow you meet is a cousin."

Isolated from towns by bricks and mortar, no doubt country
rookeries are increasing. Fifty years ago Dr. Hamilton describes the
Kensington rookery as extending from the Broad Walk near the

Among Rooks. 151

P^dace to the commencement of the Serpentine ; at that time, probably ,
somewhere near 100 nests. "Since then nearly every tree that
sheltered a rook has been cut down/' says a writer to a daily
paper. Then there was the Temple Rookery, beloved of Gold-
smith ; that disappeared.too in 1825. Another rookery well known
was that of Carlton House Gardens. Others existed for many years,
in Gower Street, Hereford Square, Whitehall, and Bermondsey
Churchyard.

In 181 5 rooks built on the back of the dragon, on the vane of
Bow Church, Cheapside. In 1783 rooks were nesting at Newcastle^
; on the spire of the Exchange, though nests and contents were
whirled about by every change of wind.

A writer to a London paper at this time last year, names
Knightsbiidge (Hyde Park), Marylebone Road, and Holland Park
as also delighting him with their flocks of rooks, in the days, we
may say, of the dandies. One such, he says, still lingers on — beloved
of Londoners — in Stanhope Place, Hyde Park.

• ..•....

But to enjoy rooks to the utmost you must quit London scenes ;
must leave behind you the homes and haunts of men. Acres of
grass land need to be left behind, till you gain the soft spongy
pastures, the woods filled with bird life, the brooks with water-
, cress. With a blue sky overhead " blameless of grey cloud," an
\ elastic turf under foot, a clamour of birds around you ; then, and only
r then, can you fully appreciate the chosen haunts of the rook.
r Having traversed veritable "green-arbour lanes" filled with
r bright moss and arum, you will see the willow putting forth grey
f tufts, the elder tasselled with olive green. When slanting rays of sun-
light throw shadows on the " grey river " and all London is filling
ipidly, with the season just upon you, come out in the country and
an old republic whose constitution has not changed within the
memory of man ; which yet meets in noisy (very noisy) conclave, to
arrange the day's business in committee. Come out into the country
!f and hear the rooks 1

fe DISCIPULUS.

152 The Gentleman s Magazine.

THE DOOK-JVAR OF CHURCH

AND DISSENT.

IN the struggle between Orthodoxy and Freethought, between the
dogmas, that is, of the strongest sect and the speculations of
individuals, it has been shown how freely fire was resorted to for the
purpose of burning out unpopular opinions. These indeed were
often of so fantastic a nature that no fire was really needed to insure
their extinction ; whilst of others it may be said that, as their existence
was originally independent of actual expression, so the punishment
inflicted on their utterance could prove no barrier to their propaga-
tion.

But besides the war that was waged in the domain of theology
proper, between opinions claiming to be sound and opinions claiming
to be true, a contest no less fierce centred for long round the very
organisation of the Church ; and between the Establishment and
Dissent that hostile condition of thrust and pan*}*, which has since
become chronic and is so detrimental to the cause professed by both
alike, is no less visible in the field of literature than in that of our
general histor)\ Associated with the literary side of this great and
bitter conflict, a side only too much ignored in the discreet popular
histories of the English Church, are the names of Delaune, Defoe,
Tindal, on the aggressive side, of Sacheverell and Drake on the defen-
sive ; each party during the heat of battle giving vent to sentiments
so oflensive to the other as to make it seem that fire alone could
atone for the injury or remove the sting.

And the first book to mention in connection with this struggle is
Delaune's " Plea for the Nonconformists," a book round which hangs
a melancholy tale, and which is entitled to a niche in the library of
Fame for other reasons than the mere fact of its having been burnt
before the Royal Exchange in 1683. The story shows the sacerdotal-
ism of the Church of England at its very worst, and helps to explain
the civil heritage of hatred which, in the hearts of the nonconforming
sects, has since descended and still clings to her.

The Book-War of Church and Dissent. 153

Dr. Calamy, one of the king's chaplains, had preached and printed
a sermon, called " Scrupulous Conscience," challenging to, or advo-
cating, the friendly discussion of points of difference between the
Church and the Nonconformists. Delaune, who kept a grammar
school, was weak enough to take him at his word, and so wrote his Plea,
a book of wondrous learning, and to this day one of the best to read
concerning the origin and growth of the various rites of the Church.
Thereupon he was whisked off to herd with the commonest felons in
Newgate, whence he wrote repeatedly to Dr. Calamy, to beg him, as
the cause of his unjust arrest, to procure his release. Delaune
disclaimed all malignity against the English Church or any member
of it, and with grim humour entreated to be convinced of his errors
" by something more like dignity than Newgate." But the Church
has not always dealt in more convincing divinity, and accordingly the
cowardly ecclesiastic held his peace and left his victim to suffer.

It is difficult even now to tell the rest of Delaune's story with
patience. He was indicted for intending to disturb the peace of
the kingdom, to bring the king into the greatest hatred and contempt,
and for printing and publishing, by force of arms, a scandalous libel
against the king and the prayer-book. Of course it was extravagantly
absurd, but these indictments were the legal forms under which the
luckless Dissenters experienced sufferings that were to them the
sternest realities. Delaune was, in consequence, fined a sum he
could not possibly pay ; his books (for he also wrote " The Image of
the Beast," wherein he showed, in three parallel columns, the far
greater resemblance of the Catholic rites to those of Pagan Rome
j than to those of the New Testament) were condemned to be
1 burnt ; and his judges, humane enough to let him off the pillory, in
consideration of his education, sent him back to Newgate notwith-
standing it. There, in that noisome atmosphere and in that foul
company, he was obliged to shelter his wife and two small children ;
i and there, afker fifteen months, he died, having first seen all he loved
% on earth pine and die before him. And he was only one of 8,000
i|' other Protestant Dissenters who died in prison during the merry,
f miserable reign of Charles II. I Of a truth Dissent has something to
! forgive the Church ; for iK^rsccution in Protestant England was very
I much the same as in Catholic France, with, if possible, less justifi-
\ cation.

The main argument of Delaune's book was that the Church of

England agreed more in its rites and doctrines with the Church of

"^lome, and both Churches with Pagan or pre-Christian Rome, than

ither did with the primitive Church or the wolrd of the Gospel— a

154 ^^^ Gentleman's Magazine.

thesis that has long since become generally accepted; but his main
offence consisted in sajring that the Lord's Prayer ought in one sentence
to have been translated precisely as it now has been in the Revised
Version, and in contending that the frequent repetition of the prayer in
church was contrary to the express command of Scripture. On these
and other points Delaune's book was never answered — for the reason,
I believe, that it never could be. After the Act of Toleration (1689) it
was often reprinted ; the eighth and last time in 1706, when the High
Church movement to persecute Dissent had assumed dangerous
strength, with an excellent preface by Defoe, and concluding with
the letters to Dr. Calamy, written by Delaune from Newgate. Defoe
well points out that the great artifice of Delaune's time was to make
the persecution of Dissent appear necessary, by representing it as
dangerous to the State as well as the Church.

No one, of course, fought for the cause of Dissent with greater
energy or greater personal loss than Defoe himsel£ It brought him
to ruin, and one of his books to the hangman.

It would seem that his "Shortest Way with the Dissenters"
(1702), which ironically advocated their extermination, was in answer
to a sermon preached at Oxford by Sacheverell in June of the same
year, called " The Political Union," wherein he alluded to a party
against whom all friends of the Anglican Church "ought to hangout
the bloody flag and banner of defiance." Defoe's pamphlet so
exactly accorded with the sentiments of the High Church party
against the Dissenters, that the extent of their applause at first was
only equalled by that of their fury when the true author and his
object came to be known. Parliament ordered the work to be burnt
by the hangman, and Defoe was soon aften^-ards sentenced to a
ruinous fine and imprisonment, and to three days' punishment in the
pillory. It was on this occasion that he wrote his famous " Hymn
to the Pillory," which he distributed among the spectators, and from
which (as it is somewhat long) I quote a few of the more striking

Imes : Hail, Ilicroglyphick State machine,

Contrived to punish fancy in ;
Men that are men in thee can feel no pain,
And all thy insignificants disdain.

. . • • • a

Here by the errors of the town

The fools look out and knaves look on.

• •••..

Actions receive their tincture from the times,
And, as they change, are virtues made or crimes.

Thou art the State-trap of the Law,
But neither can keep knaves nor honest men in awe.

The Book' War of Church and Dissent. 1 5 5

Thou art no shame to Truth and Honesty,

Nor b the character of such defaced by thee.

Who suffer by oppression's injury.

Shame, like the exhalations of the Sub,

Falls back where first the motion was begun,

And they who for no crime shall on thy brows appear,

Bear less reproach than they who placed them there.

The State-trap of the Law, however, long survived the hymn to it
by the author of " Robinson Crusoe," and was unworthily employed
against many another great Englishman before its abolition. That
event was delayed till the first year of Queen Victoria's reign ; the House
of Lords^ of course, defending it, as it has every other instrument of
tyranny, when the Commons in 18 15 passed a Bill for its abolition.

s _

About the same time Parliament ordered to be burnt by the
hangman a pamphlet against the Test, which one John Humphrey,
an aged Nonconformist minister, had written and circulated among
the Members of Parliament.* There seems to be no record of the
pamphlet's name ; and I only guess it may be a work entitled ** A
Draught for a National Church accommodation, whereby the sub-
jects of North and South Britain, however different in their judgments
concerning Episcopacy and Presbytery, may yet be united " (1709).
For, to suggest union or compromise or reconciliation between parties
is generally to court persecution from both.

A book thatwas very famous in its day, on the opposite side to Defoe,

was Doctor Drake's " Memorial of the Church of England," published

anonymously in 1 705. The Tory author was indignant that the House

of Lords should have rejected the Bill against Occasional Conformity,

. which would have made it impossible for Dissenters to hold any

office by conforming to the Test Act ; he complained of the knavish

pains of the Dissenters to divide Churchmen into High and Low ;

"- and he declared that the present prospect of the Church was " very

*• melancholy,"and that of the government "notmuchmore comfortable."

* Ix>ng habit has rendered us callous to the melancholy state of the

Church, and the discomfort of governments ; but in Queen Anne's

time the croakers' favourite cry was a serious offence. The queen's

speech, therefore, of October 27, 1705, expressed strong resentment

at this representation of the Church in danger ; both Houses, by con-

^siderable majorities, voted the Church to be " in a most safe and

flourishing condition " ; and a royal proclamation censured both the

^book and its unknown author, a few months after it had been pre-

snted by the Grand Jury of the City, and publicly burnt by the

angman. It was more rationally and effectually dealt with in

> Wilion*t /^'

156 The Gentleman s Magazine.

Defoe's " High Church Legion, or the Memorial examined " ; but
one is sometimes tempted to wish that the cry of the Church in danger
might be as summarily disposed of as it was in the reign of Queen
Anne, when to vote its safety was deemed sufficient to insure it.

Drake's misfortunes as a writer were as conspicuous as his abilities.
Two years before the Memorial was burnt, his " Historia Anglo-
Scotica," purporting to give an impartial history of the events that
occurred between England and Scotland from William the Conqueror
to Queen Elizabeth, was burnt at Edinburgh (June 30, 1 703). It was
dedicated to Sir Edward Seymour, one of the Queen's Commission-
ers for the Union, and a High Churchman ; and as it also expressed
the hope that the Union would aflford the Scotch " as ample a field
to love and admire the generosity of the English as they had there-
tofore to dread their valour," it was clearly not calculated to please the
Scotch. They accordingly burned it for its many reflections on the
sovereignty and independence of their crown and nation. As the
Memorial was also burnt at Dublin, Drake enjoys the distinction of
having contributed a book to be burnt to each of the three kingdoms.
He would perhaps have done better to have stuck to medicine ; and
indeed the number of books written by doctors, that have brought
their authors into trouble, is a remarkable fact in the history of
literature.

Next to 1 )rake's Memorial, and closely akin to it in argument,
come the two famous sermons of Dr. Sacheverell, the friend of
Addison, sermons which made a greater stir in the reign of Queen
Anne than any sermons have ever since made, or seem ever likely to
make again. They were preached in August and November 1709,
the first at Derby, called " The Communication of Sin," and the
other at St. Paul's. The latter, " In Perils among False Brethren,"
is very vigorous, even to read, and it is easy to understand the com-
ni{)ti(jn it caused. The False Brethren are the Dissenters and
Republicans ; Sacheverell is as indignant with those "upstart novel-
ists" who presume "to evacuate the grand sanction of the Gospel,
llic clcrnily of hell torments," as with those false brethren who " will
nnouncc their rrccd and read the Decalogue backward . . . fall
down and w()rshii)thc very Devil himself for the riches and honour of
this world." In his advocacy of non-resistance he was thought to
hit at the (ilorious Revolution itself. " The grand security of our
government and the very pillar upon which it stands is founded upon
the steady belief of the subject's obligation to an absolute and uncon-
ditional obedience to the supreme power in all things lawful, and the
utter illegality of any resistance upon any pretence whatsoever."

I'hen came the great trial in the House of Lords, and Sachevereirs

f-tPay of Church and Dissen/. 157

l able defence, often attributed to his friend Alterbury. This
pch, which Boyer calls " studied, artful, and pathetic," deeply
^ed the fair sex, and even drew tears from some of the tender-
Red; but a certain lady to whom, before he preached the sermon,
lievcrcU had explained the allusions in it to William 111., the
', and Lord Godolphin, was so astonished at the audacity of
■pobhc recantation that she suddenly cried out, "The greatest
1 under the sun ! " But for this little fact one might think
IwvcicU was unfairly treated. At the end of it all, however, he
■ only snspended from preaching for three years, and his sermons
demncd to be burnt before the Koyal Exchange in presence of
k lard Mayor and sheriffs ; a sentence so much more lenient than
St seemed probable, that bonfires and illuminations in London
Ji Westminster attested the general delight. At the instance, too.
■ Sachc^'crell's friends, certam other books were burnt two days
; his own, by order of the House of Commons: so that the
fi Church jtariy had not altogether the worst of the battle. The
IS so burnt were the following ; i. "The Rights of the Christian
Cfiurch asserted against the Romish and all other priests." By M.
TindaL 2. "A Defence of the Rights of the Christian Church."
J "A loiter from a Country Attorney to a Country Parson concerning
■lie Rights of the Church." 4. 1-.C Clerc's extract and judgment of
■f Mmc. 5. John C!endon's "Tractatus Philosopliico-Theologicus
'.<: I'erson:! " : a book that dealt with the subject of the Trinity.

BojXT gives a curious description of Sacheverell : " A man of
■ '_-c and strong make and good symmetry of parts ; of a livid com-
lAwn and audacious look, without sprightliness ; the result and
. liicaiion of an envious, ill-natured, proud, sullen, and ambitious
; .ni " — clearly not the portrait of a friend. Lord Campbell thought
f St. Faul's sermon contemptible, and General Stanhope, in the
.. bale, called it nonsensical and incoherent. It seems to me the

■ .r^' rc^'ct^e, even if we abstract it from its stupendous effect.
-j.i:hcircrcll, no doubt, was a more than usually narrow-minded priest,

1^ in judging of the preacher we must think also of the look and
■^ voice and the gestures, and these probably fully made up, as they
Bhoften do, fur anything false or illogical in the sermon itself.
^' At all events Sacheverell won for himself a place in English
: i-Jory. That he should have brought the House of J>ords into

■ jnflict with tlie pretensions of the Church, causing it to condemn to
:he flames lugeiher with his own sermons the famous Oxford decree of
ift83,whkh asserted themost absolute daimsof monarchy, condemned
l«enty-»ei-en propositions as impious and seditious, and most of them

rw- ccucix. MO. 1916. M

ifS Th£ Gemilemans MagcLzine.

IS bsrsbcal 2=c \iasic£Drjcs^ and condemned the works of nineteen
•riiirs 10 ±e '^■I'ni^v wccLd alooe entitle his name to remembrance.^
S»: rj^irsei i^^ided were the Commons that they also condemned to
fce ':.::rr: ±e t-tt - CrCe^^Dss of passages referred to by Dr. Sach-
i:i :'-* Ar-srer :d :he .^rdcles of his Impeachment.'*

Er: Piriiizjer^ was is a bximxcg mood ; for Sacheverell's friends,

"Lz^ \-j f=5Cirr his ciy of the Church in danger, which he had
xsci^ef 13 ra herKacal vxxis lately printed, easily succeeded in
rr3c~nz :ie bcrru^g of Txndal's and Clendon's books, before
nesrcoed N:r can anyone who reads that immortal work, " The
R:^3 cf ihe Oiriatian Church, asserted against the Romish and all
ccber rriests who claim as independent power over it," wonder at their
50 iirrii*: the Hc^ise. how>e^"er much he may wonder at their succeeding.

The irs eduoc cf "The Rights of the Christian Church " ap-
reiTi-i :- r-co, rublished anonvmouslv, but written by the celebrated
>f i::h=w "! ir.dil. thar. whom -\I1 Souls College has never had a more
disciszuiahec FcII:w. nor produced a more brilliant writer. In those
dirsL wher. the question that most azitated men's minds was whether
the F relish Church was of Divine Right, and so independent of the
c:\-I power, or whether it was the creature ofi and therefore subject
to, the Liw, RO work mens convincingly proved the latter than this
work cf TindaU a work which even now ought to be far more
ger.cT:Ll-y kuowr. :han i: :>* no less for its great historical learning than
for its scathir. J dcr.ur.ciat:or.s o\ prlesicrafL

As the su'x rdirjition of the Church to the State is now a principle
cf general arci: tir.ce, there is less need to gi\-e a summary of
Tir.d j1*> ar^uu^iCr.ts. than to quote some of the passages which led the
writer to j redict, when composing it, that he was writing a book that
would drive the clergy- mad. The promoting the independent power
of the clerj\* has, he savs. " done more mischief to human societies
than all the gross superstitions of the heathen, who were nowhere
ever so sti:}id as to entertain such a monstrous contradiction as two
independent powers in the same society ; and, consequently, their
priests were not caivable of doing so much mischief to the Common-
wealth .:s some since have been.' The fact, that in heathen times
greater d::Terences in religion never gave rise to such desolating feuds
as had always rent Christendom, proves " that the best religion has
had the misfortune to have the worst priests." **'Tis an amazing
thing to consider that, though Christ and His Apostles inculcated

» Sec Somer's Tracts (174S), III., 223, and the Entire Confuiation of Mr,
Ilcadltfs Bcok^ for the decree itself, and the authors condemned. After the Rye
House Plot, Oxford addressed Charles II. as *' the breath of our nostrils, the
anointed of the Lord ** ; Cambridge called him ** the Darling of Heaven I "

The Book' War of Church and'^Disienf. '1^9

so much as universal charity, and enjoined their disciples to
treat, not only one another, notwithstanding their differences, but even
Jews and Genules, with al! the kindness imaginable, yet that their
pretended successors shouid make it their business to teach such
doctrines as destroy all love and friendship among people of different
persuasions ; and that with so good success that never did mortals
hate, abhor, and damn one another more heartily, or are readier to do
one anoibermo re mischief, than the different sects of Christians." "If
in the Bme of that wise heathen Animianus Marcellinus, the Christians
bore such hatred to one another that, as he complains, no beasts
were such deadly enemies to men as the more savage Christians were
geoerally to one another, what would he, if now alive, say of them?"
&C. "The custom of sacrificing men among the heathens was owing
to their priests, especially the Druids. . . . And the sacrificing of
"^ ' " IS upon account of their religious tenets (for which millions
IVC suffered) was introduced for no other reason than that the
', who took upon them to be the sole judges of religion, might,
without control, impose what selfish doctrines they pleased." Of the
High Church clergy he wittily observes : " Some say that their lives
mifht serve for a very good rule, if men would act quite contrary to
for then there is no Christian virtue which they could fail of

H mif ni Si
^^Tbc pul

If Tindal wished to madden the clergy, he certainly succeeded, for
pulpits raged and thundered against his book. But the only
srrmon to which he responded was Dr. Wotton's printed Visitation ser-
mon preached before the Bishop of Lincoln ; and his " Defence of the
Righlsof the Christian Church" (55 pages) was burnt in company with
the larger work. It contained the " Letter from a Country Attorney to
a Country Parson concerning the Rights of the Church," and the
philosopher Lc Clerc's appreciative reference to Tindal's work in his
" Btblioth^ue Choisie."

Ne^-enheless, Queen Anne gave Tindal a present of ^5°° ^°^ '''^
book, and told him that she believed he had banished Popery beyond
a jwssibility of its return. Tindal himself, it should be said, had
become a Roman Catholic under James II., and then a Protestant
again, but whether before or after the abdication of James Is not quite
dear. He placed a high value on his own work, for when, in Decem-
ber 1707, die Crand Jury of Middlesex presented "The Rights"
ia author sagely reflected that such a proceeding would " occasion
the reading of one of the best books that have been published in our
age by many more people than otherwise would have read il." This
pB)h>My was the case, with the result that it was burnt, as aforesaid,

t6o The Genllentafis Magazine^

by the hangman in 1710 by order of the House of Commons, at the
instance of Sacheverells friends, in the very same week that
Sachevereirs sermons themselves were burnt ! The House wished
perhaps to show itself impartial The victory, for the time at least,
was with Sacheverell and the Church. The Whig ministry was over-
turned, and its Tor)' successor passed the Bill against Occasional
Conformity, and the Schism Act ; and, had the queen's reign been
j)rolonged, would probably have repealed the very meagre Toleration
Act of 1689. Tindal, however, despite the Tory reaction, continued
to write on the side of civil and religious liberty, keeping his best
work for the last, published within three years of his death, when he
was past seventy, namely, " Christianity as Old as the Creation ; or,
the Gospel a republication of the Religion of Nature " (1730). Strange
to say, this work, criticised as it was, was neither presented nor burnt.
I have no reason, therefore, to present it here, and indeed it is a
book of which rather to read the whole than merely extracts.

About the same time that SacheverelFs sermons were the sensa-
tion of London, a sermon preached in Dublin on the Presbyterian
side was attended there with the same marks of distinction. In
November 171 1 Boyse's sermon on "The Office of a Scriptural
Bishop " was burnt by the hangman, at the command of the Irish
House of Lords. Unfortunately one cannot obtain this sermon
without a great number of others, amongst which the author embedded
it in a huge and repulsive folio comprising all his works. The sermon
was first preached and printed in 1 709, and reprinted the next year :
it enters at length into the historical origin of Episcopacy in the early
Church, the author alluding as follows to the Episcopacy aimed at by
too many of his own contemporaries : " A grandand pompous sinecure,
a domination over all the churches and ministers in a large district
managed by others as his delegates, but requiring little labour of a
man's own, and all this supported by large revenues and attended
with considerable secular honours." Boyse could hardly say the same
in these days, true, no doubt, as it was in his own. Still, that even an
Irish House of Lords should have seen fit to burn his sermon makes
one think that the political extinction of that body can have been no
serious loss to the sum-total of the wbdom of the world.

The last writer to incur a vote of burning from the House of
Commons in Queen Anne's reign was William Fleetwood, Bishop of
St. Asaph ; and this for the preface to four sermons he had preached
and published: (i) on the death of Queen Mary, 1694, (2) on the
death of the Duke of Gloucester, 1 700, (3) on the death of King
William, 1701, (4) on the Queen's Accession, in 1702. It was voted
to the public flames on June 10, 17 12, as "malicious and factious,

•I'-IVar of Church and Dissent.

lecling upon the present administration of public afTairs

[er Majesty, and tending to create discord and sedition

her subjects." The buminR of Ihe preface caused it to be

le more read, and some 4,000 numbers of the Speclaior, No. 384,

.rried it far and wide. Probably it was more read than the prelate's

lumeious tracts and sermons, such as his " Essay on Miracles," or his

Vindication of the Thirteenth of Romans."

The bishop belonged to the party that was dissatisfied with the

terms of the peace of Utrecht, then pending, and his preface was

)cl«aiiy wrincn as a vehicle or vent for his political sentiments, The

offensive passage ran as follows : " We were, as all the world

itnsgined then, just entering on the ways that promised to lead to

iSQCh a peace as would have answered all the prayers of our religious

Queen . . . when God, for our sins, permitted the spirit of discord

to go forth, and by troubling sore the camp, the city, and the country

(and oh ! thalit had altogether sparedlheplacessacredtoHisworshipI)

to spoil for a time the beautiful and pleasing prospect, and givr us,

in its stead, I know not what— our enemies will tell the rest with

pleasure." Writing to Bishop Burnet, he expresses himself still more

ttnmgly: "I am afraid England has lost all her constraining power,

and that France thinks she has us in her hands, and may use us as

pleases, which, I dare say, will be as scurvily as we deserve.

'What a change has two years made! Your lordship may now

imagine you arc growing young again ; for we are fallen, methinks,

into the very dregs of Charles the Second's pohtics." Assuredly

Bi^Op Fleetwood had done better to reserve his political opinions

for private circulation, instead of exposing them to the world under

the guise and shelter of what purported to be a religious publication.

But he belonged to the age of the great political Churchmen, when

the Church played primarily the part of a great political institution, and

ambitious members, as some do still, made the profession of

ligion subsidiary to the interests of the political party they espoused.

le type is gradually becoming extinct, and the time is long since

the preface to a bishop's sermons, or even his sermons

lemselves, could convulse the Slate, One cannot, for instance,

inccive the recurrence of such a commotion as was raised by

Fleetwood or Wacheverell, insyble as everything is in the zigzag

COUTK of history. Still less ran one conceive a repetition of such

pcTKCUtion of Dissent as has been illustrated by the cases of Delaune

and Defoe. For either the Church moderated her hostility to Dis-

{-sent, or her power to exercise it lessened ; no instance occurring after

the reign of Queen Anne of any book being sentenced 10 the

flames on the side either of Orthodoxy or Dissent, j. a. farrkr.

^

1 62 The Gentleman's Magazine.

THE LOST LAKES OF
NEIV ZEALAND.

Terra tremit : fugere ... — Virg.

MAN V yeai-s ago I found myself in lodgings at Auckland,
certain where to go, or what to do. I had the cis
company of a naval friend, and it was in our minds to try our h
at farming. But first we would see a little more of the countiy ti
we had hitherto been able to do, and as at this juncture a brod
of my friend's — a lawyer practising in Sydney — swooped down oo i
for an outing, we thought it a good opportunity to put our pbn <
sight-seeing into execution.

It was a Sunday afternoon when the young barrister auivedl ff'
while he went out to dine with one of the judges, his brother and I
got out maps and charts, planning and sketching excursions for ik
general benefit. When the lawyer came in from hb dinner, hejoioBl
heartily in our schemes ; and finally, long after midnight, we nanoMi;
things down to the Bay of Islands and the Hot Lakes— the M>;
winning the toss. It is well to have seen those marvels while Af
were yet in their primitive state. Later on, they grew horrib^ fi
garised and spoilt ; gangs of tourists crowding in upon them tdt
shrieks of ill-timed merriment I cannot much blame the earthqok
that came and swept the place away. I think, if I had bett^
earthquake, I should have done the same thing myself. How erf
the mildest, meekest of earthquakes be expected patiently to ^\
up with Paris fashions, tennis, and a brass band by the shoiei
Rotoiti ; or fat and greasy citizens at luncheon on the sacred i^^
of Mokoia ?

Far be it from me to indulge in any long description of the W
Lake country : for who does not know, who has not iea4 ^
graphic account of that wonderful region in the delig^tfal boAi
" Oceana "? Nevertheless, as we were amongst thefestwhill — ^
dive into that wild land, it may be of interest to recount Ae i
and harass that beset the hardy traveller at every frtep ni

Tke Lost Lakes of New Zealand. 163

^H Du^sdcated days, before the invention of " globe-tiotting," vith
^H tO its Imorious paraphernalia of travel. To that end, I venture on
^H I few extracts from our daily log :

^H Mamiay, March 11.— Filled in the sketch of our tour, before
^H blurred in outline and vague ; struck a bargain with the master of a
H^ nnill ship, and went to bed, full of the hot lakes of Rotorua and
W Koto-mahana, volcanoes, solfataras, and geysers, and the pleasant
■ odtement of finding our way through untrodden bush, and tribes of
I suspicious, perhaps hostile, natives. Our landlady weeps, and says
flic is sure she will never see us again in this world. I take her lay-
ing nress on the word tkii in very good part, and indeed as giving us
quite a character. She is a fiercely religious old sectary, and I know
«dl her private opinion as to the ultimate fate of those who do not
J!,Tee with bcr is by no means a cheerful or hopeful one. Indeed,
unce, after a frightful smash of crockery (her own doing), she gave
rent to her wounded feelings by hurling at us, point blank, the place
of our destination. "St. Alphonso Liguori" (retorted I) "tells us
that the good God has provided woman with her tongue on the same
principle that He has armed the wasp with her sting ; but,'" adds the
aint, "let the wise man flee from both " — and I fled. However,
ifac is OD the whole a respectable body, in high repute among her
fclkiw-bclievers, and (what is more to our present purixise) a thrifty
housewife ; and I have a pleasing fancy we are the grand exception
tluu proves the general rule of her harsh creed. Be that as it may, it
;red us to see her sorrowful and lachrymose at our going. Her
Iren, moreover, had dismal forebodings that ihcdays of sweets and
pence were over for ever ; hence they added their shrill trebles
a very gratifying chorus of wo&

Tuesday, 12.— .\t noon went aboard a little fore-and-aft schooner
33 tons, bound for Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty, and soon
got under weigh, light and variable airs giving us leisure to
obser%-c and mark whatever of interest lay on either hand. At sunset
we were in the Hauraki Gulf, neaiing the fair mountain of Coromandel.
As for the breeze, however, "at evening it hath died away," leaving
us with idly-flapping sails to drift on the Rood-tide in a direction
away from our proper course.

ItW««<Ay, 13.— Calms and contrary winds. We tacked frequently,
ich to us, who were masters of our own time, was not so irksome
thing, because we thus obtained good and near views of lofiy
and mountains clothed with kawrie-pine and evergreen forest,
of fiuitastJc needle-shaped islets and rocky knolls, of sunny bays and
■beUeced coves innumerable, and of never a house or human abode

1 64 The Gentlenuzfis Magazine.

in all the country round. At night, under the Southern Cross and
Magellanic clouds, we lay in a sultry calm. The stillness was com-
plete. As I sat smoking on deck, with only a sailor, a Swede, steer-
mg—or at least standing by the tiller, for there was little of steering
to be done — occasionally we could hear the surf breaking on the
Mercury Islands, off which, at the distance of a mile or so, we lay
becalmed, idly rising and falling with the gentle swell. At times, too,
the blowing of a restless whale would break in on the solemn stillness
of the hour. I spent the night-watches in fishing. As I hauled up
great creatures from a vast depth, I could see them coming long
before it would have been possible to do so had it been daylight,
because, by their hasty movements of anguish, they made around
themselves a luminosity of water. By-and-by I sat down and
talked sea-talk with the man at the wheel. Our crew consists of
three persons, and our three selves are the only passengers — two
Englishmen, one Irishman, a Maori, a Creole, and a Swede.

Thursday J 14. — From daybreak to sunrise — no long space of
time in these latitudes — I was on deck, to see a natural arch in close
proximity to which we were sailing. It was very fine and curious,
and, if I am not mistaken, had attracted the attention of Captain
Cook. After this, we sailed by many inaccessible islets ; some of
them like sugar loaves and spires, and one like a haystack. Others
were verdant cones or mounds of fern. At sundown we passed Flat
Island, where an old murderer lives all by himself. On calm nights
his cries of remorse and agony, as he wanders up and down in a
frenzy, are wafted across to the mainland, and appal those that hear
them. Soon after dusk, having been favoured all day with a nice lead-
ing wind, we rounded the bluff headland of Tauranga, and let go our
anchor in smooth water. It was then too dark, and the channel too
narrow and intricate, for us to proceed to the place of our destination
— a Maori Pah further up the estuary — so we made ourselves snug for
another night, and ready for an early start on the morrow.

Friday y 15. — After daybreak we left the road where we had
anchored on the previous night, and, drifting further up, anchored
again off a sheltered island — the Mission Station — where, when I
came on deck at sunrise, I heard their little bell tinkling for early
prayer. The missionaries — evil spoken of by so many — are to be re-
spected and pitied. When I see how very little good, after years of
weary toil, comes of all their labours, I respect their rare faith ; and I
pity them because, when their exertions chance to have some slight
reward, then comes the trader with his gin, following hard on, yet
always abusing, the missionary pioneer, and makes the reclaimed

The Lost Lakes of Ni-w Zealand.

165

: seven times worse than he was before. But to return. We
rrived ai the Maori Pah in the course of the morning, and canoea
ill! of natives soon put off" to our vessel. Presently we went ashore
nd entered the picturesque and stockaded Pah, where the native
ts or "wharies" lay close !iy the riear rippling sea, shaded by
ich groves and surrounded by melon garden.s, with plots of sweet
(Otalo and plantations of maize. In the stockade of the Pah, short
lisiances apart, stood upright trunks of trees about ao feet high,
jeir tops carved into grim and grotesque resemblances of tattooed
evils, with iniuieose heads, and uncouth, sijuat, distorted limbs.
"heir eyes of fire glisten with the light of molher-o'-pearl. As one
pproaches a Pah at dusk, these effigies glare like cannibals, looming
\ the twilight. We went to the chief of the tribe and soon disclosed
he purpose of our visit. It was a disappointment to him to find we
ere not on a trading errand, with oceans of gin and fire-water, but
B was tolerably civil and obliging notwithstanding, and sent out lo
!e about getting us a guide to Rotorua. Meanwhile, we became
bjerts of the greatest interest and curiosity to al! the people — chiefly
■omen— who were left in the Pah. They sat squatted in a circle
jund us in most unpleasant proximity. The weather was warm,
nd their smell strong. I don't think their remarks were altogether
Dmplimentarj', because sometimes they would burst into fits of
wring laughter. A few ventured to give us little sly pokes and
inches, lo see if we were truly flesh and blood. We sustained the
llcrview (and their attentions) as best we might, and were not sorry
'hen the return of the chiefs envoy, with our future guide, made a
[tie stir and diversion in our favour. \Ve bargained with the man —
s name was Pere-nara— to go with us, out and home, for three
Dunds ; and we agreed lo start without further delay, this being a
Usy time of year with the natives, and ovir man wanting lo be back
pin as fast as possible. We began our journey at 2 k.-m. For the first
!w miles of our march we went occasionally ihrough small patches
nd scratching! of cuhivalion, helping ourselves to rock- and water-
telons and peaches, or munching the lender stalk of maize, which is
sweet and ihirst-al laying thing. Then, walking fast across a stretch
f desolate fern-land, we lame to a narrow sluggish stream which we
0 swim. No sooner had we dressed and got a few hundred
aids further on our way, than we were confronted by that odious
tream again. And ihis sort of thing went on so long — the river, of
aalice aforethought, greeting us at eiory turn — ihal the younger
tllingham swore he would dress hinist.' - . : .' '^alk alonii, in

iBttve fashion, with his clothes on

1

1 66 Tlie Gentleinaits Magazine.

plunge. He tried it for half a mile or so ; and at the end of that
half-mile repented of his oath and gave in, scratched and torn, a
spectacle to all beholders. We came, after sunset, to a Pah on the
very verge of the forest It was quite deserted ; the inhabitants-
wives, pigs, dogs and all — having migrated to some land of their hold-
ing on the sea coast, to thresh out corn. We took possession of ODe
of the empty huts, and, crawling in, lighted a fire of faggots in the
middle of the floor, lay down on either hand, and having eaten
biscuits and hard-boiled eggs, lit our pipes and soon fell asleep.

Saturday^ i6. — Rose with the sun, and after a breakfast of biscuit
and melon, with water for our drink, set diligently off into the forest,
whose great arms soon closed in upon and embraced us. All day,
with but few intervals of rest, and not overburdened with food, we
went quickly and perseveringly through the dense and sombre jungle,
pushing our way through thickets of fern and tree veronica, with
clothes nearly torn off our backs by thorny climbers, till 4 p.m,
when we halted half an hour by the graveside of a Maori who had
perished in the wilderness. His friends had put up, by way of tomh-
stone, the wooden image of an idol, capped with a battered old wide-
awake. It was a gruesome place to choose for a halt, but it was the onlj
piece of open ground we came across where there was room enough
to sit down. After that we plodded on, often stumbling over hidden
trunks and " windfalls " ; great trees, and the epiphytes that grew on
their branches, and the climbers that crept up their stems and spread
along their boughs, excluding the rays of the sun, and making a green
and grateful twilight. Exquisite tree-ferns, too, and stately palms
spread everywhere their feathery umbrellas overhead. At nightlaB
we came to a gorge, through which, at a great depth, flowed a moun-
tain stream. This stream we determined to cross, and then canq)
for the night It is ever the aim of the wise traveller in this countiy
to rest on the far side of his river, and so be secure from sudden
flood. Plunging hastily in, all heated as I was, and swallowing at
the same time draughts of icy water, I took a chill, and by the time \
sticks were collected and a fire kindled under the trees, I became
extremely sick and ill. We had no food left but a few dry old
biscuits, and a hunch of still staler bread, and what with mosquitoes
and rain we had but a poor time of it that night.

Sunday y 17. — Rose at daylight, still unwell, but better (all piaise
to the blessed Patrick !), and set off at once. It was no use waiting
for breakfast, because we had none to wait for, and our best pbn
seemed to push on as fast as we could. I was too faint and miffrrpM*
to take much note of anything I saw by the way. At night we sle|itat

The Lost Lakes cf New Zealand.

(he native scillemcnt of Owhato, which is opposite the high island of
Uokoia in Lake Rotorua. The natives here were tolerably civil and
hospitable, " This village," says Thomson in his " Story of New
Zcalsnd," "was the place where the beautiful Hine-Moa first heard
the tnimpet of Tutanekai on the island of Mokoia."

(The morning of the iSth proved wet and misty. Started about
10 A.J1., but owing to the fog and rain got only as far as the village
of Ohinemotu. Here are the first hot springs, and wonderful things
ndeed Ihey are : waters bursting and boiling out of the bowels of
(he earth, throwing themselves in transport many feet into the air,
ind (ailing back to the ground in a shower of diamond drops that
glint and glitter against a dark and steamy pillar of fog. Near here,
at Ihe chiefs house, we ate our dinner, and an excellent one our
fimislied appetites found it. Ever^'thing, no doubt, was slightly
I daged with a sulphurous taste, as the dinner had been cooked in one
tf the hot-water holes close at hand. But wc were not in a mood to
i at trifles, and ate with great heartiness of the things set before
After dinner we were led out to disport ourselves in the hot
Vliuh& The luxury of these baths is delightful, and they are to be
Khdof any temperature that may seem most agreeable lo the bather,
e Maori almost live in them during cold weather ; we saw at least
1 4 dozen little black imps sitting cuddled up in one of the baths not
'dve feet square. Not much bothL-red with clothes at the best of
1, if they feel cold they just take a header into the water, as we
R home poke the tire or put our feet on the fender. It is only the
ince between toasting and boihng ; with this advantage in favour
[•f the latter process, that it warms you equally all over, whereas in
the former it is necessary lo turn round, or shift one's place, before
bang nicely done on both sides. The first balh in which we jjlunged
to-day was almost unpleasantly hot, and the elder Allingham, as he
e lo the surface, spluttered out from .'Vnsley's " New Bath Guide,"
To-day, many persons of rank a.nd conitilion
Were boiled by command of an able physician ;
(and black) physician standing by grinning, as we
^ed about like eels in the scalding steam. Many of ihe baths
I only little square holes twelve or fifteen feet across, with flags
[ their sides, and about four feet deep, witli stony bottoms.
r bathing till we were parboiled, we slept again at the chiefs
He treated us well, but charged us accordingly. One old
1 of a Maori urged us with kind entreaty to mount his horse
d ride dry-shod across a river that lay before us. We took him at
s he had pressed his horse so strongly upon us, thanked

■ 6^H

1 68 The Gentlematis Magazine.

him, mounted, and crossed. AVhen he had ferried us all safely over,
the truculent hang-dog old churl turned round and demanded pay-
ment— quite a heavy toll — in loud tones and with extravagant
gestures.

On the 19th we made an earlystart, and reached Lake Terawera at
midday. Called on Mr. Spencer, the missionary, and found him very
attentive and hospitable. He was the only white man we encountered
in the course of our travels, and he expressed himself as much surprised
to see us there, in the then unsettled state of the country. He gave us
every information as to how we might best cross Lake Terawera,
and reach Roto-mahana. After luncheon with our kind host, we
chartered a canoe to carry us across the lake. Paddling briskly
along till sundown, we came to a lone promontory, where we en-
camped for the night in a close Maori hut. Our friends practised
their invariable custom of getting up a blazing (ire on the middle of
the floor, and shutting tight the sliding door of their hut, so that
what with smoke, heat, stench, and fleas, we were driven nearly
frantic. Luckily there was a splendid peach orchard close at hand ;
so we turned out at midnight and lay down under the trees, much
to the surprise of the natives, who thought us mad thus to forsake
the comforts of civilisation for the pleasure of lying "sub Jove
frigido."

On the morning of the 20th we left this place before 7 a.m., and
got to Roto-mahana at noon. What we saw there was well worth
all the trouble we had taken to see it. Nature seems to have in-
vented this weird infernal spot when in one of her wildest freaks of
creation. Her chief wonders here are the flinty rocks, which form a
broad flight of steps full a hundred feet in height, and each step
higher than those of the Pyramids. In cavities of the top steps are
pools and basins of boiling water, becoming tepid as it trickles
down step by step to lower levels. In the bottom steps, and till you
have ascended about fifty feet up this strange staircase of marble,
there is no water at all. These steps are white, pure white, in colour,
and from a distance, with the sun shining on them, look as white as
new-fallen snow.

After visiting the small island on Lake Roto-mahana — where there
are a few raupo huts inhabited by squalid- looking savages — and
looking at some more wonderful springs both on the mainland and
the island itself— where w^as one covered with a flag of stone at
least nine inches thick, and yet so hot from the steam below that
you could scarcely touch it for a moment without being burnt — we
came to a most remarkable spring, which sends up steam through a

£(u/ Lakes oj New Zealand.

deep runnel raised above the surface. The steam in escaping makes
a noise louder than what one hears in a large engine-room, and our
guide would noi let us go too near, for fear of falling through the
thin crust into the hell beneath. After spending a couple of hours in
(his extraordinary region, we returned across the warm waters of
.Koto-mahana, [)addling in our canoe over one little bit where, if we
id tumbled out, wc should have been boiled to death in no lime.
Mlingham said he felt quite ihaiik/iil to think the Maoris have
enounced human flesh as food. When we got back to the Mission
■n on Lake Terawera. Mr. Spencer made us stay the night with
him, and a very agreeable evening wc spent. We were all anxious to
{D on to the great Lake Taupo, but Mr. Spencer <|uiie dissuaded us
a undertaking the expedition. He told us that even he himself
irould not attempt it at that lime, and he thought we should be
||tilt]rof a public wrong in attempting it, as if anything happened to
I, it might lead to serious complications. We took the advice given
1^ and next morning left on our return journey. Passing through
ttiincmolu about noon, we reached Owhato after dark, and slept
; that night Our guide was quite knocked up and ill with
lllucnai, and could go no further, so we left him behind at Owhato
) recover his health. Next morning I parted from my companions,
Mio were bent on a three days' excursion to Mount Edgcumbe. I was
qniie unequal to the exertion, not having recovered from the chill
I got in crossing the river Maungorewa, and I thought it best to
get down to the coast while I had strength left for the journey. I
Urcd a second Maori to guide me into the path that led to the river,
nd by nightfall arrived at the same spot where we had camped on
beoiglit of the i6th.

There I slept once more, and on the morning of the zind rose
Rlh the sun, and continued my walk. The rain came down in
Bceasing torrents. With swollen, festering feel, that made every
a torture, I tloundered on through the dripping forest, so weak
^m fever and want of proi>er food that I could scarcely stumble
ng, reeling like a drunken man. The path, which was everywhere
difficult to make out and keep to, I eventually lost altogether, and
JMind myself completely at fault in the densely -matted jungle. The
:n being hidden, 1 could not give even a guess at the direction 1
Mght to take. By nightfall 1 contrived to hit the open space by the
^veof the Maori who had perished in the wood. This uncheer-
Sll place I made my camping ground, suffering much during the
^t from the raw damp of the air and the furious attacks of count-
i of mosquitoes. Cold, the pain of my feet, and the

and I by xwake,

f I ^rsz^dered on,
xupL hdge. 71-1 rg I ported it up

2 dzBzal state of
ic cszxscsSy it was

out of
I bad got myself

liOfc. -;:.: nrr^. mssanranr. air» ' — I iiirnigf lar paiKand late

jcye: iz 3K nmdif aloo^ I lay

I kz»v noc how

caoi describe the

pn-pg abead the dusky

stg pntj of three

iaess I sueI ue%c fcisct ; it was

iii* 'r::E nf rat rioi Sjttij! i.ji ir aie aisEr := ^le pouable. They
pr^ Hi* =ne Tesn^ta. zad wxc2r rcr cf ^s ralibash. and lighting
1 in :f fill- =5 imi H'lss bzscl; cicisd =e scene potatoes in the
i&TfrL " 'irsi -tri'T ::lc =c-:i zixt ac izd crri, aai ibcad that I was
«»:rr..i-v:^ -i"'-ii irt:'- r:?=»i r: fcTsiTL ire ibex had £ar to travel,
i-Tii T .p- irii i: Tjji.i Zi«3:r* *7<r*); ^.-tr- 3eiTe they gave me food
f ..Tiiirt^r z.r L ii ■ r ?:cr^»i7 C^ieeni-i by the kindness of these
j -Z'iz I'll'trzn :c mrzr-. irc .gfiesaed by their food and water, I
-A-^ ir. t^zn :: tc*^ :c. i^i rx dark arrircd at that empty Pah
wr-trt »t r^i K-t^c :c the :f:t- Crawling into a hut, I ate some
:z,'jrt jescier irii piciiies^ isd thea sZept soondly, despite the
tvizt-^jt ^.L-'lTztt c: Torcer: devils d;i: stood sentry round my
slttricr^ z'jLzt. FerriTS the srrirs were scared out of them, or
rendered imrtcter.: bT riv Iczd Te Deem.

A/cKJar.. 25. — Eii'-v 25:* r: and crawir*^ a stick from the palisade
to be Tzj rji5, s-rp'irL ar.d comfort, plodded slowly along, thankful
to 'x: dear of that forest a: List, and once more out in the open coun-
tr.'. In the afternoon I saw an old Maon. wrapped in his blanket,
und squatted in the sun at the door of his hut, a few hundred yards
from the track. I went up, and asking for something to eat, he gave
me a large and ripe water-melon. I, in return, gave him a meer-
fchatim pipe and its case. And then what must this dreadful old

The Lost Lakes of New Zealand. 171

lan do, but {not to be outdone in liberalitj't enter his hut, lug oui
is young daughter, and make me an offer of her ! As I was bent on
baching the coast, if possible, ere nightfall, the courtship and honey-
IDon must necessarily have been of the briefest Besides, there was
» priest handy, and canonical hours were over for the day ; so,
tking my head and muttering some lame excuse, 1 left the lady
Inwedded and sulky, and my would-be father-in-law in astonish-
t at my lack of interest in his daughter's charms. There were
itill many streams to ford, and one, where the tide happened to be
I, I had to swim ; and so it came to pass that it was after mid-
ight when I made the coast. Hailing the schooner, which was still at
r anchorage, with aloud " ' Kestrel,' ahoy !"and lighting a little fire
whereabouts, a boat soon shoved off, picked me up, and
le on board. There, for many days, I remained a close
)rn and emacialed, with feet in so bad a state that 1 was
y able to stand. Indeed, it was not till three months after-
hat I was able to get about without the aid of sticks. Whilst
up on board the schooner, I saw and heard a great deal that
ih my strongest disapprobation. The schooner was here
C purposes of trade ; gin, and gin alone, was the medium of all
ns made — the axis, if I may so say, round which all the
s transactions with the natives revolved. No bargain could be
ruck without it ; at least so the trader told me, and I suppose he
r best what was for his own interests. It is a monstrous thing
>t the Government should tolerate such an inhuman mode of traffic
ith the poor unfortunate natives. They are powerless to withstand
" ! charms of gin, and, under its stupefying fumes, part idiotically
1 all they most prize. The men become sots, and the natural
rentiousness of ihci w n h h q no inflammatory exciie-
\a\, sinks to beastly nd d g g d p h
Five days after m) rr lob d h Allinghams returned, by
1 of Opotiki and M n t f h ursion to Mount Edg-

They had scar h d f 1 h left on their backs, and
loked like two slicks of mahogany. Ihe days now passed merrily
tchings and patchings; and we had brought with us a little
< of books wherewith to do battle against the tedium of the
^ and over which we were able to dispute and wrangle at will.
Tien our books were done, and we ourselves beginning to get im-
il and cross— when, too, the captain found his gin had run out,
d his trade, in consequencCfgrown slack, he weighed anchor rather
q)ectedly one afternoon, and stood out to sea. \Vhen clear of the
e met with baRling head winds and a nasty choppy cross-sea,

172 The Gentleman s Magazine.

against which there was no hope of making way; and seeing it
now, at eventide, begin to blow hard, with every appearance of a
rough dirty night, we put the ship about, and, by the light of a full
moon, ran back inside the Head, and anchored in a sheltered cove.
There, though the wind roared and the rain fell, we lay snug
and secure. At 8 a.m. next morning, the wind ha\'ing veered, we
made a move, and finally left the capacious harbour of Tauranga.
All day we ran with speed before a strong and fair breeze, and an
hour or so after sunset, cast anchor in a sweet little land-locked bay
amongst the Mercur>' Islands. When the full moon rose from behind
a cone-shaped hill, and shed a slanting light across our little port,
I thought I had seldom seen a more entrancing and peaceful
scene. The placid water, so in contrast with the stormy waves
on which we had been tossed outside — the dark, glossy Rata trees,
dipping their gnarled boughs in the tide, with a dancing reflection
of leaves— two or three, only two or three, Maori cottages, in which,
though we saw lights, there was no sound— and all around, except at
the narrow entrance by which we had come in, a ridge of low hills
that kept off the wind ! We could hear the surf breaking heavily
outside, but where we lay the sea was like a millpond. In this pleasant
harbour of refuge we rode at anchor two days, weatherbound —
weatherbound, not by reason of storm, but because, with the wind as
it then was, we could not have fetched Lake Colville. We would
often take our boat and pull ashore, or row about among the little
islets at hand, collecting oysters for supper, bathing, botanizing.
The third day, ver)- early, we went on our way to the sea outside.
The wind being strong and foul, we were close-hauled all day in a
nasty yw /////>/«,' sea, much to the discomfort of those amongst us who
were not proof against sea- sickness. I was not of the number, and
vet, somehow or other, I found the day drag tediously along, and
was glad when it came to an end, and the wind lulled down to a
calm. Next morning, we were in smooth water under shelter of the
island of Waihaki, and at six in the evening brought our expedition
10 an end, and let go our anchor oflf the wharf at Auckland. The
evening was chilly, and we were quite glad to see a cheerful blaze of
log: en the hearth of our cottage : glad, too, to get letters and papers,
and hear the ne^^-s of the day, from which we had long been cut off.

J. LAWSON.

V M«

"OLD gr

FEW characters amongst the Upper Ten Thousand, even in the
days of the Regency, equalled in vice and profligacy William,
t inh Uuke of Qucensberry, better known in Society by his
fimiliar sobriquet of " Old Q." There is still standing towards the
■iiTjiern end tif Piccadilly a mansion at the bow-window of which
■ ic old sinner would sit and ogle and leer at the ladies and servant-
Miids as they tripped along towards the park in their gay dresses a
.ijiury ago; and many a man of the present day may, without
inoKing it, bear in his veins the blood of the ancient house of
Itouglas, which " Old Q." did so much to disgrace.

His descent was certainly illustrious. Five centuries ago there
lived in Scotland a certain Margaret, (in her own right) Countess of
Mat, who mai-ried William, Earl of Douglas, Her husband and son
m succession bore the double title of Earl of Douglas and Mar, and the
soQwas famous in his day as a warrior. He made, as history tells us,
in incursion into England, and in 1388 penetrated as for south as the
gates of York. Returning thence laden with rich spoils, he had to
encounter the English in several skirmishes about Newcastle, in one
of which, at Olterbum, he lost his life, though the English chieftain,
I/)rd Percy, who was against hiin in arms, was soon after defeated by
the Scottish troops. The Earl left an illegitimate son. Sir William
l^ouglas, on whom he was able to confer by charter the Barony of
l->ruinlanrig, in Dumfriesshire, and who became celebrated not only
in arms but in diplomacy ; he was sent as ambassador lo England in
i4i» to solicit the release of James I. of Scotland, who, on regaining
hif freedom, confirmed the broad lands of Drumlanrig to him by a
(harter written in his own hand.

From him was descended William, ninth Baron of Drumlanrig,
*hu had the honour of entertaining James VI. at his mansion, on his
mum to England from his northern dominions, and was rewarded
*iili the Earldom of Queensberry. The second Eirl, we are told,
*" a great sufferer in the Siuan cause ; and his son, the third Earl,
being jttiucc-Oeneral and Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, and

174 The Gentleman s Magazine.

Goreraor of the Castle of Edinburgh, and an Extraordinary Lord of
Session, was raised in 16S3 to the dukedom. The great-great-grand-
son of this Ehike of Qaeensbexiy was the eccentric character whom I
mentioned in mv opening remarksL

Being a member of the jponnger branch of the house of Douglas,
he was known in early life by quite another name ; and it was as the
Earl of March that he first became notorious alike in the sporting
world and in the gay circles of Court hfe whilst still a child. On the
death of his £ither, in 1731, he inherited the title, and large estates in
Peeblesshire and other Lowland counties, and before he was twenty
he had plur^ed suffidendy into dissipation as to have incurred a very
respectable amount of debt and the reputation of a confirmed
gamester. He also became weU known upon theturf at Newmarket,
and also in other quarters £su less reputable than that He became the
associate and patron of bruisers and prize-fighters, and frequented the
orgies of the cockpit He gained distinction by his gallantries in the
capital, and shone at once the meteor of the turf and drawing-room.
** A handsome person, of which he always took special care, joined
to a splendid equipage, a tide, wealth and fortune — all of which
advantages were heightened by most polished maimers and all the
graces of bewitching conversation — insured to him the smiles of the
fairest of English heiresses." But he never allowed his neck to be
ensnared in the marriage noose, and always declined to lead a young
lady, however much she might have pleased his fancy, to the matri-
monial altar of St. George's, Hanover Square. One who knew him
well writes thus in the early days of the present century : ** It was
always in fact his particular fancy to enjoy all the pleasures of wedlock
and the freedom of celibacy ; a course which precluded that spedes
of alliance which might have insured legitimate heirs for his extensive
fortune and splendid titles. We are said to be imitative animals ;
and this doctrine coincides with his conduct for many years, dining
which he imitated Lord Baltimore's way of life, intrigues, and oriental
forms of courtship. . . . Although, like the illustrious Duke of
Bedford, he professed so strong an attachment to the pleasures of the
turfi yet, being too wary a bird, he never suffered himself to become
the prey of sharpers."

"In the year 1756 Lord March rode his own horse at
Newmarket, against a Scotch nobleman — I believe the Duke of
Hamilton. Some time after the celebrated race against time was
suggested by his lordship, which was that a machine with four
wheels should go not less than nineteen miles within the space of
sixty minutes. As it had been aheady discovered that a race-hone

"Old

might be urged to such a degree of speed as to run over a mile in a
minute, lliia, which ailowcd about three to a carriage, did not appear
» jurptising to the knowing ones, for a short space of lime ; but the
cantinoance of such a rapid motion, during a whole hour, staggered
thdr belief, and many of them were completely outwitted."

I may be pardoned for extracting here a paragraph from the
fourth volume of "Old and New London."

"The houses now numbered 13S and 139, between Park Lane
and Hamilton Place, formed at the beginning of this century one
minsion, remarkable for its large bow windows, and occupied by
the eccentric and licentious Duke of Queensberry, better known to
Society by his nickname of ' Old Q.' In his old age, when fairly
«ied with pleasures of the grossest kind, he would sit in sunny
wcithcr in his balcony, with an umbrella or parasol over his head,
Md amuse himself with watching the female passers-by, ogling every
ptttly woman, and sending out his minions to fetch them in-doors,
a a spider will draw flies into his web. The Duke had an external
fliglit of steps built to aid him in this disgusting sport ; but these
«eps were removed after his death."

Mr. Thomas Raikes thus commemorates him in his Journal,
■hich was published in rS4o :

"The bte Duke of Queensberry, whom I remember in my early
days, . . , was of the same school as the Marshal-Due de Richelieu,
in France, and as great a profligate. He lived at his bow-windowed
:i'>use in Piccadilly, where he was latterly seen always looking at the
'-rjple who passed by. A groom on horseback, known as Jack
KidfonJ, always stood under the window to carrj- about his messages
la anyone whom he remarked in the street. He kept a physician in
bii house, and, to insure attention to his health, Ms terms were that
he should have so much per day whilst he (the Duke) hved, but not
1 shilling at his death. \Vhen he drove out he was always alone, in
.1 dark-green ris-a-ris, with long-tailed black horses ; and, during
« inter, with a muff, two servants behind in undress, and his groom
ioUowing his carriage to execute his commissions. He was a little,
shai^i-looking man, very irritable, and swore like ten thousand
in»i<ers ; enormously rich and selfish."

A writer in the Gmllcman's Magazine for 1810 furnishes the
following commentary on his Grace's character :

"This nobleman liad been more generally known, and for a
^L^uch longer period, than any of his contemporaries ; and though he
^^^pd not displayed those talents which naturally attract the attention
^^^P nutnkindi he never ceased, from his first appearance in the world

W^B^^^^^^^m^ p^^ I III !■

176 The GemikmoMs Magtaim.

to the momat when he left k lor ever, to be aa ofayectofaMii-

psxatife nocorictj. Theie had been no immeguum in the public

comic of his enstenoe. His fiist di%limliun w tihae of the tm^

hss knowledge of whidi, both in theory and pnctice; waei csosidered

as equal, if not superior, to the most acknowledged adepts of Xcv-

market He rode himself in aH his principal mjtrhe% and was

the rival in that branch of equitation of the most proieasaaDal

jockies. His funous matdi with the Duke of HamiTtnn, and that

of the machine which bore his own name, were long fetinguidied

articles in the annals of Newmarket He blended, howcrer, his

porsQits of the turf with the more elegant attainments of h^ hfe,

and was long considered as the first figure in the brilliant drdes of

£Khioo. He was the model in dress, equipage;, and manners, ibr all

those who aspired to a saperioritj in exterior ^jpearances. After he

had quitted the turf^ and had succeeded to die Qaecnd)err7 titles

and estates, his life was distinguished br little dse bat his

enjoyments, in which he continued to indulge himsdf while the

fiiculdes of receiving gratification firom them remained. His

constant residence, and the scene of his {deasmes^ was London <x

its vidnity. Scotland he seldom, if ever, visited. His house at

Amesburr, in Wiltshire, the work of Inigo Jones, and the

r|^<Bciral mansion of a former period, he had let, if he had not

actuaUy sold it, at the time of his decease. His countzy pleasures

were found in his villa at Richmond, which he had fitted up in a

style of superior elegance, and to which he used to invite his boon

companions from town. There he occasionally lived in splendour,

till the folly of the inhabitants, by making a vexatious claim at law

to a few yards of ground, which, unconscious of any invasion of

parochial rights, he had taken into his inclosure, determined him to

quit a place where he considered himself as having been grossly

insulted, and to which, in various ways, he had been an ample

benefactor.'

llie predominant feature of the Duke's character was, to use a
common phrase, to do what he liked, without caring who was
pleased or displeased with it. His wealth was enormous, and con-
Mantiv aix umulating ; and the legacy duty alone on what he left
l<hinvl 15 said to have amounted to ^120,000.

The Ouke, at the time of his death, had been for many years
A N\i*M<.vi of Cv^ntinual remark. Anecdotes without end had been
\hNsonunateil about him, ** many of which," observes a writer at that
|H^i uhI, ** were false, and most of them exaggerated." But " no
uuini'* it U addedi *'e\'cr contrived to make so much of life as he

ippeati to haw done. \\'hen his eye — for he had but one — was
gmwn dim, and his hearing almost gone, he did not lose his spirits,
« fiij in making efforts to enjoy what little was left him. He had
long lii-cd itcundum arlem; and the prolongation of his life may be
jtiributed to this precautionary practice." It is said that he bathed
diiiy In milk, and that he adopted the practice so long in vogue in
the Chinese Empire, that of paying his physicians so much a week

I lot keeping him alive and in good health. His Grace, however, did
nt always carry on this game fairly, for he continually neglected
pdr advice and played all sorts of tricks with his constitution,
pich he had enfeebled by a long course of dissipation ; though it
ftptotoble that he would have lived on much longer than he did,
Ed he not per»5ted in devouring a quantity of peaches and nectar-
pts, which killed him in a few hours, tn his eighty-sixth year, in
December, iSio. Most of his honours, including the dukedom,
pused under special creations to the Duke of Buccleuch, who also
added a large part of his Dumfriesshire estates and the Castle of
DmiDlanrig to his own broad acres in the Lothians and Selkirkshire,
while the Marquisate of Queensberry passed to his kinsman, Sir
Chules Douglas, of Kelhead, from whom the present Marquis is
directly descended.

The Duke is said to have left behind him, at all events, one
diild, Maria Fagniani, who became the wife of the Marquis of
Hertford ; but it is generally believed that George Selwyn, the wit,
daimed a share in the honour of being her paternal parent ! His
Giace was honoured with a splendid funeral, at St James'.s,
; but, though many of his acquaintances attended the
l is to be feared that there were few real mourners
it crowd.

E. WALFORD.

178 The Gentleman's Magazine,

IRISH CHARACTER IN ENGLISH
DRAMATIC LITERATURE.

TO those who have remarked the idiosyncrasies of Paddy on his
native soil it will not appear surprising that the English
drama, viewed in its widest aspect, is rich in studies of the Hibernian
character. Your true dramatist is nothing if not metaphysical, and
certainly few races have afforded so much of interest to the
psychologist as the Irish. It was in this way, we may be sure, that
Elizabethan playwrights first had their attention attracted by a type
of being whose whole nature, superficially considered, seemed a very
paradox. Transferred to the boards the Irishman with his brogue
and mother-wit soon proved a serviceable stage puppet, and has
remained 2i persona grata to the dramatist ever since.

Shakespeare, strange to say, has npt turned the ample opportunity
afforded him to analyse the Milesian character in the London of
Elizabeth's day to any material advantage. In the whole range of his
works the poet has only given us one presentation of Irish character,
and that by no means powerfully drawn. Apart from the military
courage depicted in Captain MacMorris — who puts in but a brief
appearance in the third act of " Henry V." — the type is singularly
colourless, and, in short, appears only to have been introduced as a
foil to the Welsh Fluellin and the Scottish Jamy. So little care has
been expended in the delineation of this character, that we can quite
well see the Irishman was only brought on the scene to show that the
nations, at loggerheads in the old king's time, were united under
Henry at Agincourt.

We have reason to feel disappointed that Shakespeare never drew

a living, breathing Irishman. Those conversant with the poet's works

will readily call to mind certain subtle passages denoting a profound

examination of the Celtic character. In the first scene of the second

act of ** Richard II." we find the king saying, in allusion to an old

superstition :

New for our Irish wars :
We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,
Which live like venom where no venom else
only they have privily to live

Irish Character in English Dramatic Literature. 179!

Keras were Irish peasantry serving as light-armed foot-soldiers.
Ii is noteirorthy that the idea expressed by Shaltesjieare has been
appn)[viated by Dekfcer in the first scene of the third act of his
"Honest \V'hore" (second part, 1630), In ruminating over a deep
injury to his honour which he thinks has been commiiied by Bryan, an
Irish fuotman, Hippolito says :

II can be no man cisc ; that Itish Jud.is.

Brtd in a ceiatlry ichtrt no vtnam froifer!

BhJ in lAt Italian'! blacd, halh Ihus betrayed me.

Of paiamount importance among early entertainments in which
detdies of Irish character had a place were the Masques at Court.
tfc learn of " The Irish Knighte, showen at Whitehall on Shrove
kodaie at night before Elizabeth, 1577." More interesting still was
n Jonson's " Irish Masque " as performed at Court by gentlemen, the
i servants, on December 29, 1613, The dialogue in this is
i and worthy of quotation in part, "The king being set in
latiop," so runs the printed copy, " out ran a fellow attired like
^citizen ; after him three or four footmen, Dennise, Donnell,

xk, and Patrick."
i At. For Chretihii layl;, phaic ish le ting ! phkh ish he, ant be ? show mc
It £uih quickly. By Got a' my conshence lish ish he ! nnt lou be King
me lume is Dcnimh. I shelve ti niajcslies' owne cosh let- monger, be
; and ciy^eepsh anil pomwalersh in ti majesties' shcrvice 'tis live years
LOt lou vUt not trush mc now, call up ti clarke o' li kitchen, lie anl be,

I giTc bis^ woil upon hi&h book, ish true.
" it le fashion to beats le imbishettts here and knocke 'hem o' le

badt pfait le phoit stick ?

Dtr. Aal make ter meshage nin nut o (er moulhsh before ley sbpeake vit Is
U.C?

Dtii. Peash, Dcnnock, here ish tc king.

The amiable quartet then squabble among themselves who shall
^^^ress His Majesty first, each modestly desiring to foist the duty on
^^■B othCT. Patrick asks Dennis to complete the task, and gets for
^^pplr, " If I speakc te divell tayke mc, 1 viil give tee leave to cram
Hby mouth phit shamroke and butler and vater creeshcs, instead of
■'' pearsh and peepsh." Patrick finally assumes the office of spokesman
w the parly, the others assisting him occasionally with useful
iBierjections. They are "good shubshects of Ireland," they protest
~f of Connough, I-cymster, Ulster, Munster." These "imbasheters
" o have been cudgelled in mistake come to speak of " great
b Irehnd of a great brideal of one o' ty lords here ant be." They

II of a host of Irish knights who, in voyaging over to the wedding,
^ve lost ihcir fine clothes and are like to dance naked— clothes

ltu^'*4 iDWsand coves acd te prishe of a cashtell or two.'

;ful
;st;

I

hey I

■ng. I

Ihes ■

We M

i8o The GeniUmams Magazime.

learn of the tcrpsidiofcaii y *'TFwrfi*>»"">^"t f and lovaltjto H*^ duooe
of these belated gsdbnts who dimk no booDj ciabbc^ but n^^ good
nsquefaoiigh. Dandng kXiam% to the nncannj skirl of the bagpipe.
The fbodnen, in ushering in the Irish gallan:% pr^ the king not to
be angrj "fit te hooesh men for te few rebdsfa and knaresh;' and
then the nev comers tread a measure in their Irish mantles " to a
solemn music of harps."

" The Irish Masque " certainly afibrds ns some grounds foi
assuming that Ben Jonson had been a keen observer of the humoui
of the Irish footmen aboimdii^ in London in his time. But how very
little should we know of the lives and habits of those worthies were it
not for the pla^rs of Dekker« who, as a Ciithfiil chronicler of con-
temponury low-life, ranks easily first among dramatists of the Stuart-
Elizabethan period ! Look, for instance, at that whimsical concoction
of his, ''Old Fortunatus" (1600), in which Andeloda and his man
Shadow, just arrived in London from Cyprus, are made to disguise
themselves as ^ Irish costermongers," the better to dispose of the
apples of the Tree of Vice, which they cry as "feene apples of
Tamasco ; feene Tamasco peepins" Agripyne, infected by die
statement that this wonderfiil fruit will make a lady beautiful, is about
to purchase, when a doubt crosses her mind and causes her to say.

These Irishmen,
Some say, are great dissemblers, and I fear
These two the badge of their coontry wear.

To this Andelocia makes reply : " By my trot and by St. Patrick's
hand, and as Creez save me, la 'tis no dissembler ; de Irishman
now and den cut di countr>'man's throat, but yet in fayt he love di
rounir)*man, 'tis no dissembler ; dis feene Tamasco apple can make
ile sweet countenance, but I take no less but three crowns for one, I
wear out my naked legs and my foots and my toes, and run bidder
and didder to Tamasco for dem."

Eventually several of the characters are induced to purchase the
wonderful fruit by well -assumed blarney, and as a result of their
credulity are horrified to find horns sprouting out on their heads.
l>ckker's device of disgubing certain of his dramatis persona in Irish
garb was somewhat clumsily appropriated by Ben Jonson in his " New
Inn," which failed to please on its production in 1630. The dea ex
machina in this improbable comedy is a contemptible old nurse, ever
imbibing and ever mumbling unintelligible Irish. She is described
by the dramatist, in the analyses of characters prefixed to the play, as
'* a poor chare-woman in the Inn, with one eye, that tends the boy
[Frank]; is thought the Irish be^r whQ sold him, but b truly the

ter itt English Dramatic Lilcratitre. i8i

lady Frampful, who left her home melancholic and jealous that hei
lotd loved her not, because she brought him none but daughters; and
lim unknown to her husband as he to her." Ex ptde Hercuteiii ;
hom this we can easily adduce ihe action of the comedy. There is
linle quoteworthy in the sayings of this supposititious Irish character,
tier ladyship is in a state of drunken stupor throughout, and, when
nkened up, ejaculates "Er grae Chreest ! " and "Tower een cuppaw
dXIiqucbaagh doone." No wonder the play failed when the respon-
litulily of unravelling its nodus devolved upon such a contemptible
penonage !

Dekkcr's Irishmen are not so much witty as the cause of wit in
Othere, We are apt to learn more of the characteristics of the sixteenth-
Milesian from the remarks the good-natured butt evokes from
priicrs rather than from what he does or says himself. In the second
pnof "The Honest Whore" (1630), where ihe scene is laid in
'Kiian, Lodovico expresses surprise at seeing a Paddy there. "An
'Irilhman in Italy! that so strange ! " replies Aslolfo, with English-like
wasm; " why, the nation have running heads." Lodovico, catching
tte aiiric vein, adds, " Marry, England they count a warm chimney
DsmtT, and there they sivarm tike crickets to the crevice of a brew-
house." Continuing in this strain, he lelis us how he has laughed to
see there a whole nation " marked i' th' forehead, as a man may say,
hy, sir, there all costermongers are Irishmen." But
not all Irishmen in London were costermongers. There Is a playful
alluskin in this same scene to some of the lower orders figuring as
himney-sweepers ; a reason (or which was, according to Carolo, that
'Sl Patrick, you know, keeps purgatory ; he makes the fiie, and his
could do nothing if ihey cannot sweep the chimneys."
Lodovico will ever be a-talking, " Then, sir," he goes on, " have
many of them like this fellow, especially those of his hair, foot-
I to noblemen and others? and the knaves are very faithful where
Ihey love. By my faith, very proper men, many of them, and as
•Oive as Ihe clouds — whirr! hah! And stout I exceeding stout; why,
■I warrant this precious wild villain, if he were put to ii, would
^I more desperately than shteen Uunkirks." The character of
Jfyin. the Irish servitor in this comedy, is not devoid of a certain
•rogh humour, and indeed is finely drawn throughout. When
Hippolito dismisses him from his service "for what he never done "
KK is something pathetic m the poor fellow's valedictory remarks.
I had rather," he says, " have thee make a scabbard of my guts and
let out de Irish puddings jn my poor belly, den to he a false knave
de, i'£m ] 1 will never see dine own sweet face more. A maw-

1 82 The Gentleman s Magazine.

hid deer a gra [Maighisdir mo gridh — ^Master of my soul] fiue dee
well, (are dee well ; I will go steal cows again in Ireland,^

The running footmen of those days, by the way, generally carried
darts — long a national weapon of offence among the native Irish.
We learn this from Middletonand Rowley's "Faire Quarrel" (1622),
and from Field's ** Amends for Ladies " (1618), in the latter of which
Lady Honour disguises herself " like an Irish footboy with a dart"

Shirley's "Saint Patrick for Ireland" (1640), the first Irish
historical play on record, has its broad outline based upon Bede's
Life of the Saint. It is a strange and unsuccessful effort Written
in blank verse and in every way typical of its literary period, this
legendary drama is remarkable for nothing so much as its complete
dearth of local colour. Revolving round the patron Saint of Ireland
one finds a curious assemblage of spirits, of mortals rendered invis-
ible by wearing magic bracelets and types of grosser earth. For a
pky dealing with such an exalted theme the handling is defiandy
ribald. In Ford's Chronicle History of " Perkin Warbeck," written
some few years previously, we find introduced four Hibernian satellites
of the Pretender, John \ Water, Mayor of Cork ; Heron, a mercer ;
Skelton, a tailor, and Astley, a scrivener. Painted in the weakest of
monochrome, these worthies are about as racy of the soil as their
names. Probably Ford's only reason for bringing them on the scene
at the Scottish Court was to afford an excuse for the masque, in which
they appear " disguised as four Wild Irish in trowses, long-haired
and accordingly habited."

Undoubtedly the first play to bring the Irishman into real
prominence as a grateful stage type was Sir Robert Howard's
•* Committee," produced at the Theatre Royal in 1665. Indeed, the
humours of Teague, admirably rendered by a long line of illustrious
players, from Lacy, Estcourt, and Tony Aston, to Macklin, Joe
Miller, and Jack Johnstone, preserved the comedy on the acting list
at the patent theatres down to the end of the eighteenth century.
Even then the germ of the play burst out into new life, through being
transplanted by Knight, the actor, in 1797 into a force called "The
Honest Thieves," in which the droll, blundering, simple-minded
Irislmian became the moving spirit Considering the remarkable
intluciue of Teague on subsequent delineators of the Irish character,
iho following account of the poor fellow's origin, as given in the Duke
of Norfolk's ** .\necdotes of the Howard Family," must be read with
inleivsl. " When Sir Robert was in Ireland, his son was imprisoned
heiv by the Parliament for some offence committed against them.
A« soon as Sir Robert heard of it he sent one of his domestics (an

Irish Character in English Dramatic Literature. 183

Irishman) to England, with despatches to his friends, in order lo
procure the enlargement of his son. He waited with great impatience
(or the return of this messenger ; and when he at length appeared
iriili the agreeable news that his son was at liberty, Sir Robert, finding
ihal he had been then several days in Dublin, asked him the reason
othis not coming lo him before. The honest Hibernian answered
with great exultation that he had been all the time spreading the
news and getting drunk for joy among his friends. He, in fact, exe-
cuted his business with uncommon fideUty and despatch, but the
ettraordinary effect which the happy issue of his embassy had on
poor Paddy was too great lo suffer him to think with any degree of
prudence of anything else. The excess of his joy was such that he
the impatience and anxiety of a tender parent, and until he
that sufficient vent among all his intimates he never thought of
fimpirting the news there where it was most wanted and desired.
Sir Robert took the first hint of that odd composition of
fidelity and blunders, which he has so humorously worked up in the
character of Teague." In 1682 Thomas Shad we 11 had his comedy
of " The Lancashire Witches and Teague O'Uivelly, the Irish Priest,"
produced at the Duke's Theatre. Like "The Committee," the new
piece was political in its tone, having been written at a time of high
li:tling between the Whigs and Tories. His "Riverence " gave great
offence to the Papists, but Shadwell's cause gained the support of the
opposite faction and weathered the storm. The play bore revival
for many years afterwards. It is noteworthy that the dramatist in his
prefatory address to the reader says, inter alia, " Nor should any of
Irish Nation think themselves concern'd but Kelly (one of the
rrers of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey), which I make to be his

name and Teague O'Divelly his true one. For w s and

its have several names stilt." The piece itself, which occasioned
■n this hubbub, is an extraordinary jumble of sorcery, satire, and the
lowest of low comedy- It would be valueless nowadays, even for
the student, were it not for the folk-lore it preserves. Teague
ODivclly, the obnoxious priest who is described as an ecjual mixture
of fool and knave, makes no appearance until the third act 'With
malicious satire as his only aim, Shadwell has not thought proper to
endow the character with the slightest vestige of wit or humour. A
umffDit of local colour is given in his address, in which Arrahs, Gras
joys. By my shouls, and Aboos are plentifully interlarded. Certainty
happiest hit is his odd ideas concerning mental reservation, which
him to become a consummate liar without disturbing his con-
fiul, soolh to say, the actions of his Reverence oscillate

184 The Gentlematis Magazine.

between the simply puerile and the flagrantly obscene 1
the mild ofTence in the holy-water-bottle incident, and t
severe in the scene with the witch.

Not content with his hard-won victory, Shadwell followc
" Lancashire Witches " with the production at the Theatr
in 1690 of his "Amorous Bigot ; or, the second part oi
O'Divelly," the scene being laid in Madrid. In the pendant (
is again depicted as a corrupt Irish priest, replete with lewdnc
the cloak of sanctity. The dramatist has baited his hook wi
tempting morsels of indecency, which doubtless proved attr
the gurnets of the time. But wiser fish will turn away from
with ineffable disgust.

After this hateful, and certainly overdrawn, type, it is refirc
return to our old friend Teague, who crops up again as servar
Elder Wou'dbee in Farquhar's "Twin Rivals," as brought out a
I^ne in 1703. Although kept off the scene until the tl
Farquhar's Teague takes a by no means unprominent part
action, and proves, on acquaintance, a very droll specimen
lower class Milesian. A great traveller in his time, his masti
larly inquires his opinion of London. " For dear joy," is tht
" 'tis the bravest plaase I have sheen in my peregrinations exsl
my nown brave shitty of Carrick-Vergus."

Taken all through, poor Teague bubbles oyer with the mod
of the Green Isle. Asked how he intends to live at a juncture wfa
master has experienced a rude reversal of fortune, he rejoins, "Bye
dear joy, fen I can get it, and by sleeping fen I can get none— te
fashion of Ireland." One incident is very laughable. Teague'sm
is cast into prison and sends the honest fellow to look up bail ^
bent on his errand he meets his master's flame, who is ignonmtd
misadventure. Not desiring to be communicative Teague W
avoid her, but is detected by the lady, who keeps walking rouod
to catch his eye. Finding subterfuge no longer available, the fail
Irishman at last protests: " Dish ish not shivel, be me shoul,tok
a shentleman fether he will or no." I^yal to his employer, «
hearted, courageous, witty, the Teague of Farquhar ranks second
to his inimitable prototype in " The Committee," as a tnisin
portraiture of Irish character.

Because Teague the Second savours greatly of Teague the Fi
must not therefore be argued that Father Foigard in " The R
Stratagem '' is an attempt to remodel Shadwell's clumsy type of d
The long-extended popularity of Farquhar's comedy, lasting ta
production at the Haymarket in 1 707 until the dawn of the nincK
century, has not been matter of gratification on the paitof Ik'

■aelcy in English Dramalic Lilcraturc. 1S5

itUtoii. I thinV, however, that my countrymen have committed an
egregious error in pouring out the vials of their wrath on the dramatist
becaiueof the graphic nature of this delineation. Father Foigard has
ihe unmistakable air of having been drawn from the life. If the surmise
I Mnotwide of the mark. Irishmen should certainly look upon this
^KiDorying of an apostate as a comphraent to their nationality rather than
^^pireitticted satireon the priesthood. I'he fear, of course, has been
^Hbl ignorant or bigoted readers may have argued from this type on
^ihe « una disct omnes principle. Why may not have Farquhar met
some MacShane from Kilkenny, masquerading with an ill-concealed
brogue as Ptre Foigard, "educated in France," but "horned at
Brassels and a subject of the King of Spain " ? It would not have
heena very difficult thing for him in bis travels to have chanced
U|ionsome "son of a boglrotter in Ireland," whose brogue would
Kiodcmn hJni " before any bench in the Kingdom "—some English
iubjtcl who held a chaplainship in tlic French Army. A priest
miiiout the slightest vestige of respect for his creed, Foigard, without
douhl, is a most repulsive character ; all the more so because the
iuihot has denied him the pearls of humour which he has strung so
lavishly round the neck of his Teagtie. How difficult this must
lure been to one whose humour was Irish of the Irish is shown by
the fact, that in this very play Farquhar makes an English Boniface
(peak of " a power of fine ladies." But why has tradition so ruled
iheitage that, down to ihe days of " The Shaughraun," the Irish priest
ihould have been depicted as a weak, despicable being, with all the
tailings of the average sensual man ? Considering the lapse of time
»nd the more frequent intercourse between the nations, even
Boudcauli's "Father Tom," in the "Colleen Eawn," is not a very
pelt improvement on Farquhar's type. But we can excuse much
m the astute and adaptive mind that for once forbore hide-bound
tradition, and gave us a genuine, lovable characterisation of the Irish
Roman Catholic clergyman in "The Shaughraun."

When Richard BHnsley Sheridan's father was a boy al college,
about the year 1 740, he wrote a farce called " Captain O'Blunder ; or,
the Brave Irishman," basing his plot upon the " Pourceaugnac " of
iIolii;re. As most pieces in which poor Paddy had previously
ired held him up to view in somewhat unfavourable light, small
(Oder that evenanunpretemiousfarce, presenting a good-humoured
iroent of a blundering, a£fected native, was to meet with great
ceiHance from a Hubhn audience. "Captain O'Blunder " in its
il form is not to be judged by the printed copy of the farce
UlDg from Dublin in 1 748. The original MS. bad been lost

iS6 The Gentleman^ Magazine.

and the copy for the press was supplied from memory by the ictotSi
with all the corruptions and interpolations occasioned by the gagging
of favourite players. This being so, very little of Thomas Sheridan's
farce really saw type.

But the schoolboy effort is worthy of passing record, because the
central figure yielded a model for Sir Calligan O'Brallaghan, as drawn
by Macklin in " Love \ la Mode." The plot in this farce hinges on
the manoeuvres of a Scotch knight, an English squire, a Jew broker,
and an Irish gentleman, who are all enamoured of a lady of means.
Commenting on the circumstance that Sir Calligan, who wins the
day, is the only suitor among this finely discriminated quartet whose
affection is sincere, the author of the " Playhouse Companion " says
he is " a character so different from what experience has in general
fixed on the gentlemen of that kingdom, who make their addresses
to our English ladies of fortune, that although there are undoubtedly
many among the Irish gentlemen possessed of minds capable of great
honour and generosity, yet this exclusive compliment to them, in
opposition to received opinion, seems to convey a degree of partiality
which every dramatic writer at least should be studiously careful to
avoid." The writer seems to have forgotten that bias in the critic
is more reprehensible than in the dramatic author. With all the
burning love of his soil characteristic of the true Irishman, Macklin's
idea was probably to turn the tables on an author who had recently
maligned his fellow-countrymen. This was Moses Mendez, a wealthy
stockbroker or notary public of the Hebrew persuasion, who died in
1758, worth some hundred thousand pounds. Best remembered as
the author of " The Chaplet," Mendez had written a farce called " The
Double Disappointment," in which the character of a French adven-
turer was contrasted with that of an equally rascally Irishman.
Attracted by the money-bags, both pay their respects to an heiress,
and are eventually unmasked, to the great delight of the audience.
This concoction was certainly brought out at Covent Garden in
March 1759, but was probably performed for the first time some few
years previously. It does not appear to have been printed until the
October following Mendez's death. The idea has never been pro-
mulgated hitherto, but what more natural to suppose than that
Macklin, as an Irishman, bethought himself of retaliation, transferred
Sheridan's Captain O'Blunder to Mendez's own theme, and richly
avenged the caricature by bringing the Jew on the scene as one of
the sordid and unsuccessful suitors ?

When Macklin's farce was first produced at Drury Lane in 1760
the Scottish element in the metropolis took umbrage at Sir Archy

Iriik Character in English Dramatic Literature. 187

McSarcasm as impersonated by the author. The piece thus gained
iKlebrity tt might not otherwise have attained, and, after the silencing
oflJie malcontents, enjoyed great success. On hearing of the dis-
wibinces the Second George, then past the allotted span of man, sent
lor tl:c manuscript and had the piece read to him by an old
Hanoverian attendant Notwithstanding that most of the humour of
[lie thing was marred by the inadequate delivery of a reader but im-
II perfectly acquainted with English, the king tislened intently, and

Peqtrcsscd huge delight at the discomfitiire of the other suitors by
■e member from Paddyland.
' It is a theatrical truism that actors oftener produce parts than
ports actors. When there were no great exponents of Irish character
[here could be no great Irish riles to play. Moody, the original Sir
Calligan O'Brallaghan, is said to have been the first man "who
brought the stage Irishman into repute, and rendered the character
one of a distinct line whereby a performer might acquire reputation."
This is important. Bui, as Lady Morgan sapiently remarks, before
the days of Cumberland's Major O'Flagherty English audiences
Ttcre satisfied with " poor acting in Irish parts, for they had not yet
got beyond the conventional delineation of Teague and Father
Foigard, types of Irish savagery and Catholic Jesuitism."

Macklin's "True Born Irishman " (which appears never to have
been printed) was produced at the Crow Street Theatre, Dublin, in
i;6owiihcvcry token of success. As if to counterbalance the glowing
adours of his Sir Calligan, the sturdy actor-dramatist had aimed in
Qiis comedy to ridicule the absurd afTectations of Hibernian dames
ea their return homewards after a brief sojourn in the English capital.
As "Tlie Irish Fine Lady," it bore revival at Covent Garden in
November 1767.

To the prodigious success achieved by the elder Colman's comedy
c<" The Jealous Wife," when originally produced at Drury I^ne in
ilGi, the character of Captain O'Cutter cannot be said to have
matctially contributed. Irishmen as a body have always viewed this
I\-pC as a monstrosity. Some seventy years ago, when the I'lay was
revived in Dublin, a popular Irish comedian named Hammcrton was
'oundly hissed as a mark of the audience's disapproval of the rule.
I; *as as if Churchill's sentiment had been orally expounded :
Long, from a country evei haiJly used,
At random censured and by most abused,
Have Iliitona dmwn tlicir tpoit with no kind view,
And judged the many by the rascal few.

The Irishmen of Cumberland are certainly not among those which

i88 T)ie Gentleinaiis Magazine.

their countrymen would wish to place upon the Index Expurgate
What could be more admirable in its way than the sketchy,
pleasantly drawn, character of Paddy O'Connor, the " sojer," ir
musical comedy of "The Summer's Tale" (1765) ? Paddy makes
of many odd phrases, such as " Long life to you," and " You maj
that," which are eminently characteristic of the Green Isle. Tl
is every reason to believe that Cumberland had been a close obse
of the ways of his compatriots in the land of '^ Potatoes and bnt
milk." He makes one of his characters, speaking of Paddy, s
" It is the peculiarity of his nation to commit the wildest exi
vagancies {sic) upon principles of the most exalted magnanimfty.''
the matter of bulls, Paddy is a veritable Sir Boyle Roche. ToHi
would be hanged for filching a purse from a rascally Moms,^
replies, with exquisite naivete^ "That's a fine joke ! But if thcylai
me here in England for such a trifle as that, it shall be a wamii^tt
me how I ever set foot in their country again, at all, at alL" Tom*
the close Mr. Attorney is dragged in by "me bould Pal," ^
ejaculates, " I had the greatest difficulty in life to make him comelitf
of his own accord."

Perhaps the most agreeable stage Irishman of the eighteenth of-
tury is the Major Dennis O'Flagherty of Cumberland, a creation tM
in its way, might have sat for the portrait of Dugald Dalgelty.

It is satisfactory to learn that the long-admired comedy in wta*]
this type figures ("The West Indian") was written in Ireland aJj
the quietude of Kilmore, where lived the worthy bishop who acb*!
ledged paternity to its creator. In reading the play one is certai#|
not impressed at the outset with the doings of its dtus ex mac
the Major ; but as progress is made, O'Flagherty's charity and lafj
heartcdness take out of the mouth the bad taste primarily ktj
by his widow-hunting propensities. How characteristic woe
fire-eating attributes can only be clearly known to those
have studied the Irish gentleman of the period through
" Recollections " of Sir Jonah Barringtoa The Major had first fxMlf\
for France and Ciermany, then, "since the peace, my dear, I to(i*J
little turn with the confederates in Poland — but such another sB'
madcaps I — by the Lord Harry, I never knew what it was they
scuffling about." Truthful as a type, lovable as a man,
OTlagherty is of a surety a f-ersona grata to a capable exponerf*
genteel Irish comedy. Moody, who first impersonated the r^\
was not an adequate representative), had previously, in October i?^
given a capital rendering of the ludicrous Irishman in Garrick'si
popular entertainment of " The Jubilee." In iliis^iktdidntiif

^iisA Dramatk Literature, i

Piddy is represented as going to Stratford to see the festival ; but un-

lunatdy he fell asleep and waked not until the pageantry was over.

fntlcely de^-oid of animal spirits, uncomprehending the reason and

ntitiG of an Irishman's confusion of ideas, Moody succeeded in Irish

HU> from sheer lack of a tolerable rival. It was not until the inimitable

)ack Johnstone came to Covent Garden in 1 783 that the glaring un-

thfulocss of Moody's impersonations became apparent \Vhat a

omnut ! Of Johnstone it has been said that he " had a laughing

Khtiuss thai played about his countenance and won you before he

oke." Uniformly delightful, whether blundering, grumbling, slorm-

g, or jesting, he was the first actor who could delineate with equal

BoDence the humours of the unsophisticated son of the sod, and

ic more polish'^d geniality of the refined Irish gentleman. This

nsatility was not without its disadvantages ; for, as a contemporary

oinied out, his easy assumption of a variety of Hibernian types

jjted "authors to write bad parts, in imitation of good ones, and

Scoinprise every degree of Irish character in the mere tone of the

Whtn Hugh Kelly, redoubtable champion of sentimental insi-
lifities (a Robertson before his day), had his " School for V\'ivcs "
educed under a nom de pitrrt at Drury Lane in 1774, it was found
U the man who first drew breath beside the l^kes of Killarney
d sketched an excellent Irishman in the blundering, good-natured
without showing partiality on the one hand or descending
a caricature on the other. Wrote a Dublin critic, on the revival
fthis piece in May 1811 : "In almost every comedy written prior
ithe last thirty years, in which an Irishman has been introduced,
unittc authors have seized upon every occasion to vilify the
ntation of our cotmtrymen. Throat-cutting without motive was
d as their jiastiinc perjury as their practice ; their fun was
ncit)', and their mirth mischief. Divested of these slander- pa in ted
liU, the Irishman of list evening was not unworthy that we should
luiowledge him as our own countryman,"

It is matter of theatrical history that when Sheridan's maiden
Tort, "The Rivals," was produced at Covent Garden in January
775. the play was well-nigh damned through the inefficiency of Lee,
ho stood for Sir Lucius OTrigger. When the rSle was given to
%ax^ the atmosphere cleared; the comedy gained life and the actor
lunuion by the change. Out of gratitude lu his preserver, Sheridan
«otc Ihc farce of " St. Patrick's Day " for performance on Clinch's
|efw6t.

During the summer of 1776 Fooie revised his " Trip to Calais,"

I90 The Gentleman s Magazine.

vbich hjid been refused a licence owing to strong personal caricature
of a lacy of qualin-. ar.d produced it at the Haymarket as " The
Capuchin.' Personated by Foote himself, the r6le of Father
0*I>or^.ov=n, :he refugee, was acted more characteristically than it
was wriiten. Xo or.e, save the so-called modem Aristophanes, would
have made a rrcs: iterare such remarks as " \\'hat the divil," and
•• By my shouL" A tolerably good scoundrel of the Foigard and
O'Ehvelly type, 0"I>DnnoTan has humour and hypocrisy in equal
propcnior*Sb But we doubt Foote's sincerity (did ever anybody
believe in i:?> when we f.nd that this objectionable personage was
only inn-oduced for the purpose of assailing the Duchess of Kingston
and her satelliies. who had accused the author of unnameable
crinies.

Early in March iS-cj; a c:»raedy was produced at Covent Garden,
which, as Boades puts ir, - seized upon general admiration as by a
ch-arm. and has held i: as by a patent." This was none other than
Colman's "John BulL" in which Jack Johnstone represented Dennis
Bmlgrudden*. and song a ludicrous epilogue to an old Irish tune.
The character oi BnLgrjddery is a finished portraiture of a full-
blooded Inshnian ; but it urJ>nunate!y loses importance through
juxtaposition with the equally fine sketches of the Hon. Tom
Shuireton ar.d the Yorkshire servir.g-man. The playgoer, too, is apt
to lose si^ht cfthe r.'.V ir. the jrcjit interest arlsins: out of the un-
ravel'.ir.c c: the uivsttrv. r.rj:'.^rjdierv tairlv bubbles over with wit ;
but, so».th to NTiV, he is I>.t'e better th-n ir*:<: of the other dramatis
parser ^ in that respect. A":h:u^h a -o?? ce\-ii of an innkeeper with
a rascally wife. l';:r.r.:> c:ns:ier> h:n:sel:' a ";ont!eman" because he
was ** broUj:h: uj :? the church.' which, being interpreted, means
that as a lad he **v*'enid the t^L-w-cjors in Belfast," and lost his
siiu,"ition for snoring sr l:ud in Si.Tn::n-:in:e as to wake the rest of
the congrcga:.:n. Few will c;^JiJ;re■J wi:h the estimate of Irish cha-
racter I ut by C:lnian in this ccniwiy into the mouth of Peregrine.
*\lohn Bull." he scys, "t\hi:::s :: rlain uncecoratcd dish of solid
l^nevolence, but l\'.t has a ji^y ^::mi>h of whim around his good
nature i .md if n>:w j.nd th^n 't:s svrinkled in a little confusion, thev
must have viti-itcd ston'..i:hs who are not j leased with the embellish-
ment."

It would be cut of keeping, even if possible within becoming
liir.itN to pursue the sub;cct fanher. Very l:tt!e that was written
after "John Bull" is deserving of inclusion in the category of
dramati: literature, much less the Irish melodramas of modem times.
With the taking off of Jack Johnstone, adequate exponents of the

^9risA C&aracter in English Dramatic Literature^

chivalrous- minded Irish gentlemen became rare birds. There were
fifty Teagues to one Sir Lucius. Hence the inauguration of the reign
o< Irish farce, and the death, from atrophy, of the " rale ould Irish
giWlcman." A groat deal more straw was supplied to literary brick-
makers, ydcpt novelists and playwrights, after the Union than to the
l«s fortunate ones who preceded. The land (jueslion, differences
between landlord and tenant, were not pressed into service as literary
pabulum in the days of an Irish Parliament, for the simple reason that
•'■■" keynote of discord had not then been struck. It was the Union
.■.: made absenteeism fashionable among landlords, and thus gave
■ ihe later Irish playwright a greater wealth of natural incident,
; not of character. We may assume, without fear of contradiction,
:;t Irish melodrama proper owed its origin to the popularity of the
- rvels of Ijidy Morgan, Maria Edgeworth, Tom Moore, Gerald
r.tfin, Charles Lever, and Samuel Lover. As early as 1 831, Griffin's
Collegians " (the source of " The Colleen Bawn ") had been drama-
..:.td for performance at Chapman's City Theatre in Milton Street,
Oipplegate. Again, the chicanery of middlemen and laxity of ab-
»ente« landlords formed the theme of the well-constructed plot of
" The Irishman's Home," produced at the Westminster Theatre in
Tofhill Street, in May 1833- Apart from this, however, the imme-
diate sponsors of the sensational Hibernian drama were most assuredly
Huckstonc, Boucicault, and Edmund Falconer. Remodelled from
lifie, tJie conventional stage Irishman became idealised in the hands
at Dion Boucicault, who endowed hira with pathos as well as wit,
poetT)- as well as humour.

I-et those sneer who like, we have reason to be thankful for
the sturdy vitality of Irish melodrama. At the present time the few
pieces of the stamp of " Arrah Na Pogue " and " The Shaughraun "
hiTC one brilliant, nay, well-nigh unique, quality. Put them
in Uw bill, and the theatre at once becomes a veritable haven of
mt for the old-time playgoer who still seeks the romantic flavour
of yore, and, for the most part, finds it not in this age of Realism and
pTOsaic Tririalily.

W. }. LAWRENCE.

I

J*

^ m

AV CEYlZy.

»•» 1*//""-% ol »*:i.'.-., i.vi Crtnr frici *>;c-r — zz^ ziJiceE^. X*r-i
I,. .4 aro 'J, j/fy..'/*! vt'^r^-- :-. '.rr. ip=s izii leiciicks. wzj±. were

U'/ ./'/ /."/:.'. -'-^ .r^^n^jT to :h.t cjisc in*! i^T^ef fr:ci Txrscish —

I*, v/fj; wTf'; «':.. 'ii-i.-rd :r. Art ere Viri^^ri: was cestroyec.

rj' /'//.'!% M',f.:.\],y/\ at t':.'- 7h-piian:}a dz^iba. when Car±a^« was
ifi Ji' f |/f iir.'-. l>,ior*: J'tol-:ny f y^rAti ihe gresi AJeimirjn Library
i;':v' fij|/iatr;.;i, *' !h'; J>'/.ovc'i of ihe siinis.' hid embraced the
Uiif\tUn;i ft U'/Vfti, |/lari»cd the sacred Bo-tree, znd erected wi± pious
/* ;il for tli<: honour of his Master eighty thousand teniples. Whilst
th« ;iriM< nt iintoris waruicrcd about in scattered tribes among the
i»w<iin|;". arid tan^rjcd forests of our island, the walls of Anaoradhapoora
rti( hfvd a rity twelve miles square. The land was highly cultivated
hy an rxirnsive system of irrigation, the plains were covered with
tui\t'i of mm: and niai/ir, i>opulous villages climbed the mountain
f.idri, df>mes and minarets crowned the hill-tops; in numbers,
knowlrd^c, arid rw hes the country increased and prospered.

Then the Tamils from the neighbouring coast of Hindostan
I (Mnplitrly sulgugaled the island ; it was recaptured by the Singhalese,
and followed various i:hanges of fortune until, in the reign of Queen
j'.li/abeth, il lell under the cruel dominion of the Portuguese. Half
u (cntury later the I)al(h were masters of the soil and enjoyed a
njonopoly ol ihc coveted cinnamon gardens. Since then, for nearly
two hundred years, the Union-Jack has waved above the fortifications

In Ceylon. 193

of Mynheer, at Galle and Jafnapatam ; British soldiers guard the
capital of the old Kandian kings, and British sailors man the fleet
that rides at anchor in Trincomalee's beautiful bay.

Although its "spicy breezes" exist mainly in the imagination,
Ceylon may fairly hold her place as the " Garden of the World," for
the country is clothed with a luxuriant tropical vegetation, from the
summit of Pedrotallagala, enthroned above the clouds, to where in
the Indian Ocean are lost the winding waters of the Mahawelliganga.
It is a land of waving palms and luscious fruits, of sapphires
and rubies and pearls — where the sunbeams reflect the brilliant
hues of humming-bird and paroquet, and in the cool recesses of
1 primaeval forests the timid elephant luxuriates in his bath ; a land

(rich in ruins and antiquities which afford ample testimony to its
former greatness — peopled by a dusky race invested with all the
i jnystery of venerable antiquity, speaking the most ancient of languages,
- instructed in one of the oldest religions, and still holding tenaciously
\ .the traditions and superstitions of their fathers.
! The poet who, enumerating the felicities of Heaven, joyfully

;; ^ No clouded sun, no changing moon,

But sacred high eternal noon,

' was not a resident of Trincomalee, for Trincomalee enjoys the un-
- - enviable reputation of being the hottest place in the world. Even
: . in the early morning I found the climate uncomfortably warm, as
^ . entering the outer harbour, a bay five miles in breadth, the little
^'^^.'vessel which bore me steered for the inner one — a series of lagoons —
1^ . and cast anchor just off the shore ; for so deep is the water that the
S 'Jargest craft can come close up to the shore and discharge their
^.^cargoes without the aid of boats.

J;, Perhaps there is no haven comparable to Trincomalee, for a
^^ fleet of the largest ironclads could ride there in perfect safety, and it
r-.can be entered when the north-east or south-west monsoon is blowing.
fif; It is remarkable, too, for the beauty of its scenery. Completely

■: land-locked, it is surrounded with greenery, for in the farther distance
t feathery palm-trees raise their graceful heads above the jungle, which
i » with a rich growth of perennial verdure clothes the shores, and where
&■- the mangrove bushes dip their foliage in the deep blue water the
^^lassy surface reflects trees, jungle, bushes, as in a mirror, the cloud-
ess sky arching over all.

Landing, one finds a sprinkling of native dwellings, some poor
izaars, a few Government houses, and a dockyard little used. Two
rts, Ostenbuig and Frederick, afford insufficient protection to a

194

The Gentlematis Magazine.

place which seems to have been designed by Nature for a mighty
emporium of the world's commerce. Save for the few Europen
residents, meagre garrison, and yearly visit of the fleet, Trincomake
lies neglected and abandoned. So deserted is both town and
neighbourhood that wild animals come into it from the surroundiif
jungle, and monkeys help themselves to garden fruit !

lounging comfortably in the rest-house — or hotel — I thought oc
at my leisure the details of a proposed trip to the ruined dtj of
Anauradhapoora— the old capital of the Singhalese kings— in the
almost uninhabited interior. This involved four days in the jungle,
the carrying of provisions, and the risk of monsoon rain, which, kog
delayed, might at any time fall in torrents. Having weighed cardnBf
the pros and cons I decided to go, and bargained with two TuniK
the one to act as driver, the other as cook ; and for a stipulated son
they agreed to furnish me with a conveyance and food for the whok
journey. It was arranged to start at daybreak the next morning.

I appeared to be the only guest at the rest-house, which was a hip
rambling building with verandahs running round it.

Taking my little lamp with its floating light, I went up to my bed-
room ; like the other rooms, it opened only from the verandah, wfaid
was protected by light trellis-work. There was no door; fokfiBj
shutters occupied the centre of the doorway, with a two-foot apcitoR
above and below. Leaving the lamp burning, I went downstaiis fir
a book, and returning after some minutes* absence, I was justposhifl;
open the folding shutters, when some big creature dashed out i
the room, nearly upsetting me, fled down the \'erandah and boundri
into space.

Considerably startled, I peeped cautiously into the bedrooo'
everything quiet, nothing disarranged. I raised my lamp and madei
careful examination, including in it the verandah. The treUis-iok
at the end was broken, a big hole being left by the passage of bv
midnight intruder — a wild-cat perhaps, or an inquisitive monh?
whose curiosity had been aroused by the light.

Whatever it was, it had disappeared ; but I was sorry that thst
was no door that I could fasten, and the space under the shuttcn**
too large to block. I must risk the reappearance of my unwdooae
visitor. I put my knife by my pillow, and undressing as qaickirs
possible, extinguished the lamp. I lay awake for some time watduf
and listening.

But the silence was unbroken.
And the stillness gafe no token,

and I slept undisturbed until nearly daybreak.

In Ceylon. 195

At five o*clock my equipage was announced — a native two- wheeled
cart without springs, built of the wood of the cocoa-nut palm, the
broad leaves interlaced forming a roof, excellent for shade, but
unreliable as a protection from the rain. Within, strewn leaves
made a seat by day, a couch by night.

A quantity of necessary impedimenta were slung beneath the cart.
Item : a large bag of rice and some loaves of bread. Item : two
coops containing a number of live fowls. Item : a great pot, a
couple of chatties, and a few cooking utensils. Besides these
provisions I carried a small private hoard : a flask of brandy, a
bottle of doubtful port wine, a tin of cocoa, a pot of jam. The
cart was drawn by two bullocks, yoked together, the reins passing
through their nostrils.

Of my two servants, the driver was the more distinguished, as
became his maturer years. The cook did not lean to the side of
extravagance in dress — it consisted only of an ancient strip of cloth
round his loins ; whereas his elder wore in addition a venerable wisp
of ragged fringed shawl over his shoulders, and a dirty cloth wound
about his head added importance to his stature. Both wore gold
earrings, and the liberal use of oil, with which their black skins shone,
amply compensated for the dirt beneath.

In point of linguistic accomplishments my driver was first, I second,
and the cook a bad third, as he — poor fellow ! — knew only his own
language. I stood firmly by one word of the greatest usefulness,
viz, shurika — make haste — whilst the driver proudly addressed me
as "sare," and could say "yes" and "no." With regard to two words
we met on common ground — the one " currie," the other " cheroot,"
for our word comes from the Tamil verb "cherooto" — to roll,
together — referring to the manipulation of the tobacco- leaf.

Dressed in a fiannel shirt and trousers, with a light helmet on my
head, and white umbrella in my hand to protect me from the
sun, I led the van on foot. Kangaroo-leggings served me as a
protection against land-leeches, whose terrible attack on the traveller
through the jungle is only made known by the blood trickling down
his legs. So small as to be unnoticed, these little pests scent the way-
farer afar off, and springing upon him in dozens crawl up his
extremities and fasten on his flesh. Any attempt to pull them off
makes them cling the tighter, but they are amenable to tobacco
smoke.

On leaving the town we at once struck into the jungle, and

traversed a hot and dusty road, at the rate of two and a half miles an

*our. We had gone but a short distance when I turned out of the

196 The Gentleman's Magazine.

beaten track, and, with my driver as guide, visited the hot medicinal
springs of Kanea. The water bubbles up out of holes in ibc
ground, and the springs were watched by a solitary native who sal is
silence on the ground — the presiding genius of the place.

Living fish have been actually found here — a carp at a temper-
ature of 114° and a roach at 122® Fahr. These are not the only
Ceylon fish of singular habits, for there is one small species whidi
often leaves the water and climbs over rocks and ascends shrubs in
search of food. There is the travelling fish — a kind of perch — ^whidi
will exchange one pool for another ; and, as the pigeon or bee direcs
its fiight by some peculiar sense, so can this fish detect the presence
of water, which it will journey a long distance over land sometinoesto
reach. These fish prefer to travel in the early morning when the dc«
is on the grass, but in cases of emergency have been seen in large
numbers toiling along in the sun over a hot and dusty road. The
burying fish is another oddity, for when a pool begins to dry up it
buries itself for a foot and a half below the surface of the ground,
and there in a torpid condition awaits the next rain-fall.

As we proceeded on our way the sun grew more and more vertical,
and it was so oppressively hot that I was thankful when at halfpas
eleven we drove aside into the forest and turned the bullocks loose
to graze.

Fixing up my umbrella and travelling-rug in the branches of some
trees as an awning, I lay beneath the refreshing shade awaiting
dinner, which, like my supper, consisted of curried rice, and took an
hour to prepare.

At half-past one we resumed our leisurely advance, and continued
without meeting a single soul until close upon six o'clock, when ■«
reached the borders of a ruined tank — one of those stupendocs
works for the irrigation of the land in whose construction the
Singhalese were so proficient.

A solitary building — the rest-house— stood on the margin, ami
the solitary native occupant came forth shaking with ague. Ap-
proaching me, he pointed to himself, then to the house, and gave his
head a more pronounced shake. I thoroughly concurred in the
implied negative and preferred to remain where I was. Suddenly

The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out,
At one stride comes the dark,

for here there is no twilight. Very soon a fire was burning and Bf
men were occupied in preparing my curried chicken. The flickeri^
light shone picturesquely on their dusky forms, as^ squatting one ff
each side of the big pot, which was hung from three sticks, thej eio;'

In Ceylon. 197

now and then dipped in their dirty fingers to feel the softening rice.
A mist of poisonous miasma, of which the ague was the result, brooded
over the surface of the lake, and when at last I began my dinner the
impure water lent its baneful influence to currie and cocoa. The
meal ended, my men stretched themselves on the ground, and I,
making myself as comfortable as the tormenting mosquitoes would
let me on my leafy bed, was lulled into snatches of sleep by the
hideous croakipgs of innumerable frogs and the splash of alligators.

At four in the morning we set off again, after I had breakfasted
on bananas, bread, and cocoa. In two hours we reached another
ruined tank, and I bathed, keeping a wary eye for alligators, which
swarm wherever there is water.

And now our track was difficult to follow, leading over ledges of
rock or through deep sand, in which the wheels sometimes stuck fast.
Once, on turning a sudden bend in the road, I startled a native, who
fled before me with wild cries and gesticulations, and disappeared in the
forest. He belonged to the outcast race of Veddahs, and he evidently
wished to warn me against the contamination of his proximity. These
poor creatures inhabit the densest jungle. They have no direct
dealing with other castes, but bring what they have caught by hunting
and lay it down in a well-known place, with some simple guide as to
the things they want in exchange, and then return by night to fetch
them. For food they eat berries and what they shoot in the woods
with bow and arrow. In drawing the bow they sit on the ground ;
one hand is occupied with the string, the other with the bow ; whilst
the arrow is guided between the great and next toe of one foot. They
cannot count beyond five, and some of them appear to have no
language beyond grunts and signs. They seem to have no laws, no
religion, no arts, no sports, and are more degraded than most
savages.

We were now in the heart of the jungle ; on either side stretched
the primaeval forest. The mahogany tree, the hard-wooded teak, the
ebony — whose heart alone is black — the fig, and many other giants
of the woods stood, garlanded with parasitic creepers, some as thick
as a ship's cable, others of slender form, but all bright with lovely
flowers. Strange nests hung from the branches, and humming-birds
and paroquets of gorgeous plumage flitted among the trees. Some-
times hyenas or deer scampered away at our approach ; and monkeys,
running across the path, climbed the trees and swung themselves from
bough to bough. Exquisite butterflies danced in the sunlight, and
in one place impeded our progress, for the ground was so thick with
them, and they kept rising in such clouds before the eyes of the

198 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

bewildered bullocks, that we had to chase them from the road before
the cart could advance. No sound was heard but the shrill cry ol
the cicada — or knife-grinder— a kind of huge grasshopper with a rasp
on its hinder legs and a file on each side of its body ; by nibbing
the one against the other a singular sound is produced, which by
multiplication becomes astonishing. Once when we bivouacked close
to a native village we were disturbed by elephants, but the villagcn
turned out in large numbers and scared them away with shouts,
shrieks, and the beating of tom-toms. Water was scarce, for the eaith
was baked and the heavens were as brass.

At noon on the fourth day we came to a steep and jungle-covered
hill which rose a thousand feet above the surrounding level counti}'
— the sacred hill of Mahintale. A flight of steps fifteen feet broad,
one thousand eight hundred and forty in number, lead up the
precipitous face of the rock. These are ascended by the devout
pilgrim on hands and knees with a prayer at every step, and by the
undevout heretic with less pious language. In the shade of the
jungle below the thermometer marks no** Fahr. ; on the steps i:
might be, judging from one's feelings, 1,000,010°, for there is no
shelter, and the blazing sunshine is reflected from their whiteness,
and the atmosphere glows with fer\'ent heat Faint, perspiring at
every pore, up and up one drags one's weary limbs, but when at bst
the summit is gained weariness vanishes in the marvellous scene
spread beneath. There is no other hill to interrupt the sight, whidi
ranges from sea to sea, the whole breadth of Ceylon being compr^
bended in the view. It is a vast expanse of jungle, with every shade
of green in every variety of foliage, but the eye is attracted more
perhaps by the remains of the gigantic artificial lake of Kalaveu
with the sunlight flashing on its waters, and the dagobas, seven mDes
distant, that still tower in ruins above the tree-tops, and indicate the
site of the once royal city of Anauradhapoora. Long grass, creeping
plants, trees and their parasitic growths run riot amidst the massiit
blocks of stone, the carved capitals, the splintered columns, whidi
mark the road thither. The whole distance was once covered with
a carpet by one of the Singhalese kings, that pilgrims might go with
unwashed feet from Anauradhapoora to worship at the Etwihan
dagoba which crowns the summit of Mahintale. This word
"dagoba" comes from deha (the body) and gopa (that which preserves),
because they are shrines raised over the sacred relics of Buddha.

The Etwihara is a semicircular pile of brickwork one hundicd
feet high, built over a single hair from the great Teacher's foidiol

Many are the inscriptions graven in the sacred rock of Mahin**^

Among them is one containing a list of the ofEcial staff belonging to
the temple. It includes a secretary, a painter, a treasurer, a surgeon,
a physiciaD, twelve cooks, twelve thaichers, ten carpenters, six carters,
indtwo florists. The last mentioned must have had a busy time, for
s enter largely into Buddhistic worship, and on one occasion
Be entire hill of Mahiniale was completely buried beneath heajjs of
Six and a half millions of sweet-scented flowers were
red by one of the devout kings at a single shrine in Anauradha-

Yoking the bullocks to the cart, we resumed our journey and
Bached the citj' late in the afternoon. I was up betimes the next
loming, and, with a native as a guide, gave the whole day to sight-
[eing and exploration,
During ten centuries Anauradhapoora continued the capital of
Ceylon, and it ia said by Fergusson that, " alone of all Buddhist
tittes it contains something like a complete series of the remains of its
kteatness during that period." There are seven dome-shaped topes
r dagobas, a monastery, and the sacred Bo-tree. Of the monas-
,•, called the Maha Lowa Paya— or Brazen Palace — the sole re-
E the sixteen hundred pillars, twelve feet high, which formed
e first storey. Close to the monastery is a large enclosure, entered
f s rather imposing doorway, decorated with specimens of old Sin-
e carving — the porch of the temple. Within the enclosure a
all pyramid rises in three terraces to a height of over thirty feet,
nd out of the midst grows the sacred Bo-tree — akind of fig — which,
1 prophesied, is always green, never growing nor decaying. Care-
lUy propped by numerous supports, the tree has every appearance 0(
e venerable age which distinguishes it as the oldest historical tree
I the world. It was planted aSS years b.c, and was raised from
i branch of the fig-tree under which Gotama reclined when he
came Buddha. Each monarch of Ceylon seems to have vied with
t predecessor in displaying his zeal for the welfare of the "Vic-
iriaus, Illustrious, Supreme Lord, the Sacred Bo-tree," and faithful
1 has been kept of all the chief events in its history, which
; an unbroken chain. Thus, 136 K.C., King Bahyatissa, in
Hiour of the pre-eminent Bo-tree, celebrated annually, without inter-
ssion, the solemn festival of watering it. Another king, a.d. 62,
"caused exquisite statues to be formed of the four Buddhas, of their
exact stature, and built an edifice to contain them near the delightful
Bo-tree." One who writes 478 years after Christ says, after de-
scribing the ceremony of planting it, " Thus the monarch of the
forest, endowed with miraculous powers, has stood for ages in the

200 The Gentlemaiis Magazine.

delightful Mahamcgo garden in I^nka, promoting the spiritual wel-
fare of the inhabitants and the proi^agation of true religion."

Of the dagobas, the smallest, but the most perfect and the most
celebrated, is the Thuparamya, a relic-shrine built 250 years b.c. to
contain the right jaw of Buddha, To quote again from Fergusson:
" It belongs o the most interesting period of Buddhist histor)*, and
is older than anything existing on the continent of India, so far as we
at present know, and there is every reason to suppose that it now
exists as nearly as may be in the form in which it was originally
designed." It is of elegant bell-shai>e, and is surrounded by tall
slender monoliths of granite, octagonal in form, with very pretnr
ornamental capitals car\*ed with the figure of the hansa, or sacred
goose. The worship of this bird is common to many countries,
probably owing to its annual migration to unknown lands. In Eg}*pl
the god Seb was intimately associated with the goose, and is often
figured with a goose on his head. In the same country a temple has
been found bearing upon it the dedicatory inscription, " The good
goose greatly beloved."

That night I was the only occupant of the rest-house, an isolated
building consisting of one room, furnished only with the framework
of a bedstead, for almost totally deserted is this once famous city.
Its cloud-capped towers, its gorgeous palaces, its solemn temples, are
crumbling into dust. The home site of a once prosperous and
happy people is now the haunt of the hyena, and the sanctity of the
shrines is profaned by the panther and the bear !

Its size may be estimated by the fortified wall which encircled it,
forty feet in height and nearly fifty miles — as far as from London 10
Basingstoke — in length. It had four main thoroughfares — north.
south, east, and west streets — approached through gates at which
guards were stationed day and night. Each street was broad, straight,
and perfectly level, bordered by shady trees. The road was sprinkled
with fair white sand, and the side- walks with blue — thus deadening
sounds and lightening by its cleanliness the work of the scavengers.
At regular intervals were set up beautiful statues, and between each
grotesque figures, painted in various colours, held lamps in their out-
stretched hands. The houses were of two storeys, built of brick,
with double gates in front. The residences of the nobles, magistrates,
and foreign merchants were distinguished by their size, rich orna-
mentation, and the gardens surrounding them, tastefully laid o-i
with beds of sweet-smelling flowers, and shaded by varieties of palms
Within the houses rich woollen carpets, woven in gay colourSi covend
the floors; there were raised seats, curiously-carved chairs^ and

In Ceylon, 201

the many articles for use and ornament were inlaid with ivory and
precious stones ; polished metal lamps hung from the ceilings, and
handsome painted cloths covered the walls.

The crowds in the streets varied in race and dress. Buddhist
priests predominated, their heads shaven and bare, clothed in the
notable yellow robe. Three garments only were allowed them, for
which the cotton must be picked at sunrise, cleaned, spun, woven,
dyed yellow, and finished before sunset.

The appearance of the male Singhalese then, as at the present
day, was peculiar, for the hair was drawn back from the forehead
drimperatrue^ and secured with a tortoise-shell comb, whilst the
back hair was rolled into a coil and fastened by another comb, giving
quite a feminine appearance. Their dress consisted of a garment of
many colours wound round the waist and reaching to the feet. The
better class wore in addition a black cloth jacket over a shirt. Among
the lowest class were water-carriers and bearers of miscellaneous
goods suspended from a pinga, or yoke, carried over the shoulder
like the ancient Egyptians. These men had only a cloth round the
waist. Then there were Tamils, of darker skin than the Singhalese,
wearing turbans on their heads, Parsces, Moors, Chinese, Malays,
and richly-dressed nobles attended by servants carrying large leaf
fans to shield them from the sun. And then — ill-omened sight —
Tamil soldiers, mercenaries, with spears, swords, and bows, whose
numbers were gradually added to, until, feeling themselves sufficiently
strong, they rose against their employers, conquered the kingdom,
and sowed the seeds of disruption and decay.

The streets were spanned by arches dressed with flags, and
beneath them passed in continuous succession a double row of little
bullock carts, stately elephants with howdahs full of people on their
backs, and two, three, and four-horse chariots, horses and bullocks
being driven by reins passed through their nostrils. Here were
musicians, making more noise than music with clank-shells, horns,
and different kinds of drums ; there a juggler amused the people
by feats of strength, as when he threw a large cocoa-nut high into
the air and deftly caught and broke it as it descended on his thick
skull, or by feats of skill, as when with a sharp sword and a dexterous
turn of the wrist he divided an orange completely in two on the out-
stretched palm of the hand of one of the passers-by. Then there
were nautch-girls in spangled dresses who danced to the sound of
the tambourine, walkers on stilts, and charmers of deadly snakes.

The bazaars were crowded like the streets : piles of luscious fruits
tempted the thirsty soul ; heaps of rice and maize lured the thrifty

202 The Gentleman s Magazine.

housewife. Some stalls displayed articles beautifully carved in wood
or ivory, ebony inlaid with ivory or mother-of-pearl, and omaroents
made of the quills of the "fretful" porcupine. In other stalls were
silken fabrics, shawls and costly cloths. Here were cunning workmen
in brass, and there potters turning chatties and other vessels, orna-
mental and useful. Everywhere merchants sitting cross-legged among
their wares, surrounded by eager purchasers, chaffering often oifcr
the value of the tiniest coin's-worth.

There were numerous temples for the worship of Buddha,
Brahma, Siveh, Vishnu, Fire ; and halls for preaching were in every
street. Schools and colleges diffused information among the people,
for whom recreation was provided by fJaces of amusemeoL
There were hospitals for animals as well as human beings, public
gardens, and baths. Down the gutters of the roads ran streams of
pure water, which were supplied, as were the drinking- fountains,
from the tank of Kalaweva. This huge artificial lake had a circuit of
forty miles ; its bund or embankment was formed of enormous
blocks of granite twenty to thirty feet long, with an ornamental
parapet. Some idea is gained of the stupendous labour involved in
this mighty work from the fact that the stones were dressed with
iron tools at far-distant quarries, and from thence dragged to their
final resting-place, and that the earth used for the embankment iras
all brought in single basketfuls carried on men's heads.

Unlike our modern cities, which are poisoned with exhalations
from factory and furnace, the atmosphere of Anauradha[X)ora was
full of the fragrance of flowers. In place of chimney smoke was
breathed air laden with the sweet smell of champak and jessamine
from acres of surrounding gardens, where flowers were grown for the
service of the temples.

Among all the glittering domes and spires and palaces there i«
one building which, by its rich colouring, fantastic ornaments, and
dazzling roof, might have been singled out as the greatest wonder of
the East — the Monaster)-. Its principal entrance was reached bra
flight of steps carved in various devices, whilst large upright stones
on either side bore representations of the seven-headed cobra^the
emblem of protection. On a foundation of sixteen hundred granite
pillars was built a substantial floor of heavy timbers, and above this
rose eight more storeys to a great height and in the form of a Chinese
pagoda. The topmost roof of polished brass — from which the
building was named — shone brightly in the glaring sunlight

The lower roofs were painted blue, and their eaves, slightly tuned
upward at the ends, projected twenty feet beyond the building

In Ceylon. 20

^

supported by huge grotesque figures. The walls were red and
yellow, and every niche and space was crowded with gods and devils
in bright red, yellow, blue, and gilt. A door of satin-wood, carved
with scenes from the Hfe of Buddha, led into the great hall, where the
floor was covered with carpets so thick that at each step the feet sank
into the velvet pile, whereon were placed couches of costly cloth or
silk on golden frames. The ceiling was painted blue, barred with
red, supported on pillars of solid gold, whose bases rested on lions,
tigers, monkeys, and other animals in life-like attitudes. Around the
red and yellow walls ran a deep border of pearls.

When the rays of the sun slanted through the long windows the walls
blazed with splendour, and hidden colours stole radiantly forth from
the facet of each gem, so that a warm and rainbow-tinted light
illumined the centre of the hall, where stood an ivory throne, having
on one side the sun in gold, and on the other the moon in silver,
whilst above it glittered the imperial chetta — the white canopy of
dominion. The rooms of the Monastery numbered upwards of ten
thousand, all splendidly and variously decorated. In most the walls
were covered with beads of different colours, which shone like gems.
So magnificent were the appointments, down to the minutest detail,
that in the kitchen even the ladle of the rice boiler was made of gold.
The sole tenants of this royal abode were yellow -robed priests, whose
poverty was in strange contrast with their surroundings.

Such was Anauradhapoora in the noontide of its splendour, and
when the bustle of the day, its toils and its pleasures were over, the
moon looked down upon a host of twinkling lights like earthly
reflections of the quiet stars, when no sounds were audible but the
tinkling of the golden vesper bells. Imagination pictures the devout
congregation of worshippers gathered at one of the sacred shrines,
the soft light of the coloured lamps, the sweet scent of the jessamine,
the solemn hush of night, and the priest veiled from sight teaching
the grand truths of Him who " for their sakes became poor," in words
such as Edwin Arnold has so beautifully rendered into poetry :

Kill not— for Pity's sake — and lest ye slay
The meanest thing upon its upward way.

Give freely and receive, but take from none
By greed, or force, or fraud, what is his own.

Bear not false witness, slander not, nor lie ;
Truth is the speech of inward purity.

A. E. BONSER.

204 The Gentleman s Magazine.

SOME OLD CHURCHES.

THE diversity in the forms of our ancient churches is more
considerable than we might suppose when our acquaintance
with them is limited to a few examples only. We have round
churches — four in number, with the ruins of a fifth, and mention of
others in old chronicles ; oblong churches, cruciform churches, and
others in which the east ends are Semicircular ; and others, again,
in which the chancels are finished in a rectangular manner. Their
general arrangements are also very varied, as some have towers, aisles,
porches, and picturesque parts which others are without. And in
those instances where the same features exist in many fabrics, there
are differences of finish that afford further variety. A tower, for
instance, may be round, or square, or octagonal, or triangular — for
we have one of a triangular form at Maldon, in Essex ; and it may
be crowned with a spire, or by a lantern, as at Boston, Lowick, and
Fotheringay ; or capped with corner turrets ; or surmounted by a
parapet, which may be plain, embattled, or pierced with tracery : and,
for another example, a porch may be merely a simple, old-fashioned
shelter to a door\vay, put up at need, as at Astley Church, Warwick-
shire, or an elaborate structure of two storeys, enriched with the
beautiful, traceried windows, niches with exquisite statues in them, a
sundial with motto, and furnished with a spiral stair and stone seats.
When we examine the interiors of the sacred edifices, and note their
graceful arcades ; their wide-spanned roofs, often supported by
angelic figures; their carven stalls and pulpits; their ancient fonts, with
their kneeling-stones; their brazen eagles, bearing the Book of Books
upon their extended wings ; their walls recessed with sedilia, piscinae,
aumbrys, and niches, or pierced with hagioscopes and lychnoscopes;
their floors, in which are laid brass effigies of the great and good
buried below, or great slabs inscribed with their names and lineage,
and the innumerable details of stained-glass, wood, metal, and stone,
we cannot fail to observe with reverential delight the lavishment of
variety in them all. In the matter of wealth of art-work, too, we
must look upon them as caskets containing some of the richest
jewels our forefathers have left us.

Some Old Churches. 205

The quest of this paTticular kind of information takes us into
many beautiful nooks and many diverse neighbourhoods ; for the
situation of our ancient churches is as varied as their form or
materials. Sometimes the founders chose the summit of a hilt,
apparently that the edrfice might be seen ; sometimes ihey chose a
low, secluded spot, as though the sacred building was to be hidden
from those likely to injure it. Here, as at Warkworth, they chose a
site where a river takes a sudden swerve, and almost encompasses it
with water, as by a wide moat ; or on a sloping hillside, visible to a
population scattered over a plain below ; or in a deep dell, difficult lo
find, as at Brenckburne: and there, again, they chose a spot in ihe
midst of a rich vale, or in a flat marsh, or on the coast, or on a cliff.
In some places, in our towns and larger villages, houses have now
hemmod ihem in ; in others, we see them as thost saw them who
marked out where the walls were lo be, and where the doors were
to come, and the windows to be placed, ere the workmen brought
their tools and commenced their tasks.

The materials employed in the construction differ according to
the locaUiies, In the mountainous Lake District — in Cumberland and
Westmoreland— there is a laminated stone used for buildings of a
warm, brownish-grey tint, deeper in lone than that used in the York-
shire vales and on the Yorkshire wolds. In Cheshire, and in some
of the adjoining counties, there are examples of timber-framed
churches, with limber-framed lowers, that are as indescribably vener-
able in their appearance as ihey are touchingly homely. In the
churches of the Eastern counties flint is used for the great masses of
wallings, with frameworks, or " dressings" only, of stone for the doors
d windows and angles ; and long familiarity with this " flinting "
s enabled local builders to Inlay the flints in patterns like mosaic-
»k, with a very exquisite effect. This diversity of materials affects
; general air of structures in which they are employed. The
tssive blocks of granite piled up by Cornishmen necessarily pro-
Ice a different effect to the minuter work of Kentish masons in rag-
or to that of Northumbrian masons in freestone, Neverthe-
ind it is worthy of note — there has always been a basis of
nity, both in treatment and construction, throughout the length
1 breadth of the land, through al! the centuries in which masons'
wk has been executed with tools ; and this basis of uniformity,
tspile difference of materials, has been subject to the same develop-
.1 in every place and at all times. The Normans built in the same
T in the north and in the south, in the east and in the west, in
latever material came to their hands. They made low, semicircular

2o6 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

curves to their doors and windows, and from pillar to pillar, and
pillar to respond, everywhere ; and when they wanted to enrich them,
they loaded them with ornament that was zigzag, or embattled, or
wa\7, or lozenged, or hatched ; or cumbered them with enrkb-
ments known as nail-head, beak-head, billet, cable, pellet, and nebule.
Their external walls they relieved with corbel-tabling, and thor
internal walls with interlacings of circular-arched mouldings that an
thought likely to have suggested the use of the Pointed arch to their
successors. In like manner, church-builders in the days of the PlaD-
tagenets worked in their own method all over the land, and pbced
narrow, lofty, pointed arches, and high-pitched roofs, and simple and
elegant ornaments in all their buildings. And builders of the four-
teenth century maintained a similar uniformity, and introduced their
geometrical tracery everywhere, and wider and lower-arched openings;
and they spread out the width of windows, and divided them widi
mullions, and filled the headings with trefoils and quatrefoils
arranged symmetrically into designs full of grace ; and placed ticis
of small, cuspcd arches on their walls, as well as rows of small niches
with statues in them. And then builders of the fifteenth cennuy
exceeded all who had gone before in one general fervour of archi-
tectural splendour. They spread out their vaulted ceilings till they
became vast, drooping surfaces of ornamentation ; they ornamented
their buttresses with open-work ; they thought of " flying buttresses';
their muUioncd windows they divided by transoms into several
stages ; they lavished enrichments, and with canopies, pinnade&
crockets, finials, niches, tabernacle -work, and statues, appealed to the
gorgeous taste of the day, in ever}^thing to which they put their
hands, from one end of the land to the other. We can almost see
the workmen at work upon this superbly- enriched masonry— old
men intending, ere their hands lost their cunning, their honest woik
should be an abiding testimony to them ; young men, who put their
best into everything from the first ; some with light words, full of the
news of the day— the discovery of the New World, the in\'asionai
France, or the Scottish losses at P'lodden ; some working silently,
with hearts full of thoughts of pretty damsels in farthingales and rufe
or, perhaps, of dear wives and little children ; stooping, lifiins^
carrying, hammering, sawing, smoothing, fitting, fixing, till the per-
fection we see was attained.

We have but few ancient churches handed down to us that hw«
never been altered. Most of those built by the Saxons were enlaiged
by the Normans, or, if left untouched by them, by the masons of tk
thirteenth century. The richer work of the Normans, in its ton^i'

Some Old Churches.

207

3 in succeeding centuries ; and, in the same way, later edifices

e improved as occasion required. In tliese old times it was not

d essential that unity of style of work should be maintained

roughout a building, and, when additions were desired, they were

ide in the manner of building that was in vogue at the time.

e we find many styles in one edifice. In some instances, when

le to pass that a little massy Norman church, consisting only

?e and chancel, did not aflord sufficient accommodation, one

^1 of the nave was taken down, a row of columns placed to sup-

tt the roof, and an aisle thrown out, with windows inserted of the

inner of fashioning then in vogue. Perhaps, a century later, when

e who presided at the first extension had departed to the

rcy of God, the accommodation was again found to be insufficient

" e increased number of worshippers, and the other wall of the

e was taken down, a row of columns placed on its site to uphold

f, and another aisle thrown out. This second extension was

e in the manner that had become the usual mode of building.

aice, in this case, all that remained of the original edifice would

e nave-space between these two aisles of different workmanship,

d the chancel. After a time the chancel may have been elongated

' taking down the east end of it, and setting it back ; the roof

iDcwed, and probably heightened ; a tower added ; and then, all

lat could be identified as part of the structure reared by its first

Dilders would be the low, richly-laden, semicircular chancel-arch,

fi the cushion -capped pillars on either side of it. Sometimes an

I church is associated still more closely with every century of

\i historj', alterations having been made more frequently, and

miinueddowntoourown time. In these instances, besides medieval

:, we find specimens of classic features that the revival of Classic

^itecture introduced in the days of the Stuarts, " Queen Anne "

, and Georgian additions. Occasionally, and unfortunately,

nt fabrics have been rebuilt in the early part of this century

h but scant regard for the work of the old masons, as in the case

tnxton Church, close to Flodden Field, which has only ihe

incel-arch left of the building that was in sight of the combatants

; great fight when "the flowers o' the forest were a' wede

' Brixworth Church, in Northamptonshire, is another instance

which many alterations have been made, for those who understand

e language of the stones can see this church was built by Saxon

uoos ; that Norman masons supplemented their work ; that, two

1 years afterwards, the tower was heightened, and a spire

i oa it ; and that masons roust have been at work in the edifice,

:cc^

Tw GzMsS^maMs Magazine.

xi iirimis :jc i^jiecizc 2ct years apart, for centuries. Rock
Cturrh. j: N:ri:i2rrera=ii niay be also dted as among the count-
Iiss Ilu^cnrocs :c ±e sa-re accession of alterations. This was
crcniJ*.- i sr.i- \ rrsan iiJrrlc, reverently reared on rising ground
1 XMT :n.Ies r-^ci ±e sci-ojasc Frcm end to end it barely exceeded
f rr^- Skc j: leccti* ▼^:cri area, was diTided into nave and chancel.
7!:e vrrcj^rs weri "rcr i iz^KrVIength in breadth, the western
Cv.vmv so-irceiy ::icri ±an ±ree feet across the opening. Though
scia!'. a::c dirs. x was icr^r^ and a safe resort in time of trouble.
I:: :7v: :7_-rie2± cennrv, ^t Early English period, some of the
wj:cc v>? 'V'^re irJ.:rri-i jt-ij "uncecs^ And then the litde edifice
tfrrviu-^. w.:> wiui: T-cissinces we kzow cot, till the present century,
w-'ivrr: : '0 c>a::-il w-.i< lc=c:he=ec. w.ui a senudrcular apse, and a
scl'jl'I \*^<cr.- r^rjwt ^-c: : arvL fraZy. rfie north wall was taken
v:o^-\ a-o s:: >.udu sc'ce rVr scjce, as it stood, and a north aisle
accv^v*.

A: : •:re? cu^^-cis oazie i=ro tccsc tha: affected the structural
arrar^tr::xr::^ cc :>e5%; ^^l:cs^ In ±e ±ineen:h century many chanceb
were \'r^:hvrr:cv\ as -* scce cerarrjre in the manner of the services
caVvvI vr aosi::vp-aI srice. Anocher ctistom, the exact nature of
nh:c>. Sa> Sxr. r>:rcccti!::^ caused the insertion of low side windows
m char.vx*'s jX^'Crx^'v cr. :>e socrh sfce, though occasionally on the
rort*r*. !'>>*><• c;.xr.-.-.c? ^"^ crr^n rc-nc :o have been blocked up in
$v^:r.c vVs* : irc. Jt> :>v:c^h t:-.^.? use was cv5^:^;^Ji•:2ued, at an early date
ar":cr :>c:: r-'s.r: -,'::. :-, ^^^rcrj.! accvrrdance, ^rhaps, with an order
n^avic to :>a: >: r'vv:. T>.^>v' i:^ n* -ch ~ ."re numerous in some parts of
the vv;:::::v :>ar. n oc>.<:r?. M-r.v ccr.;ec:ures have been made as to
their j^urx^sj. FvT a Icr;: ::r.:* they w^re ccnsidered leper- windows ;
then a !v/.o:* :hcy were exter:.: cj'nfsissicr-ils gained credence. It
has alsv^ Ixvn su jested they were o5enory- windows ; openings
lor the vvnwn.er.v^.* c: w-^ro h:r.^ the Paschil hghrs ; and symbols of
the woiir.vl nuvto :r. the side c:" cur Lord. But it is now considered
prv^lwMe t!\at they were ir^sertec for the purpose of ringing the
sanvtus IvI!, that tho^e w.thia hearing might know the precise
moment ot the su-^rer.:e ceremony. Hagioscopes are also of no
further use ; and sevi:!:a, rrscinx. and aumbrys arc relics of arrange-
ments that ha%e been crsccntinued. The building of crypts, too,
seems to have been abandoned some centuries ago, though apparently
deemed an essential substructure, in Saxon and Norman times, to
edifices of any consequence ; as witness the Saxon crypts in Hexham
Abbey Church, Ripon Cathedral, and Ripon Church ; and the grand
Norman crypu below the cathedrals at Winchester, Rodiestcr,

Sonie Old Churches. 209

Gloucester, Worcester, and Canterburj-. On the borders of both
Scotland and Wales, before those countries were ruled by an English
monarch, some churches were provided wilh beacon- turrets, that ibe
residents in their neighbourhood might apprise the inhabitants of the
adjacent distiJcts of danger by means of a great, daring light ; which
beacon -turrets, also, have now no special use.

Minor details have been also affected by passing customs. When
sermons contained the chief leaching of the week, and to some extent
the chief news, or appeals suggested by the force of current events,
preachers required some reminder of the progress of time, and most
pulpits were furnished with hour-glasses, many of which are still in
their old places. Dedication ceremonies have also left their mark
in some edifices in the form of dedication stones inscribed with the
dale and other particulars of their erection, as at Jarrow, and Clee in
Lincolnshire ; and, in rare instances, smalt crosses, twelve in number,
may be seen incised near the entrance, generally on the outside, as al
Moorlinch, Somerset. Akin to this kind of record are the numerous
inscriptions to be noticed in various parts of these ancient buildings,
setting forth the names of donors and benefactors, supplemented,
often, with a pious exhortation or exclamation.

We may notice differences in the orientation, for all churches
have not been built pointing to the true East. It is thought the
deviation has been made, in some instances, to admit of the east end
pointing to that place on the horizon at which the sun rises on the
day of the feast of the patron saint of the ediiice ; but we have to
discard this suggestion on ascertaining that churches dedicated to the
same saint do not observe the same deviation. More frequently
chancels incline in a slightly different direction to the nave ; which
fact has been accounted for in a supposition that the masons meant
lo represent the declination of the head of our Saviour on the cross.
As we know thai similar divergences have been made compulsory
in our own time by the necessity of not disturbing remains buried in
certain places, we may conclude that some such controlling influences
were sometimes brought to bear in olden days, likewise, and that
some of the deviations we have noticed are the results of them.

Church-floors present many interesting details. In York Cathe-
dral, on the pavement, there used to be certain stones that marked
the places where the leading personages were to stand in ceremonials.
Id Westminster Abbey there used to hea straight line of small stones
in the middle of the paved floors, to enable processions to keep in
e centre of the ambulatories, portions of which may still be traced.
D Rochester Cathedral there are fragments Qf herring-bone tiling of

2IO The Gentleman's Magazine.

great antiquity. And in most ancient churches will be found personal
memorials, that are as so many items in the history of our fore£Eitbers.
We have, for instance, about two thousand flat brass effigies in our
old church-floors, and a much larger number of sculptured and incised
stone slabs.

Church-walls are also sometimes embellished with objects of
general interest, apart from their architectural features. There are
the black boards, usually in black frames, that set forth in gilded
letters the admirable and pathetic charities of those who loved their
fellow-men in former days ; pale tablets with the Ten Commandments
illuminated upon them ; escutcheons, " according to the law and
due practice of arms," recording the passing away of those entitled to
heraldic distinctions ; flags tattered in honourable service, stirless
and mouldering ; armour, perhaps dinted and dusty, but full of
stirring appeal ; more rarely still, garlands fluttering gently to and fro ;
and occasionally faded fragments of frescoes, as at Abbey Dore and
at St Cross.

In some parts of the country ancient churchyards are entered by
lych-gates, or covered ways somewhat resembling detached porches.
These gates, besides aflbrding very convenient shelter for mourners
and others, add as much to the picturesque appearance of the
graveyard as the interesting preaching-crosses that are also sometimes
seen in them. In Devonshire and Wales are many examples; in
other parts of the country they are not so numerous. Some of them
present their slant-faced roofs to the front, and some of them their
pointed gables ; some are covered with tiles, others with slates ; and
all are enriched with the velvety mosses and lichens that are Dame
Nature's largess. Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and Cornwall are
rich in the possession of many flne, hoary preaching-crosses, whereof
time has toned down the tints and softened the angularities with
silent gentleness.

The more closely we regard our old churches, the more we are
impressed with the hearty piety of our forefathers, and with their
self-denial, generosity, thoroughness, and genuineness. They seem
to have " scamped " nothing, from the dim, low, massy crypt, to the
proud spire, or to the vane that veered in a socket on the top of it ;
and to have systematically given the best of their means, skill, and
labour to these works. We can only consider them collectively with
marvel. And, the more closely we regard them, the more we are
impressed with a conviction that an examination of them affords one
of the most enchanting of recreations, open to alL

SARAH WILSON.

POOR PEOPLE.

NIGHT — and how poor the cabin — poor and small.
Deep fall the shadows on ihc squalid room,
Yet there is something luminous in the gloom.
The fishing nets are hung against the wall ;
In farthest comer you may vaguely see
The housewife's humble store of crockery —
The big old bedstead curtain' d to the ground —

attress near, wliere in repose profound
Five children lie~a nest of souls— and there,
Beside the pillow bent in silent prayer,
A woman kneels, whilst outside menacingly
Sinister Ocean sobs.

Far out at sea
The sailor trawls for fish, and rude the fight
That he has waged with chance from infancy.
Or (air or foul — he heeds not — he must go
Whether the billows rage or wild winds blow,
For the poor babes are hungry ; through the niglit
He drives his firagile bark — like serpents round
The green waves curl — the gulf yawns black, profound.
He thinks of Jeannie on the waters grim.
And in their httle cot she prays for him ;
Each back to each their tender fancies spring.
Crossing in space like birds upon the wing.

She prays : the seagull's hoarse and mocking cry
And waves upon the shore dashed furiously
Affright her : thoughts of horror fill her mind —

The sea — the sailors Haik ! that frantic wind I

And in its case, like pulses in a vein.
The old dock ticks, whilst round and round again
Time brings, as summers and as winters come,
For some the cradle and for some the tomb.

212 The Gentleman s Magazine.

She prays — she weeps. Such hard times ! poverty,
The little children barefoot — and they cry
Sometimes for food. Then she grows sadder stilL
He is out there alone ; wild dreams of ill
Pursue her, and she starts with infinite fear !
Out there— alone ! alone ! no succour near,
Beneath that winding-sheet of darkness — night
Without a star — without a gleam of light !
The children are too young — he is alone ! —
O Mother ! and when they are grown, and gone
To share the fury of that pitiless main,
Will you not cry, " Would they were young again ! "

She takes her cloak and lantern : 'tis the hour

He might be coming home, and she will see

If the day dawns — if at the signal tower

The light burns— if it blows less furiously.

No — not a breath of morning yet — no sign

Of life at chink or window : but a door

Shakes in the wind ; a hovel mean and poor

Stands on her way. The roof is tottering.

And tufts of thatch and mosses writhe and swing.

She stops — she listens : — not a sound : she calls —

Silence : her voice alone on darkness falls.

She knocks, and then, as if e'en lifeless things

At times take pity, the door backward swings.

She enters — on the floor a woman lies —

A corpse — the spectre of dead miseries.

All that remains, the last sad battle o'er !

Two children lie asleep upon the floor

Under her gown which she had striven to fold

To keep them warm whilst she was growing cold.

How peacefully they sleep ! as if no sound

Could break the orphans' slumber, soft, profound ;

Not even were earth and sky together rent

They fear no judgment, being innocent.

And the rain falls — slow drops each other chase

Through the torn roof, upon that white dead face

Falling like tears, as if the senseless clay

Wept for the angel that had passed away.

But what h^ Jeannie done beside the dead ?

Poor People. 213

Under her cloak what does she bear away ?
Why does she fly along with hasty tread ?
Why beats her heart so fast?

A gleam of day
As she returns is stealing o'er the sky.
She gains her home and sits down tremblingly —
So pale I Is it remorse ? What does she dread ?
What has she stolen /

Through the opening door
At last the rays of early morning pour.
The sailor on the threshold smiling stands
Trailing his dripping nets — and Jeannie's hands
Are round his neck !

" Bad luck, wife ! for the sea
Was thievish and I bring you nothing back !
Ugh ! what a night ! The wind raged furiously
As if the devil's self were on the track —
But this kiss pays for all ! And you — and you —
What have you done the while ? "

Then Jeannie grew
Troubled and white.

" Me ? nothing — sew'd and prayed —
And listened to the sea — I was afraid ! "
She trembled like a culprit.

" In the shed —
Down there our neighbour lies — poor woman — dead !
Two little children there beside her slept—
No food, no shelter ! "

And then Jeannie wept
The man looked very grave : he turned and said,
Flinging his cap down —

" That poor woman dead !
Five children of our own — and then two more !
That's seven ! — hard times ! and hunger at the door !
No fire upon the hearth ! — the cupboard bare !
Well, 'tis no fault of mine ; 'tis God's affair —
Why take the mother from these bits of things ?
Tis far beyond our poor imaginings —
Perhaps the scholars know ! They'll wake to-day —
Be frightened— hungry-— and we cannot say.

214

The Gentletnan's Magazine.

' Go work,^ So fetch them, wife ! Think at our door
'Tis the poor mother knocks — and open wide !
Go — take them in, whatever ill betide,
And then at eve they'll play upon the floor
With our own five, and climb upon our knees —
So when the good God up in Heaven sees
That in our home there is the greater need
Now there are two more little mouths to feed.

Hell make me catch more fish

Go now — tis said !
But what ? You're vexed ? You're most times livelier ! "

She drew aside the curtains of the bed,
And whispered through her tears,

" See where they are."

C. E. MKKTKERKE.

{After VicToa Hcoa)

In

^0 Mr. Justin Hunlly McCarthy the lover of poetry is indebted
for a full and correct rendering of the " Rubaiyat "' of Omar
Khayj-ain. In a volume attradive in all typographical respects, and
likely, since it is printed throughout in capitals, to rank as a biblio-
graphical curiosity, Mr. McCarthy has given us a prose translation
of the great Persian astronomer and poet. A veritable labour of
love and worship is the work, since in order to accomplish his task
Mr, McCarthy has been compelled to master Persian. So loyal ser-
vice deserves acknowledgment, and Mr. McOirthy's reward will be
paid him in the gratitude of his readers. All but unknown a
generation ago, Omar Khayyam is now to thousands a religion. I
have sometimes held that had Shelley known these verses he would
for 3 moment only have hesitated over the supreme stanza in the
ode '■ To a Skylark " —
f I have never heard

k Praise □( lovE □[ wine

^P That panted foith a flooJ of lapluic sn divine.

One may now sec the poet as he was; a rhapsodist in praise of

woman, wine, and roses, a fatalist in most things else, hopeless in

view as Schopenhauer, formidable in arraignment as Mr, Swinburne.

" In the face of the decrees of Providence nothing succeeds save

resignation ; among men nothing succeeds save counterfeit and

hypocrisy." So holds our poet. "Since it is certain that one must

needs go hence, what is the use of being ? " So runs his speculation.

This world," he continues, " is but a hair's-breadth in our wretched

.■:•: ; the soul but the faint trace of our blended tears and blood.

Mcll b but a shadow of the vain toils we take upon ourselves.

Paradise ts but the moment's rest we sometimes taste." Drink

wine, then, and court "on roses in some flowery cave" — to use

peon's translation of I lorace^the woman you love. And then, once

, " If yon have drunk wine faithfully all the week, do not hold

I David Null.

5i6 The Gcntleinafis Magazine.

your hand on the Sabbath, for by our holy faith there is no
difference between that day and another. Be thou the worshipper of
the All High, and not a worshipper of the days of the week.** These
few extracts are intended only to show how Mr. McCarthy lu5
executed his task. Of the wealth of the divine old poet they give as
much idea as a glass of water will of the tarn from which it is
taken.

Mr. Fitzgerald's Translation of the Rubaiyat.

OF the curious fortune that attended Fitzgerald's translation, Mr.
McCarthy in his preface has much to say. He tells how the book
published by Mr.Quaritch at five shillings, and destined subsequentlj
to enchant and passionise Rossetti, Swinburne, Th^ophile Gautier,
and I know not how many others, went down in price shilling w
shilling, and at last was sold off at a penny a copy. How many
hundred pence a copy of the same edition would now bring in the
auction-room he leaves to conjecture. One thing a comparisoo
between the prose version and that of Fitzgerald at least reveals,^
that the translator is almost as unmistakably a poet as the origiiul-
I will quote three stanzas, two concerning the game of chess whid
Heaven plays with our souls, the third a note of prayer and ternijk

arraignment.

Wc arc no other than a moving row

Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go

Round with this sun-illumin'd Lantern, held

In midnight by the Master of the Show :

Impotent pieces of the Game He plays

Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days,

Hither and tliither moves, and checks, and slays.
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

I wish I might quote the four magnificent stanzas of whidi tk
following is the last :

Oh Thou, who Man of baser Earth did make.
And ev'n wiili Paradise devise the snake :

For aU the Sin wherewith the face of Man
Is blacken'd— Man's Forgiveness give — and take.

The last stanza I heard one of the ablest and most distinguii''
of literary men and editors declare unequalled in modem woit ^
some readers Omar Khayyam is familiar. These even wiB '
grudj^e the quotation of a few stanzas. Let them find onti eiff
a literary circle, how many men there are to whom hii ^
signifies little, and how many have not heard of him at alL

SYLVi

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

September 1890.

FOUND I

By Fred. M. White.

I

IT was getting late : the last omnibus had gone, and the few
remaining pedestrians in the Euston Road were hurrying
liomeward, anxious to leave that dismal thoroughfare behind. The
^f^lbotsteps, gradually growing fainter, seemed to leave a greater deso-
btion, though one man at least appeared to be in no hurry as he
•!. strode lisdessly along, as if space and time were of one accord to
t him. A tall, powerful figure, with bronzed features and a long
HhHhrown beard, betrayed the traveller ; and, in spite of the moody
\ expression of face, there was a kindly gleam in the keen grey eyes —
jL the air of one who, though he would have been a determined enemy,
I would doubtless have proved an equally staunch friend.
^ A neighbouring clock struck twelve, and Lancelot Graham
f increased his pace ; anything was better than the depressing gloom
NOf this dismal thoroughfare, with its appearance of decayed gentility
'^nd desolate grimy pretentiousness. But at this moment a smart
liull at the pedestrian's coat-tails caused him to turn round sharply,
^j|rith all hb thoughts upon pickpockets bent But what he saw was
1^ the figure of a child barring his path, as if intent upon obstructing

r further progress.
** Fse lost," said the little one simply ; " will you please find me.*
Graham bent down, so that his face was on a level with the tiny
aker. They were immediately beneath a gas-lamp, and the
mished man, as he gazed carefully at the child, found her regard-
him with eyes of preternatural size and gravity. There was not
particle of fear in the small face^ in '^

11. €ffI.TIX, wx «•»•

fev:

2iS The Gtnilemans Magazine.

hiir— rorhirrg be: the cslzn resoicte commaiid of ooe vho issues
orders 2*>i expects them to be obered : a child quaintly* but none the
less h^TMfsosiely dressed, aod eridentiT well cared for and nourished

Graham -^xIj^ his beazd in some perplexity, and looked round
with a £iint antidpaiioo of finding a pottreman, like most big
men, he had a warm comer in his heart for children, and there was
something in the tiny mite s impcrioosness which attracted him
straczelv.

^ And whose httle girl are yoo ?** he asked, gravely.

^ Tse mamma's, and I*se lost, and please will you find me"

" But I have found ytxi, my dear," Graham responded helplessly,
but not without an inward laugh at the childish logic.

^ Yes, but you haven't found me proply. I want to be foimd nice,
and taked home to mamma, because I'se so dreffiy hungry."

The ingenuous speaker was without doubt the child of a refined
mother, as her accent and general air betrayed. It was a nice quan-
dary, nevotheless, for a single man, said Lance Graham to himself,
considering the hour and the fact of being a prisoner in the hands of
an imperious young lady, who not only insisted upon being found,
but made a point of that desirable consummation being conducted
in an orthodox maimer.

" Well,>ire will see what we can do for you," said Graham, be-
coming interested as well as amused. ** But you must tell me where
you live, little one."

She looked at him with quiet scorn, as if such a question from a
man was altogether illogical and absurd. But, out of consideration
for such lamentable ignorance, the child vouchsafed the desired
information.

" Why " — with widely-open blue eyes — " I live with mamma ! "

" This is awful," groaned the questioner. " And where does
mamma live ? "

" Why, she lives with me ; we both live together."

Graham leaned against the lamp-post and laughed outright To
a lonely man in London — and Alexander Selkirk in his solitude was
no more excluded from his fellows than a stranger in town — the
strange conversation was at once pleasant and piquant. W^hen he
recovered himself a little, he asked with becoming and respectful
gravity for a little information concerning the joint-author of the
little blue-eyed maiden's being.

" He's runned away," she replied with a little extra solemnity.
** He runned away just before I became a little girl."

Lance became conscious of approaching symptoms of another fit

«

Found ! 219

of laughter, only something in the fearless violet eyes checked the
rising mirth.

He must have been a very bad man, then," he observed.
He runned away," repeated the child, regarding her new-found
friend with reproachful gravity, " and mamma loves him, she does."

" And do you love him too, little one ? "

" Yes, I love him too. And when I say my prayers I say, * Please
God, bless dear runaway papa, and bring him home again, for Jesus*
sake, amen.' "

Graham, hard cynical man of the world as he was, did not laugh
again.

A man must be far gone, indeed, if such simple earnestness and
touching belief as this cannot move him to the core. All the warmth
and love in his battered heart went out to the child in a moment

" I do not know what to do with you," he observed. " I do not
know who your mamma is, but I must look after you, young lady."

" I'se not a young lady ; I'se Nelly. Take me home to mamma.*'

" But I don't know where she is," said Graham forlornly.

"Then take me home to your mamma."

" Confiding," said Graham, laughing again, " not to say com-
placent, only unfortunately I don't happen to have one."

" I dess you're too big," said Nelly, with a little nod, and then, as
if the whole matter was comfortably settled, " Carry me."

" Suppose I take you home with me ? " Graham observed, having
quickly abandoned the idea of proceeding to the nearest police-
station, " and then we can look for mamma in the morning. I think
you had better come with me," he added, raising the light burden in
his arms.

" All right," Nelly replied, clasping him lovingly round the neck,
and laying her smooth cheek comfortably against his bronzed face.
** I fink that will be very nice. Then you can come and see mamma
in the morning, and perhaps she will let you be my new papa."

" What about the other one ? " asked Graham.

"Oh, then I can have two," replied the little lady, by no means
;;■ abashed ; " we can play at horses together. Where do you live ? "

The speaker put this latter question with great abruptness, as
^ children will when they speak of matters quite foreign to the subject
^'-flnder discussion.

" Not very far from here," Lance replied meekly.

" I'se so glad. I'se dreffly hungry. And I like milk for supper."

Mr. Graham smiled at this broad hint, and dutifully promised
«t the desired refreshment should be forthcoming at any cost

220

The Gentlematis Magazine.

The walk, enlivened by quaint questions and scraps of cbildiili
philosophy, proved to be a short one, and, indeed, from Eustos
Road to Upper Bedford Place can scarcely be called a long joumev.
So Graham carried his tiny acquaintance to his room, and installed
her in state before the fire, bidding her remain there quietly while he
retired to consult his landlady upon the important question of supper.

Little Nelly's remark was not beside the mark, when she confessed
to the alarming, extent of her appetite, for the bread and milk dis-
appeared with considerable celerity, nor did the imperturbable youn?
lady disdain a plate of biscuits suggested by Graham as a foUower.
Once the novelty of the situation had worn off, he began to enjoy ihf
pleasant sensation, and to note with something deeper than pleasure
his visitor's sage remarks and noticeable absence of anything like
shyness. When she had concluded her repast, she climbed upon his
knee in great content.

" Tell me a tale," she commanded ; " a nice one."

" Yes, my darling, certainly,** Graham replied, feeling as if ^^
would have attempted to stand on his head, if she had called l«y
that form of entertainment. " What shall I tell you about ? "

" Bears. The very, very long one about the three bears."

" I am afraid I can't remember that," Lance returned meelth.
" You see, my education has been neglected. If it had been ti?KS
now "

"Well," said the imperious Nelly, with a sigh of resignation, nc
perhaps a little in deprecation of such deplorable ignorance, "1
dess the bears will have to wait. Only it must be about a vS
tiger."

Graham, obedient to this request, proceeded to relate a persona
adventure in the simplest language at his command. That he shoJ
be so doing did not appear to be the least ludicrous. As if he hsi
been a family man, and the child his own, he told the thrilling story.

" I like tales," said Nelly, when at length the thrilling ruific*
concluded. " Did you ever see a real lion ? "

" Often. And now, isn't it time little girls were in bed?"

" But I don't want to go to bed. And I never go till Tse sal
my prayers."

"Well, say them now, then."

"When I'se a bit gooder. Tse got a naughty think insidea"
When the naughty think's gone, then Fll say my prayers."

"But I want to go to bed myself."

"You can't go till I'se gone," Nelly returned conctafic
" Tell me all about lions."

Found! 221

" Don't know anything about lions."
" Then take me home to mamma."

" My dear child," said Graham, with a gravity he was far from
feeling, "can't you understand that you must wait till morning.
They have made you a nice bed, and it's very late for little girls to
be-up."

" Let me see it. Carry me."

The imperious tones were growing very drowsy. When at length
Graham's rubicund, good-natured landlady called him into the room,
he stopped in the doorway in silent admiration of perhaps the
prettiest picture he had ever seen. With her face fresh and rosy,
lier fair golden haiV twisted round her head, she stood upon the bed
and held out a pair of arms invitingly.

"What, not asleep yet?" he asked, "and nearly morning, too."
The old look of reproach crept into the child's sleepy eyes. " Not
till I have said my prayers. Take me on your lap while I say
\ them."

Graham placed the little one on his knee, listening reverently to
the broken medley of words uttered with the deepest solemnity. Yet
every word was distinctly uttered, even to the plea for the absent
\, jbther, till the listener found himself wondering what kind of man
|i.. this recalcitrant parent might be. Presendy Nelly concluded. "And
p, God bless you," she exclaimed lovingly, accompanying her words
g^ with a kiss. " And now I will go to sleep."

% When Graham woke next morning he did so with a violent pain at
his chest, and a general feeling that his beard was being forcibly torn
firom his chin. It was early yet, but his tiny visitor was abroad.
She had established herself upon the bed, where she was engaged in
some juvenile amusement, in which the victim's long beard apparently
played an important part in the programme. As he opened his eyes
the child laughed merrily. " Don't move," she exclaimed peremp-
torily; "I'se playing horses. You*se the horse, and these is the
[: feins," and giving utterance to these words, she gave a sharp pull at
liis cherished hirsute appendage, and recommenced her recreation
vigorously.

'A man may be passionately fond of children, but when it comes to

healthy child lying upon his chest, and a pair of lusty little arms

gging at a sensitive portion of his anatomy, the time has arrived

len a little admonition becomes almost necessary.

" Nelly, you are hurting me," Graham cried sharply.

3he looked in his face a moment, apparently seeking to know if

• /itiai tnpgriinflr as childi*" '^ftfr'tncs do. Then.

22 2 The Gentloitans Magazine.

deciding that he spoke the truth, there came an afTectionate reaction
in his favour.

" Poor, poor!" she said soothingly, rubbing her cheek against his.
" Nelly is a naughty girl, and I'se so sorry."

" You are a good little girl to say you are sorry."

"Give me some sweeties then," Nelly answered promptly.
" Whenever I tell mamma I'se sorry she says * good little girl,' aud
gives me sweeties."

" Presently, perhaps. And now run away while I dress."

Obedient to this request, the child kissed him again, and after
one regretful glance at the beard, and a sigh for the vanished
equestrian exercise, jumped from the bed and disappeared. Grahim
was not, however, destined to be left long in peace over his toilei,
which was not more than half completed when Nelly returned again,
and senting herself in a chair, watched gravely every movement \i
this deeply interesting ceremony.

" Isn't you going to shave ? " she asked reproachfully, as Graham
with a smile indicated that his labour was complete.

" I never shave," he answered. " What would you have to play
horses with if I did ? "

This practical logic seemed to confound Miss Nelly for a momeiC
but with the pertinacity worthy of a better cause she replied :

" All gentlemans shave. There is one in our house, and I go to
him every morning. I like to see him scrape the white stuff off—
I'se drejgiiy hungry."

But by this time Graham had grown quite accustomed to these
startling changes in the flow of Miss Nelly's eloquence, though he
could not fail to admit the practical drift of the condiufisg
observation.

" Nelly," he asked seriously, when the healthy api>etite had bea
fully appeased. " Let us go to business. Now, what is nununis
name ? "

" Nelly, too," the child replied. " Pass the bread and buttt
please."

" And you do not know where you live ? "

" No. But it isn't far from the stason, where the trains are. '
can hear them all day when mamma is out."

" Not a particularly good clue in a place like London,"* reflecv
the questioner. " What is mamma like ? " he asked. "Whit dor
she do ? "

''She is very beautiful, beautifuUer than me, ever so^*
answered reverently. ''And she goes out at night—'

Found! 223

id once she look ma There were a lot of people, whole crowds

ihem, and when mamma came in her beautiful dress they all
:med very glad to see her, I ihought."

Evidently an actress, Graham determined — and some clue, though
ill a very faint one. Stiil, by the time breakfast was concluded, he
id matured his plan of action. He liailed a passing cah, and drove
ray with the intention in the first place of visiting the nearest police-
ation in the neighbourhood of the Euston Road, as the most likely
ace to glean the information of which he was in search.

" Are we going back to mamma ? " Nelly asked as they dro*-e away.

"Yes, darling, if we can find her," (Iraham replied gravely. He
jgan to comprehend how much the involuntary little guest would
! missed. " She must have been terribly anxious about you."

"She will cry then," Nelly observed reflectively. "She often
ies at night when I am in bed, and says such funny things. Did
lur mamma cry when she put you to bed ? "

" I can't remember," said Graham carelessly. " I dare say she
id, I used to be very naughty at times."

" But big people can't be naughty — only little boys and girls ;
lamma says so, and she is always right."

" I hope so. AVhat will she say to her naughty little girl ? "

" I know," came the confident reply : " she will look at me as if
e is going to beat me, then she will cry, like she does when I ask
■out papa."

But any further confidences were checked by the arrival of the
b at the police-station. The interview was not however entirely
tisfactory. A stern -loo king but kindly guardian of the peace, reply-
g to Graham's questions, vouclisafed the information that no less than
■e people had visited the station during the previous night in search
lost children. It was a common occurrence enough, though usually
e children were speedily found. In his perplexity Graham sug-
sted that if the oflicer saw Miss Nelly he might perchance be able
give some information ; in answer to which the constable shook
i head doubtfully. Directly he saw the child his stolid face
ightened.

Bless rae, of course I know her ! " he exclaimed. " My wife keeps
lodging-house, and this young lady's mother lives in the same
:eL 1 can give you the address if you like, sir, or I will take
Brge of her,"

Graham demurred to this proposal for two reasons : first, because

felt a strange reluctance in parting with his tiny friend ; and,
undly, he lelt some curiosity to see the mother.

^14

71

IE

attBittr X X jBBssa.

^'^^'"^ ic be
or jjiffiffii.'mg

ffce ndfjnmctkm tkat §be wta io, ax^ied wast x siae ■fuataet oo

XeCj fjjotjaum^ the dire titfi^Tigrare

Mn. Gray vat not yet dom, Gsabaai

feiy bte the i^remof oigbt m seardiof

mrtutkmy Giaiiam ioOoved the cSsakj

flam leading to Mfk Ctajr^s rooiii,aiidsat ImBstifdTv^ittieac^ to

airait her comtog.

He had ample time to note the owunun bard firniuire, the
nei^er-iailing neatsaltinted BrusKb caqxs, aad cbe ^nt-Ioakii^
^(iaMf tenned by coaitesy a mirror, orer a maotri deoocated with
tboie impOMiUe blue thepherdesses, wnhoat whkh zk> Loodon
lodging' boufe if complete. Some wax flowexs mider a giaas-case and
a (ierw f^ay-bills scattered about completed the adormnent of an
a(iartment calculated to engender saiddal feehngs in the refined
ipectator, Graham had time to take in aH this; and a: the moment
when man'f natural im[jatience began to assert itself^ a rustle of
drapery was heard, and Mrs. Gray entered.

iShe was tall and fair, in age apparently not more than fireand-
twenty years, with a fine open face, its natural sweetness chastened
by the presence of some [x>ignant sorrow. As she saw the child, a
bright smile illuminated every feature, and she snatched Miss Nelly
to her arms, covering her with kisses ; indeed, so absorbed was she
in this occupation that she failed to note Graham's presence until
Nelly pointed in his direction. Then, and not till then, she looked
up to him, her eyes filled with tears. His back being to the light, his
features were to be seen but indistinctly.

** I have to thank you deeply," she said, and her voice was very
pleasant to the listener. " Vou will pardon a mother's selfishness.
All night "

Graham, at first half-dazed, like a man in a dream, came quickly
forward, and with one bound stood by the speaker's side. He had
turned towards the light. She could distinguish every feature
now.

Nelly I "

Found! 22C

« Lance ! "

For a few moments they stood in a kind of dazed fascination, the
eyes of each fell upon each other's face. But gradually the dramatic
instinct inherent in woman, and carefully trained in her instance,
came to Mrs. Gray's assistance. With a little gesture of scorn, she
drew her skirts a little closer round her, and as her coldness increased
to did Graham's agitation.

"Well, what have you to say to me?" she asked, with quiet scorn.
" Have you any excuse to offer after all these years ? What ! no
words, no apology even, for the woman you have wronged so
cruelly?"

" I did not wrong you — not intentionally, at least," said Graham,
with an effort. " No, there has been no forgetfulness ; my memory
is as long as yours. It seems only yesterday that I returned from
Paris to find my home empty, and proofs, strong as Holy Writ, of your
flight"

"And you believed? You actually believed that I Shall

I condescend to explain to you how I received a letter to say
jfou were lying there at the point of death, and that I, in honour
bound, came to you=— only to find that a scoundrel had deceived us
' both."

" But I wrote no letter. I "

" I know you did not— all too late. I know that I was lured

to Paris by a vile schemer who called himself your friend. And

when I returned, what did I find ? That you had gone, never giving

me a chance to clear myself. Deceived once, you must needs

fancy deceit everywhere."

I " But I was ruined," cried Graham. " That scoundrel Leslie had

L disposed of every penny of our partnership money. I must have

\ bcisn mad. I followed him, but we never met till last May ; out in

^ California that was. He was dying when I found him ; and before

;• he died he told me everything. Nelly, I only did what any

i other man would have done. Put yourself in my place, and say how

[ you would have acted."

\ "How would I have acted?" came \

E: would have trusted a little. Do you think, :

And shown me those proofs, I would have be'

" Helen, listen to me one moment. I i

espair and jealousy, or perhaps I might

rget the past and its trials, and be again as

ong, and bitterly have I atoned for my bai p

226 The Gentleman s Magazine.

" You arc rich ! Who cares for your riches ? " Helen Graham
answered passionately, conscious that his words had moved her
deeply. " What is wealth when there is no love, or which has been
killed by doubt? There would always be something between us,
some intangible "

" My dear wife, for the sake of the little one ^*' Graham had

touched upon a sympathetic chord, and he continued, " It was no
mere coincidence which led me to find her last night Nelly, never
at any time during the last four miserable years have I forgotten you.
By hard work I have found my lost fortune, but I have not found
forgetfulness,"

He pointed to the wondering child, who stood regarding the
speakers with eyes of deep intense astonishment. The tears rose
unbidden to the mother's eyes, but she dashed them passionately
away.

" Do you think I have never suffered," she cried, " all this time,
with a taint upon me, and the hard struggle I have had to live ? As
you stand there now you doubt my innocence."

" As Heaven is my witness, no ! " Graham answered brokenly.
" I am no longer blind."

" I thank you for those words. Lance," came the reply with a
certain soft cadence. " I know you loved me once."

" And I do now. I have never ceased to love you."

" Do not interrupt me for a moment. For the sake of your
kindness to my child I forgive you. Friends we may be, but nothing
more. She is your child as well as mine. I cannot hinder you from
seeing her, for the law gives you that power, I know."

" The law! " Lance returned bitterly ; " things are come to a fine
pass when husband and wife, one in God's sight, can calmly discuss
the narrow laws of man's making. In this little while the child has
twined herself round my heart more than I dare confess. I cannot
come to you as a friend, you know I cannot. I will not take the little
one away from you, and there is no middle course for me to adopt."

There was another and more painful silence than the last. All
the dramatic scorn had melted from the injured wife's heart, and left
nothing but a warm womanly feeling behind. Strive as she would,
there was something magnetic in Graham's pleading tones, conjuring
up a flood of happy memories from the forgotten past. Graham,
throwing all pride to the winds and perfect in his self-abasement,
^ooke at length, speaking with a quiet tender earnestness, infinitely

'C dangerous than any wild exhortation could be.

•^«m have the truth," said he ; "I am alone in the

Found! 227

world, nay more, Tor I am beginning to realise what I have lost If
you will look me in the face and tell me that all the old love is dead,
I will go away and trouble you no more."

" But as a friend, Lance. Surely if I might "

Graham beckoned the little Nelly to his side and took her on
his knee. " Little sweetheart," he asked, " tell me all you told me
last night about your wicked runaway father. AVho taught you to
say 'God bless dear papa and send him home again,' as you said to
me last night P "

" Mamma," said Nelly confidentially, " and she says so too."
Graham looked up with a smile. There were tears in his wife's
eyes beyond the power of control, and a broken smile upon her face.
" Let the little one decide," she said.

Lance leant down and kissed his child with quivering lips. Then
with one of her imperious gestures, she pointed to her mother and
bade him kiss her too. There was a momentary hesitation, a (juick
movement on either side, and Helen Graham was sobbing
unrestrainedly in her husband's arms.

"As if 1 could have let you go," she said at length. "Oh, I
always knew you would find the truth some day, I^nce."

" Yes, thank Heaven," he said gravely. " Providence has been
very good to us, darling."

He turned to little Nelly. " Do you know who I am ? " he
asked.

"Oh yes, yes," she cried, clapping her hands gleefully, "You
are my own dear runaway papa. Mamma, you mustn't let him run
away any more."

" You will find him if he does," said Helen, with a glorious smile.
" But I am not afraid."

228 The Gentleman's Magazine,

GEOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY
OF THE ALGERIAN HILLS.

THE most striking features of the Algerian Hills in early summer
is their wealth of flowers. Large areas are covered with them,
like the patterns of a gaudy carpet They gleam in the bright sun
with all the distinctiveness of primitive colours. Nevertheless,
although the number of species is abundantly represented, the number
of kinds of butterflies is not great. They make up for this, however,
by numerical abundance. The '* painted lady " ( Vanessa cardui) is
everywhere, larking about in sixes and sevens, settling out of sight on
the ground, and then off* like leaves swirled away by a strong wind.
There were thousands of this butterfly about. Next to it in numbers
was the large " tortoise-shell *' ( Vanessa polychloros) ; and the occa-
sional aerial combats between it and the " lady" were amusing to
behold. Every now and then the "common blue*' (Alexis adonis)
flitted in and between like a sapphire. Practically, these three
species of butterflies had the " Promised Land " to themselves, as
regards their kind. Bees were very abundant — more so than I ever
beheld. They were wild ones, of course ; and one day, whilst quietly
hammering out some fossils from the limestone, all of a sudden there
came the crescendo sound of a rapidly approaching storm, which
passed away diminuendo. It was a vast cloud of wild bees migrating,
or " swarming," as we should say of our domesticated kinds.

One day we met with a very curious circumstance. I have
heard or read something of the same kind in one of the Malayan
islands, where numbers of a certain species of spider will so group
themselves into five-sided or other geometrical forms as to resemble
flowers, and to these flower-like objects some simple-minded insects
will be attracted. Perhaps they will settle down thereon — with the
same result that a sheep would if the wolves trapped it The " mimi-
cries " of nature are as yet not half known. But the case to which I
allude (and which has probably never been recorded by a naturalist
before) was as follows : — ^The ground of the upper slope of the hill
was liter*"^ — ^ with a solitary species of yellow bawkweed

Oeology and Natural History of t lie Algerian Hills. 229

1). In the centre of each floffet-head there was a brilliant

aiiet spot. It looked so like a new species, possessed of double

ptlours, thai I took out my pocket lens to examine it. Imagine my

rprise to find that this central red spot was nothing more than a

iss of minute red spiders. There were hundreds of them collected

m a single spot. Every one of the scores of thousands of hawk-

i about that I saw was similarly adorned. The moment you

a flower, away scamper the eight-legged thieves in every direc-

Any poor insect visiting one of these hawkweeds could

■irdly fail to be attacked by the enemy. Even their presence

icreased the attractive coloration of the flowers.

Of course a little discovery like this, when one is laboriously walking

a hill to a prescribed spot, lightens the wearisomeness of the journey.

IS not long before that I noticed that a species of light purple thistle

;r-head was infested by red spiders. But on them the spiders

in every instance I examined, arranged themselves so as to look

E the stamens of an ordinary and non-composite flower— that is,

\ regular rows of five expanded rays, radiating from the centre.

!hat can be the meaning of all this ? One suspects that the mul-

spiders gain an advantage. They are enabled to get

(cheap passage by clinging 10 the bodies of the insects which visit

e flowers. If no such trick as this existed, thousands of millions

spiders would find it impossible 10 live long, ISut do the

rwers gain any advantage by their presence ? Nature is everywhere

pme of " give and take." The modern scientifico-philosophic word,

s," expresses that fact laconically. Animals and plants arc

istantly found living together— perhaps they are seldom met with ex-

n some condition of " messmalings." Do the Algerian hawkweeds

thistles reap any advantage from the crowded presence of

e myriads of minute red spiders? I think they do. They make

T flower- heads more attractive than otherwise they would be ; so

,t insects frequent those thus adorned in preference to others not in-

Ited, and consequently ensure them the benefit of cross-fertilisation.

■ One of the sweetest -looking flowers, crowding the lines of strati-

»tion of the limestones, is a blue stonecrop {Stdum caruleum).

I is everywhere — frail and pretty. Close by it, in almost equal

Hindance, are dense patches of a blue pimpernel {Anagallh Monelti),

Istly recognisable by its magnificent blueness. There are more

B than leaves— more blue than green. And such a blue ! It

ih ihc while of a botanist to go to Algeria to sec iL Hardly

)mmon are the dwarf irises, similar to, if not identical with, the

hid recently introduced into our gardens at home. Here also is

tewing in deasc profusion a similar sort of small le^ camoioa to those

230 The Gentlemaiis Magazine.

we cultivate in patches or parterres in our gardens at home. There

is also an abundance of " lady's fingers " (Ant/iylits vulKeraria)—!

limestone-loving and also sea-side plant. Its long, yellow, peaLte

flowers, springing from their central head of vegetable wool, make r.

easily recognised. In those places where the rocks are perpetuallT

shaded and damp (very few) we find a curious navelwort, nearlT

related to our English species, and looking so suspiciously like it thiit

I had little belief in the human species-maker. It is UmbiUcus fatului.

In the cool waters of a small spring hard by I found a rarish plan;

belonging to the primrose family, which grows sparingly in thevaliev

of the Gipping, ver>' near Ipswich, and is tolerably abundant in Ae

swampy water-courses near Norwich, and in severzd other ports of

England — the water-pimpernel {Samoius Valerandi) — a plant remail-

able for its wide-spread geographical distribution. The pellitoiT

of the wall (Parieiaria officinalis) grew in the shady places 2S

profusely as it does on old English churches and ruins. In the

cornfields, which crept as near the summits of the hills as they could

was an abundance of the pretty bright-eyed, rightly named

" pheasant's-eye " {Adonis ccstivalis) — rare with us ; the muchcoc-

moner sherardia, or field-madder ; the shining cranesbill {GavxtMx

lucidum\ which occasionally grows abundantly on shady and damp

hedge-banks and walls, and British nettles, and even the Roman cac

{JJrtica piluUfcra) — a rare kind, found however near the andec

ruins left by the wonderful people of the same name. The yelbf

rock- rose {IJdia?if/tcmum vulgarc\ which grows so abundantly aloK

the margin of chalk pits and on our English limestone rocks, is

everywhere. Buttercups are rare even in moist meadows ; oAs

flowers crowd them out. But a species of " traveller's-joy " is b«

and although it goes by a different botanical name (Clematis f»

viula\ 1 could really find little distinction between the Algcna

species and that so abundantly festooning the hedges of our oc

English green-lanes in the earlier part of the summer. Everprhff

the Algerian hills arc splendid hunting-grounds for an all-rod

naturalist — in the flowers, insects, birds, &c., which haunt thcm:i:

the abundant fossils with which the rocks are crowded ; in the sh^

the latter have been carved into ; in the deep ravines (some of th*

nearly a thousand feet) cut by the still flowing rivers since ti*

began to run, like a hand-saw. There never was a greater sciooB'

truth uttered — certainly never a clearer or sharper-cut axioni

geology, than Tennyson's lines :

The hills are shadows, and they flow
From foim to form, and nothing stands.

W^ology and NaUiral Iltslory of Ike Algerian Hills. 231

I These lines were writlen years before geologists and physical geo-
)hcrs had recognised ihe great fact that all denudation was
inospheric rather than marine— that it was " rain and rivers " which
a teen the chief tools by which the Almighty had carved and cut
p hills into their scenic forms !
\ Clouds form, dissolve, disappear ; mountains do the same. It is

y a comparison of time between one act and the other !
I The age of these Algerian mountains can be plainly slated by the
The rocks out of which they are carved abound in fossils,
i you can tell a rock by its fossils as easily as a tree by its fruit.
I top to bottom of.'inany of these North African djthtls there
[he most abundant evidence that ancient life had to do with their
Life and death, death and life^that is the great pendu-
! One is the concomitant of the other. Without earthly
b there could be no death — without death (as we know it here)
e could be no earthly life : perhaps, also, there could have been
\ Life Eternal !

I So one ponders and muses, and allovfs thought and imagination
o holiday-making. Rocks, crowded with evidences of ancient life,
C covered with a thin soil, supporting the beating pulse of organisms
bich perhaps have never known a break in their continuity since the
■ureniian period. Every succeeding geological epoch has veneered
\ predecessor with a characteristic Ufe of its own. Some relics
e latter, in their time, become a platform for the next. The
jological history of our planet is one of progression mainly. There
e been

Fallings from lis, vanibhiiigs,

Black toisE'vings of a ctcniurc moving about in worlds not reaiiscJ ;
e chief fact and ihe most encouraging is that " evolution," not
etrogradation," is the law of the universe. " From matter to life ;
1 life to spirit " — was the formula of a well-known writer con-
ming the organic historj- of this small but not unimportant planet
. which men and women arc serving their spiritual
prenticeship 1

t these flowery hill-slo[ies. They foreshorten until they
ti like garden parterres. How familiar some of these wondrously
A'ild-llowers are — how rare others! Think of the vicissi-
!S of a family of plants. Wc are apt to imagine this class of events
Ehuman property only. We arc wrong. Plants have to shift foran
e like any other group of living things. Vou fmd Australian
s which have conic rambling northwards along the hill-tops of
g Malayan Islands (before the archipelago was formed), and

232 The Genileman's Magazine.

which have passed northern plants on their way to Australia, by the
same route— just as if they were two sets of railway trains. The
marvels of the world increase the longer we live in it, and the more
we study its natural phenomena.

So I wonder why these familiar British plants are crowding
Algerian hill-sides ; why the same kinds of butterflies have kept them
company ; why the same British birds sing here ? Deep down the
valley of the Mejerda the nightingales are piping, night and morning ;
the cuckoo fills the sky with his ventriloquistic " wandering voice " ;
the thrush chants its loud matins at day-break.

It is in the moist, shady places, that you find the greatest abun-
dance of plants like those at home — milkwort, honeysuckle, wild-rose,
bladder-campion, black and white bryonies, henbane and milk- thistles,
&c. The hot rocks are often covered with yellow stone-crop and
wild thyme, just as in Europe. You see the lovely scent-glands of
the latter plant with your pocket microscope, crowding the sepals of
the calyx, and looking like precious stones set in a ring. Wild
mignonette, mallows, nettles, corn-cockles — all are like ours. The
cornfields creep up as high as they can, as if in quest of the phosphates
the rocks contain. The quails call from the standing com all the
day long — call answering unto call.

Out of this lovely tangle of wild-flowers and creeping- plants, green
lizards a foot long emerge, stare at you, and disappear as quickly as
young rabbits. Never was there a more lovely reptile. To call it
green is almost to lead a person astray. I have seen no green like
it, except the green of budding leaves. Its chief desire is to cut and
run, which it does with a celerity that persuades you a reptile is not
a sluggish creature. If it cannot do so it comes to a dead stop, like a
young partridge. Both of these creatures adopt mimicry as a defence
under such circumstances. The partridge is so like the ground it
squats on that you mistake it for a clod ; the green Algerian lizard
so resembles the green things about that it is protected thereby. I
brought one of them to bay one day : it stood stiff and firm as a
green branch. I poked it with the tip of my white umbrella : it took
no more notice than if it had lived for years in an umbrella shop.
Then I happened to look aside about the fourth of a second, but the
green lizard had levanted, and it was only the tremulous leaves of
the plants which informed me of the direction it had taken in its
escape.

That which interested me most in my rambles, however, was
the geological character of the country. Down by the coast, at Bona
and elsewhere, you behold the naked, ancient rocks, formed when

' HiOerj af the Algerian Hiils. 233

[he «iU aas very joaas- Foot tfaiXEand feet hi^Kr, anoi^ the
monDBinc joocnaenponqiaiteadifiacstsetofsaita. Between tbe
7«n)ib of the fannanao of the oast rocks and these of the high hilb,
(^CutfaehifeKpBTtafthegeologjalhtsionr of our globe iranspiied.
rbe rocks fanBioK tbe bold headbnds near Bona are crashed, dysal-
iiKd^ Bcamondiased. Thej hare been buried beneath thousands of
fed of DOR receniljrluiiuul soaCa ; hare perhaps been brought whhia
Lhe nKtanacpbocbs to&taice of the earth's internal h^ The
omijii^ ndn bm been slowijr stripped off— chiefijr, perhaps wboUy,
bir the ageocy of the wottber. Tbe denudation vent on conthtuoasly
thnni^ parts of the pdnary and nearly all the secondary periods of
oiiich itedoejsts tcQ tis, until the deepiy-buried and much altered
nxks were bid bare. » we now see them all round the wild North
.\ftican caaic.

There IS not a fossil, nor tiaKC of one, inihe coast rocks. Peihaps
there was once an abondancc; boi the great mechanical and chemical
changes hare compleiely obliterated ihcm, as tbc}- certainly ha^-e
oUiieraied arid le-amnged the original stnictnie of the rocks
tfaeraelres.

But how different b the case up among the very highest summits
of these hills ! Fossils are so abundant that the rocks are literally
cooiposed of nothing else. \'oa cannot see wood for the trees. All
of them are marine fossils — that is, the solid remains of creatures
which fornicTly lived in ihe sea. By "formerly" I do not mean in
Ibc rcry ancient geological period, when tbe mica schists and oiher
CTTMallised rocks of Bona were elaborated ; but in the Tertiary
period — the latest of the great divisions of geological time. To put
it mote plainly and homelity, the highest rocks of the Algerian hills
were formed in ihc sea— as marine muds, sediments, and accumu-
btiuos of dead creatures — ^about the lime when our London clay
was deposited in the sea, where a mighty northern river poured
[herein the weathered spoils of an exiensive northern continent.
The Uuc clay cti0s of the Essex and Hampshire coasts were thus
^bad then fonned, as also the dense bed of blue clay underlying the
^Hnter part of London City and the Essex m.irshes.
^P These Algerian litnestone rocks, crowded with fossils, were not
"only Uowly formed at the bottom of the sea during Ihc earlier part
of ihc Tcrtiar>' period, but of course they have been hardened and
upheaved to their present height of four thousand feet above the
Mediterranean since then. The upheaval must have been slow; for,
lad it been rapid, the mechanical movements would have been con-
certed into heat, or perhaps chemical action. The limestone cocks
TOL. CCLXIX, NO. 1917. n

534 ^^ Gentleman s Magazine.

would then nave been metamorphosed into white marble^ like the
statuary marbles of Italy, which were formed thus. The fosals
would have been baked, roasted, or metamorphosed out of all
recognition.

Climb with me up this slipper}*, heated, and yet flower-clad
escarpment It seems to be nothing but a heap of fossil oyster-
shells. They are packed in vertical sections, one above another,
just as we see them in a fishmonger's shop. Some (most of them)
are about the size of your hand — others (Ilinmtes) are a foot long,
and every fossil of the latter weighs two or three pounds. In each
instance both shells are together. It is evident this is a grand old
oyster-bed, such a flourishing one that the Whilstable Company
would willingly have hired the selection had they lived three or
four millions of years ago, when these mountain-tops were the
bottom of a sea occupied by an abundant and flourishing marine
life.

The fossils are everywhere. The middle parts of the hills seem
to be composed of nothing else. They appear to be just cemented
together —that is all. There they weather out and strew the slopes.
You might imagine that a continuous Colchester oyster feast had
been going on for hundreds of thousands of years. No mayor could
stand it, but nature can.

The oysters and their oyster allies (as I have said) were in situ.
They had lived and bred on the spot, when it was a sea-bottom,
nearly five thousand feet lower. I have frequently had brought me,
from our Suffolk coprolite diggings, fossil oysters with the " mate " in,
as the boys call it. The two unscparated valves are filled with the
ancient mud which took the place of the soft mollusc that was really
the organism — the shell being nothing more than its external bones.

But what became of the soft-bodied creatures which secreted
these large shells, secreted them so abundantly that beds of them
were formed in the old sea floors thick enough to cohere into lime-
stones ; to be upheaved into table-lands, cut into by rivers until
gorges and precipices a thousand feet deep were formed ; to be carved
into castellated summits and pinnacles along the crests of the hills,
and to be honeycombed into caverns lower down where the rivers
flow ? Here is the limey material ! Where are the other parts of
the Tertiary oysters? — where the iodine (for whose sake men not only
eat modem oysters, but will actually take Chablis with them to help
them down)? — ^where the fluorine, the phosphorus, the nitrogen,
GVboii» &c, &c ? Do you think for a moment that nature takes
'imei and none for these more precious things^all

d Natural History of the Algerian Hills. 235

e:nsaiy to orgsnic life? No, there is, there always has been, there'
Jlwys will be, a circulation of the materials necessary to the life of
living things. The materials composing the body of the writer
'<rved the same purpose to trilobite and the ichthyosaurus, ages
■jng ago.

These limestones are steeped in phosphorus. A bed of earth
twenty feet thick yields in places 70 per cent, of phosphate of lime.
The commercial world will hear more of this ere long. The
sinie strata yield traces of fluorine, &c.— perhaps the fossil oysters
(or rather their molluscous bodies) are represented thereby. Who
shall say "nay"? The phosphate occurs in large nodules, and also in
liltle roundish granules in abedof brick earth, like material sandwiched
between the limestone masses. The latter also contains the beauti-
ftUly preserved leeth of fossil sharks. In some places the limestone
il green with glaueonilt. It is from the continual weathering of
these phosphate- bearing beds that the cornfields are naturally
fertilised.

The geologist soon recognises one stratum which enters into the
composition of the Algerian hill— the nummulittc UmtsioHe. This
well-known rock forms the summits of the hills. It is a remarkably
hard rock, and, as I before staled, weathers into picturesque castel-
lated forms and pinnacles, which stand sharply out against the greyish-
bloc sky. They soon get so hot by absorption and reflection of the
sun's heat that only one or two kinds of plants can grow on them.
One of these is our own common wild-thyme, which is found creep-
ing everywhere in the cracks of these rocks, the characiensiic perfume
of rtJ leaves forming a barrier to exclude the sun's heat-rays. It is
now well known that perfumes cool flowers as well as rooms, by
buring out the heat of the sun. If you take up one of the little
Bower-heads of the wild-thyme, or mint, or sage, and examine theit
calyces with a pocket-lens, you will see, as I already remarked, every
lepal spangled with scent-glands. How little one thinks, when
rcguding these and other characters of humble weedy pkmts, that
Ihey are part and parcel of a beneficent political and social economic
jcment for their well-being.
Wcclamberupwards, with the heat thrown back into our face like
ttAimare, and then, to our surprise, detect amongst the castellated
nimmiu of the hills various Arab encampments insidiously hidden
away. The rocks themselves are crowded with dark-looking, thin,
and iJiaip-cdged objects. They are about ihe size of a sixpence, and
ictemble the corroded silver pennies of Henry II.'s time. On this
account tbejgoby the name of "nummulitcs" (from tiie ancient Greek

_lheyai

236 The Gentleman s Magazine,

name nummus^ for money). They are in reality the
remains of a group of the most lowly organised animals, the fomm-
niferae. It ii an order remarkable for its being able to live only in
clear sea-water, that is, water free from mud. So it is chaiadensbc
of deep seas and oceans, and of deep-sea and ocean beds. The
white chalk of England is entirely composed of members of the suae
family, a quarter of a million to the ounce. The nuwunwUtes are
their big brothers ; and the upper parts of these Algerian Hills seem
to be as entirely built up of the big foraminiferae, as the white chalk
is of the small ones.

This nummulitic limestone is one of the most important formatioos
of the world. It is certainly by far the most important of the Tertiary
system. It is well developed in the south of Europe, and helps to
build up the Alps, the Carpathian Mountains, the Apennines, and
the Balkans. It is found on both sides of the Mediterranean, in
Spain as well as in Morocco Pid Algeria. We can trace it through
Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, Persia, and the Himalayan Mountainii
into China and Japan.

Just think of the " run " of this one formation. The geologist
has little doubt it was formerly continuous throughout this vast area.
Its physical structure and fossils tell us plainly it was formed along
the floor of an extensive ocean. It was being deposited there and
thus when the London clay was accumulating as the muddy delta of
a great tropical river ; and the " basins " in Hampshire, Paris, 5:c,
were lakes or brackish water lagoons.

Since that comparatively recent geological period, therefore, the
whole of the vast tract of the northern hemisphere, now dry land,
has not only been upheaved, but various mountains and chains of
mountains have been formed by the crumbling up of the same. In
Algeria this limestone is four thousand feet above the sea. The
Mediterranean has been created since this nummulitic period. The
limestone has been peeled off wherever it is no longer found between
outlier and outlier. The mountains composed of it have been cut
and carved into their present shapes by the agency of weather
action ; the deep ravines through which rivers run have all been dug
out. Who can estimate the vast time that must be granted to allow
of all these striking operations ? Arc we not detracting from the
wisdom and omnipotence of the Deity by endeavouiing to contract
his laws within the shortest space of time to which we think they
ought to be limited ?

Nevertheless, I verily believe that all these operations went on so
slowly that if mankind had been on the earth at the time (which it

Natural History of Ike Algerian Hills. 1%^

undonbtedly was not) probably people would have taken little or no
noiice of the great but slow physical changes which were going on,
And which only required time enough to accumulate into the vast
lesults I have briefly indicated.

These early Algerian Tertiary limestones pass down into a kind of
"passage bed," like the Maestricht chalk in Holland, and similar strata
found at Faxoe, Denmark. They contain many of the same fossils
25 the latter. Beneath them (lower down the mountain sides) we
find the lower chalk rocks, hardened into limestones. Some of the
upper beds, however, are softer, and they are crowded with pretty
little fossil sea-urchins (echini), about the size of peas. They have
weathered out of the parent rock, and you may pick them up as
easily and as numerously from the surface as if so many peas had
been spilt.

The main mass of the Algerian table-land forming the basis of
the district, and from which these picturesque mountains seem to
spring, does not contain a single fossil. NotwithsUnding, I verily
believe they were once crowded with them. They belong to that
geological period called Hcocomian — the lowest subdivision of the
chalk. Life was then abundant in the seas of the earth ; and hme-
Hones are alwaj-s associated with plentiful marine life. The fact is,
these Algerian neocomiart rocks have been dolotmlised — I never use
"hard words" when softer will do. The last term simply means that
rocks once composed of carbonate of lime have somehow or another
been chemically changed into a hybrid mineralogical structure of
cartwnale of lime and magnesia. This is believed to have taken
pbce by means of hoi waters impregnated with earthy salts. In
other words, these rocks, which now surround us, and over which we
are rambling, were once covered up by thousands of feet of overlying
rock, all of which has been removed by denudation. It was when
they were so lowly seated that they were literally stewed and simmered
liy the heated waters — heated by the earth's own kitchen-boiler.
These hydrotherraal influences have not yet died out, as the numerous
hot springs and "baths" among the mountains plainly testify.
Perhaps, deep down where these modern heated waters have their
source, the process of dohmitisation is still going on.

J. X. TAYLOR.

33 B Ti£ G€w*-fmaws Magiuiiu.

LITERARY FRAUDS, FOLUES,
AND MYSTIFICATIONS.

THE Lsc cc Ihcarr jbuies. if mmplfft*. would be a long one.
Scl:>ui>. if tf«r.*. mea of leKcis^ haTC in all times and coun-
tries displxved an zaecJrisg readiness to plm^ into rash assertioni
2j-.d induire in Laardocs inTcntioi& It most also be admitted
th^t their sezise of hoixxn- has doc always been as keen as one
could viah. and that they haf« too fineqnentlj exhibited a callosity
of conscience vhich in the unlearned ve should reprehend with
j us-Jnable severity. One feels almost inclined to drop a r^retfnl tear
as one records the following instances of what is euphemistically
cilled *^ sharp practice "* on the port ot those who^ by right of scholar-
ship and intellect, should have been the most rigorous guardians of
moralitv.

One of the profoundest scholars of the sixteenth century, Sigonio,
or Sigonius, the Modenese, whose writings, as Hallam observes^
exhibit not only perspicuity and precision, but as much el^ance as
their subjects could permit, the author of "De Jure CiTium
Komanorum " and " De Jure Italian," having discovered some frag-
ments of Cicero " De Consolatione^" introduced them in a treatise
to which he gave the same title, and allowed to pass as the work
of the great Roman orator. Even Tiraboschi himself was decdved
as to the authorship, until he met with some unpublished letters by
Sigonius, wherein he confessed the forgery.

Corradino, described as a Venetian poet of the eighteenth centtuy,
had the audacity to announce that he had discovered at Rome a
manuscript copy of the exquisite lyrics of Catullus, of greater
antiquity and correctness than any previously known ; and published
it (at Vienna, 1 708) with the title of " C. Valerius Catullus, in int^rum
rcstitutus." There never yet was knave who did not find dupes
willing to be deceived, but this fictitious edition enjoyed only a brief
jK)pularity.

About 1788, the Latin poet Heerkens pretended to have

LiUrary Frauds. Follies, and Mysttjications. 231

toads opon a tragedy entitled " Tereus," wrillen by the Augustan

« Lucius Varius, and preferred a request that it might be printed

B tfie press of the Louvre. The French Ministry leferred hira to

C Academy of Inscriptions, who naturally expressed a wish to see

IC manusciipt ; but this wish Heerkens refused, because unable, to

He afterwards published some pretended fragments of the

in his "Icones" (1787), but they were soon detected as

rowed bvasx the " Prognc " of CJregorio Corrario, which was printed

frVienna in 1658. It is. difficult to understand the frame of mind

*rfa man who could deli beraiely perpetrate so petty a fraud, when he

I must have known that its exposure could not long be delayed.

In 1800, a Spaniard named Marchina, then attached to the
i rench army of the Rhine, diverted himself, while detained during
^L- winter at Bile, the head-quarters of the staff, in composing some
. litatioBs of Pettonius Arbiter, which were pubhshed with the ira-
.^tnative title of '■ Kragraentum Petronii, ex Bibliothccre S. Galli
] [itiquisftimo MS. excerptum . . . Gallice vertit ac nolis perpetuis
.. liii.ua vit Lallcmandus." It does not appear, however, that
^[archcna intended a deliberate imposition. We might as well
accuse Ixird Lytton of deceiving the public when he professes to
hai-e deciphered his romance of " Zanoni " from the mysterious
■-l.aractcrs of a Rosicrucian manuscript, or Sir Wake r Scott, when he
-1 before the reader as responsible for some of his fictions the
:.iiagiiuryJedediahCleishbotham or Jonas Dryasdust. But, alas! the
success of the Spaniard's "Fragment" proved too much for his vanity,
and led him to publish, under his own name, in 1S06, a fragment of
Catullus, which he pretended to have found in a pap>Tus recently
enrolled at Herculaneum. Thereupon he was "hoist with his own
peiard." Professor Eichstadt, of Jena, took up and caricatured the
fiction by proclaiming, in August, 1S87, that the Jena library con-
tained a very ancient MS., in which were to be found exactly the
nroe verses of Catullus, but with important variations. Under
pretence of correcting the copyist's errors, he exposed some gross
1 in prosody committed by Marchina ; and he added a score
ES, in which, continuing the Spaniard's political allusions, he
B Catullus announce the Pacificator of the Universe.
\'tt& bte as 1844, a certain M. B^gin, of Meti, professed to have
1 Spain two letters of Claudius Numatbnus Rutilius,
lidn poet of the 5th century, author of the " Itinera num." Aa
SC^n made his discovery in a comparatively remote part of tha .
eoantiy, he escaped the difficultj', so often experienced in rclfttitf
to socb " finds," of showing the otiginal MS. to the toctcduloiu

s

hut rxe^ =esai£ ic nsascn xhr, "n'ffead of simply giving a Frcncb
san-^fcirt n. le iiii:u.d ::cc ij.ve ]:tii:ii::hed ihe entire text of the two
.*-l :e iiii -ris re -mr i iisiiie -r-nse of four words — " alu
~i:e i.^.-zlcit-l Strcier.- '. which has so exceedingly
aiiicsirn. i =c:::iii js i: rc^^z j. icierxjtT conclusive reason for
iL Zczn 3 ^cn-^uziicincc :f ±e iccrs text of RutHius.

Li riis rrnzeriviii .i will le c-cveniecr to refer to the violence
Cfcice ::: Sruiiisireari :y in ir:cc7:nciis ili. corrector, whom the late
J:hs zir-zn r.iillur • j.rrrec :.: 'live inearthed. In 1S53 Collier pub-
ishei in itiincn :c iliikispears ▼::h extensive emendations, copied,
he iiLC. "t:!:: 1 ri-Jini.;- i:acjv;iric :-:'lo or 1632, and he claimed for
these iz Jtc::c:>isiijle i-tre!:i-c:CT. .\fter a prolonged controversy,
he ■v:is zzd-z^t.lfz'l zz 5w:ci.t ±e cirricted tolio to examination by
the ixzera it i:e Er.tiih ^E.:sc'-:3. and i: was then ascertained
beyinc ijsuCti tla: *Jte iznccirjr was ncc as Collier had contended,
a ccntirrzcnr- :c ihe ^>jic<7ear.iz sLue. bur a " modem hand."
N;c a :ew ct -Jie emcniircns Jtai r-r?t been pisncilled, and afterwards
'-ihiironslj mie-i i-Jir. TTte c eject ::" this forgery was, of course, to
secur- theaccercancd cfC:L:ers c^^n r-esses and violent tamperings
with Shikesrcire i text, b-^ iz^r-.z thctn \izcn an emendator whose
anthorlr.- wcwlc seem tj ;e zevccd cisrute.

Fcrrerle<* cr f.cr :r-s, :f the reader prefer a milder word, in
ST:rpcrt cf su^ticicjs ^ize;i'.o^:e3 cr historical systems, have been
n -mere us enjuz't. Tj.ie the ciie c: The mas Dempster, at one time
professor c: h-rrjLr.i:y :n :he Universiiy of Bologna, and afterwards
James the First's hiitcr.:^arher-ro}uL The slanderous imputation
that all histor.- is more cr le£s a m\-s:ery f.nds considerable support in
this patnotic Sco:chn-.an's writir.^i. fDr in his efforts to extend the
glories of "Caledcr.Li stern and wild" his ptrftrvidum ingenium
has led him to ir.ver.t the tiiles of books vhich never existed, and to
record events which never took ^lace. A list of half a hundred of
his works is given Ly I>r. Irving in his ** Lives of Scottish
Worthies *' ; but in verj- few of them, 1 suppose, would it be safe to
put one's trust.

The most impudent impostor of this kind was Annius of Viterbo,
a Dominican, and Master of the Sacred Palace under Pope
Alexander VL As he figures in the elder Disraelis well-known
pages, I shall refer but briefly to his achievements. In 1498 he
published at Rome, under the title of ** Antiquitatum variarum
Volumina XVII.," a collection of the original works of such
mysterious worthies as Berosus, Fabius Pictor, M>Tsilius, Sempronius,
Archilochus^ Cato, Megasthenes, Manetho, and others, all of which

Literary Frauds, Follies, and Mystifications. 241

Mid he had fourvd buried in ihe earth at Matilua. The exiiha-
in of the learned over this supposed treasure -trove was, at firsl,
iRiense ; but a minute examination gradually disclosed a number

important errors, and before long the fraud was only too clearly
iFcaled. It is still a moot point, how«ver, whether .\iinius was the
tiricator or whether lie was imposed upon by some ingenious and
[Scrupulous knave. Perhaps the forgery was at first intended

a sly jest at the credulity of the learned, which Annius shrank
)m acknowledging when he saw with what enthusiasm it was
cepted.
A much more serious imposition was that of the "Decretals of
hich were forged for the maintenance of the papal supre-
and fur eight centuries fonned the foundation of the canon
w and ecclesiastical discipline. They first made their appearance
10-850, and to recommend them to the faithful were associated
ith the honoured name of Bishop Isidore, of Seville, a voluminous
iter of great learning and genius, who held his see from 590 to 636.
iiey were introduced at Rome in 864, when Pope Nicolas referred

them as authentic. It would seem that he was brought acquainted
ith them by Rothad, Bishop of Soissons, who was probably privy 10
le forgery. But that the Pope knowingly adopted an imposture we
!ed not assume. " The principles of the Decretals," says Canon
Dbertson, "had been floaiing in the mind of the age ; on receiving
e forgeries, the Pope recognised in them his own idea! of ecclesias-
ad JJOlIty, and he welcomed them as affording an historical founda-
)n for it. We may, therefore {in charily at least), acquit him of
tnscious fraud in this matter, although something of criminality will
ill attach to the care with which he avoided all examination of their
imiineness, and lo the eagerness with which he welcomed these
eiended antiquities, coming from a foreign country, in disregard of
e obvious consideration that, if genuine, they must have all along
unknown in his own city." Dean Milman, however, takes a much
IS lenient view of the Pope's conduct.

These Decretals conlain nearly a hundred letters written (probably
r Benedict, a deacon of Mentz) in the names of the early bishops
'Rome, beginning with Clement and Anacletus, the contemporaries
'the Apostles — also some letters from supposed correspondents to
e Popes, and the acts of some imatjinary councils. Their spurious-
ss is proved by their gross anachronisms and by other instances of
umsiness and ignorance. Some of the forgeries were of earlier
Uiufacture, such as ihc "Donation of Consunline "; a great part of
e other materials have been traced to various sources — scriptural,

242 The GentUmatis Magazine.

liturgical, historical, and legendary — the forger's task having been
to gather and connect them in something like order and sequence,
and give them the appearance of binding authority.

The forged *' Donation of Constantine," to which I have just
referred, made its appearance in the latter half of the eighth or early
in the ninth century, for the purpose of investing with a venerable
authenticity the claims of the Popes to a wider jurisdiction. Con-
stantine, so runs the stor}*, was baptised by Pope Sylvester, and, at
his baptism, was miraculously healed of a leprosy from which he had
long suffered ; wherefore he relinquished Rome to the Pope, con-
ferred on him the right of wearing a golden crown and other insignia
of sovereign dignity, and endowed the Apostolic See with the Lateran
Palace, and with all the provinces of Italy " or " the western regions.
The forgery maintained its credit throughout the middle ages ; but
when the critical spirit awoke in the fifteenth century it was assailed
and exposed by Nicholas of Cusa, by Bishop Reginald Pecock, and,
most conclusively, by Lorenzo Valla. On this and similar subjects
the reader may consult Dr. Dollinger's " Papst-Fabeln." I may
also refer him to Gibbon's stately recital of the circumstances in his
49th chapter; and I may remind him of Ariosto's contemptuous
allusion to the fictitious deed in his " Orlando Purioso " (34, 80),
where he describes the Paladin Astolpho as finding it in the moon
among the things that had been lost upon earth :

Quest o era il dono (se pero die lece)
Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece.

Dante also mentions (but not incredulously, for in his time the
fable had not been exposed) Constantine's baptism :

As in Soracte, Constantine besought,
To cure his leprosy, Sylvester's aid.

Spain, the land of the Cid, is also the home of some superlative
literary mystifications. Thus, late in the i6th century, the Jesuit,
Jerome de Hyguera, made a bold attempt to dispel the clouds which
rest upon the introduction of the Christian faith into his country.
Availing himself of the traditions which lingered among its mountains
and valleys, and of such documents as he could anywhere collect, he
compiled a series of chronicles, and coolly attributed them to Flavins
Dexter, an historian cited by St. Jerome, whose works have been lost.
In his modus operandi the Jesuit showed a craft worthy of the tradi-
tional reputation of his order, and evaded the difficulty with respect
to the original manuscript, which has so often tripped up the literary
ijer. He took into his confidence one of his brethren, a certain

Literary Frauds, FoUics, and Mystifications. 243

Torialba, who started off into Germany, and with commendable
celerity reported his discovery, in the library of Fulda, of an
uthentic manuscript, comprising tlie chronicles of Dexter, Maximus,
nd others. The Jesuits endorsed the report, and Torialba forwarded
copy of the manuscript to J. Calderon, who published it at Sara-
ossa, in 1620, with the title of "Fragnientum Chronici Fl. Dextri
um Chronico Ward Maximi," etc The more effectually to blind
le lynx eyes of suspicion, Hyguera had been satisfied with explain-
ig different passages of the text with notes ; but he died before his
ompilalion was given to the world. Heavens ! what a pen-and-ink
Dntroversy it stirred up — a baltie of the books, in which assailants
nd defenders cf its authenticity charged each other gallantly 1
Enough to say that the victory finally rested with the assailants, as
epresented by the learned Thomas Vargas.

The reader will probably be acquainted with L, A. Condi's
Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabes en Espaiia," of which
leie are translations both in Frencli and English. Early in the
(venteenth century this was anticipated by a book with a similar tide,
ritten by Michel de Luiia, Arabic interpreter in the service of
hilip III. of Spain, who affirmed, however, that it was translated
om an Arabian chronicle, whose author, he said, one Abul-Cacion,
id been a witness of the events he related. His romance enjoyed
great popularity in Spain for many years, and became the basis of
lost of the national histories. Though it has long been known as a
bi^ery, its credit is not wholly extinguished.

The Inghirami forgeries were the earliest example, I suppose, of
lose sham antiquities which Sir Walter Scott has so pleasantly
diculed in " The Antiquary." The learned were surprised, in 1637,
jr the appearance of a magnificent folio, entitled " Etruscarum
Btiquitatum Fragmenta," in which the antiquary Curzio Inghirami
anscnbed the inscriptions and a fragment of a chronicle, dating sixty
BSiTs before the vulgar era, engraved in uncial characters on numerous
£truscan relics " that had been exhumed, he said, in the grounds
f his family at Rome. He afterwards published a quarto volume
F more than one thousand pages to vindicate their authenticity.
lieir fictitious character, however, was soon established. Curzio
as not suspected of their authorship. " The design was probably
lerely to raise the antiquity of Voltaterra, the family estate of the
Bghirami, and for this purjiose one of its learned branches had
Bequeathed bis posterity a collection of spurious historical monuments
hicfa tended to overturn all received ideas on the first ages of
fatory,"

244 ^^ GaUlewtams Magazimi.

ltIt 2 cenrcnr bter C22e into the vorld of Dcdoo the ^^AnakcU
of Genrd It^nbar (itio». a rbrmed chronicle of the
Qrcnts of Holland, :n cearlv r^tlve hisidred Tcrscs, vhich vts amhor
attrib-t td :o a Eenecictiiie m^nk namrd Ko^Tn. of the Abbev of
E^TDOct. near Haarlem. For a while i: mzde a great noise, but
about trenty rears later the crhics. as is their var, pricked the
Madder, and it inunediatelj collapsed.

There is the vulgar and more commoopoce mystification of
Edvard Kelly, alchemist and astrologer, who professed, while lodging
at an obscnre inn in Wales, to have obtained from the landlord an
old manuscript, cndecipherable by the pfxfamum nupu^ which had
been found in the tomb of a bishop in the church hard by — that is,
it is said, in the church of Glostonb-rv Abbe v. Bv means of this
manuscript (known as " The Book of St. Dunsian "'> Kelly obtained
an introduction to Dr. Dee. the greatest of our Engibh magidans.
There can be no reasonable doubt but that it was compiled by the
ingenious Kelly himselfl

The story of the imposture of Joseph VeQa, whilom chaplain of
the Knights of Malta, reads like a romance. Being at Palermo in
1782, he accompanied the ambassador of Morocco, Mohammed-ben-
Olham, on a visit to the Abbey of Saint Martin, where he was enter-
tained with the sight of an Arabic manuscript of great antiquity.
Listening to the chatter of the monks about their hopes of finding in
the Arabian writers the data which would enable them to hll up a
lacuna of two centuries in the Sicilian annals, Veila seized upon the
idea ; and it was not very long before he delighted the hearts of all
true Sicilians with the intelligence that the Morocco ambassador, in
looking over the conventual librar)*, had put his hand upon a precious
manuscript containing the correspondence between the Arabian
governors of Sicily and their sovereigns in Africa.

To confirm the authenticity of this pretended " find,*' and to
increase its importance in the eyes of his patron, Airoldi, archbishop
of Heraklia, who, he knew, would spare no cost in the publication of
a work of such historic interest, the ingenious Vella invented a cor-
respondence between himself and the ambassador, who had returned
to Morocco. The fruit of this imaginar)- correspondence was not
only the assurance that a second and more complete copy of the
monastic manuscript existed in the librar}- at Fez, but the discovery
of another work, forming a continuation of it, as well as of a series
of coins and medals, illustrative and confirmatory of their historical
and chronological details.

So brilliantly successful was this little drama that the King of

Literary Frauds, Follies, and Mystifications. 245

fsples, to whom Vella presented his translation in manuscript, pro-
used to send him on a mission to Morocco to purchase, or copy, in
e libraries of that State all t!ie Arabian manuscripts bearing on the
Istory of his kingdom. What a field would have been opened to
^lla's invention if this project had been carried out !

The translation of the newly-found Arabic manuscript was an-
itinced in 1 786 in aU the journals of Europe, and the first volume
; published in 1789 under the tide of "Codice Diploraatico di
cilia solto il governo degli Arabi, publicato per opera e studio di

> Airoldi." The sixth appeared in 1793. The first volume
s dedicated to the King of Naples and the second to the Queen.

; Archbishop ne\t desired to publish the whole of Vella's
ailed Arabic text, and for this purpose obtained a fount of Arabic
■s from Bodoni. An artist, named Di Bella, wa.s commissioned
B engrave the coins and medals fabricated by Vella — who, by the
ny, to render more dilflcult the detection of his fraud, had
feliterated the greater portion of the monastic manuscript. At last,
1 1 795, at the expense of the King of Naples, was published at
klermo the first volumes of the two editions, the principal of which,
/ folio, contained the Arabic lext with the Italian translation
e manuscript " discovered " at Fez, under the imposing title of

> Divan Misr, or Libro del Consjglio d'Egitio" (Book of the
rtian Divan or Council). So far, so good. Vella probably

t himself in Sicily safe from exposure; but Nemesis, dcler-
d on his punishment, sent, as a tourist to the island of volcanic
1, a German orientalist — J. Hager. As a matter of course he
I of the historical treasure -trove ; procured a copy of Vella's
), examined it, and at once detected the imposture. Airoldi,
•ever, stood gallantly by his fraudulent protigK and, determined at
i to save him, appointed a commission of five highly respect-
s persons, against whom the only objection was that they did not
r a word of Arabic. Their mode of procedure should have
n this : they should have placed before Vella the Arabic text of
"Codice Diplomatico," and have required him to translate at sight
latever passage they thought fit to point out to him. His Italian
ision would have served them as a comparison to ascertain if he
islated accurately, and if he contradicted himself in the printed
But the absence from the tribunal of an Arabic scholar
dlified the verification.

Dmmitled to memory two or tljree passages of his transbtion;
when the Arabic translation was laid befoKhinbe chose whatever
ased, as if be had opened u]

246 The Gentleman s Magazmt.

to repeat by rote wbzt be bad lesmed. The commwsioiieis would
nerer have amred at a sansfartonr resak if Vella had not at ki^th
made a dean breast of it, and adnonledged his deceptioiL Finallj,
in 1 796, he was seuterjced to fifteen yeais;' imprisoomenty and had
abundant leiscze, therefore, to regret that Tist to die Abbey of
St Martin which had tempted him into the ways of dishonesty.

As late as 1S36 the scientific world was fluttered in its dove-cots
by the annoancement that the Greek translation, by Philon of Byblos,
of Sanchoniathon, the Phcenidan historian, had tnmed np in an
obscure convent in PortugaL The discxirerr was well calculated to
awaken profound interest, since of Sanchoniathon s history of Phoenicia
we possess only a few fragments inserted by Eusebius inhis '^Preparatio
Evangelica,'* and these refer exdusively to the cosmogony. A few
months passed, and behold \ the press at Hanover published an
'^ Analysis of the Primitive History of the Phoenicians, by Sanchon-
iathon, compiled from the newly-found manuscript of the complete
translation by Philo," with observations by F. WaymfekL It was
enriched with a faC'SimiU of the manuscript and an introduction by
Grotefend, the learned director of the Hanover Lyceum. Great was
the mortification of this celebrated scholar when he found that he had
been the too easy dupie of Waymfeld, a young student of Bremen,
whose work, however, seems to have been distinguished by a fine
imagination and a wide and deep knowledge of Semitic antiquities.

Some interesting examples of literary mystifications bdong to the
eighteenth century ; and of two of the best known one had its origin
in the Scottish Highlands, the other on the banks of the Severn.

It was in 1760 that James Macpherson, a Highland schoolmaster,
gave the signal for a prolonged and bitter contention in the republic
of letters, by the publication of his " Fragments of Andent Poetry,"
collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and translated from the Erse
or Gaelic language. These, in the previous year, he had submitted
to Home, the author of " Douglas," professing to have heard them
recited in the Highlands. Their success was immediate and im-
mense ; and Scottish enthusiasts hastened to provide him with ample
funds that he might collect further remains of a poetry which was
considered to be essentially national. His mission proved unexpect-
edly prosperous ; for he recovered two full-blown epics, respectively
entitled "Fingal" (in six books) and "Timora" (in eight books),
which he attributed to a Gaelic poet named Ossian or Ossin. They
were published, with notes and translations, in 1763, and achieved
^ wide popularity, on the Continent not less than m the United
lorn. When the first loud chorus of praise and panegyric, how-

[ Literary Frauds, Follies, and Mystifications. 247

fcer, had subsided, the voice of detraction began to make ilself heard,
Bacpherson was accused of having imposed his own compositions, in
■Gaelic garb, upon the public ; and a violent controversy arose, the
Hioes of wliich have scarcely died away in our own time. On the
He of the Gael fought Lord Kames and Sir John Sinclair, Gray,
■d Blair ; against him were marshalled Ur. Johnson, David Hume,
Bnkerton, and Malcolm Laing. The opinion at which the best
Btics have arrived is stated very succinctly by Lord Ncaves : " The
Ksianic poems, so far as original, ought to be considered generally
B Irish compositions relating to Irish personages, real or imaginary,
Hd (0 Irish events, historical or [egendar>' ; but tiicy indicate also a
Hte communication between the two countries, and may be legiti-
Btely regarded by the Scottish Celts as a literature in which they
Bve a direct interest, written in their ancient tongue, recording tra'
Hions common to the Gaelic tribes, and having been long preserved
■d diffused in the Scottish Highlands." liut he adds; "The
Hems published by Macpherson as the compositions of Ossian,
Hether in their Enghsh or their Gaelic form, are not genuine com-
^kitions as they stand, and are not entitled to any weight or autbo-
H^ in themselves, being partly fictitious, but partly, at the same
Kie, and to a considerable extent, copies or adaptations of Ossianic
Betry current in the Highlands." I should be inclined, after careful
Kdy of the Macpherson epics, to modify Lord Ncaves' judgment in
He direction of further restriction, and to say that they are to a very
ftii ted- extent based upon actual Ossianic remains.
B When Thomas Chatterton was a pupil at the Bristol Charity
Khool, known as Colston's or the Eluecoat, be was accustomed to
Bend his holidays in the beautiful old church of St. Mary Redcliffe,
Bwng its famous figures of knight and lady, squire and monk, its
He engraved brasses, its altar-iombs, and ancient sculptures ; and
Berc and then he seems to have conceived the idea of a series of
Bems, based on the early history of Bristol, to be written in t!ie
Bvacter of one Thomas Rowley, parish priest of SL John's. The
^ttsi was partly suggested, perhaps, by his researches among a pile
Bmedias^al documents which had long lain in the Tre.isury House,
B^wnber over the north porch of Sl Mary's Church, but had been
Bnovcd to his own residence by Chatterton's father, ihe parish
Kboolm aster. In September, 1768. a new bridge across the Avon
Kb opened with great public rejoicings, and a few days afterwards
Bpeared in the Brisfn! W^fkh- Jnnrnaf what purported to be a con-
Knporary descnpi^' ■, -.ning of the

Bd bridge, which :. ::ion. When

248 The Gentleman s Magazine.

it was known that Chattertoo had transmitted it to the newspaper,
he was strongly pressed to state where he had obtained this precious
manuscript, the genuineness of which no one seems to have sus-
pected. Alter some hesitation he unfolded the fiction which loaded
his memory with so much obloquy, and made his life so disastrous
a failure, namely, that "he had received the paper in question,
together with many other manuscripts, from his fiuher, who had
found them in a large chest in the upper room over the chapel, on
the north side of Reddiffe Church."

It now became necessary that he should produce these manu-
scripts, and thus he was drawn on from a comparatively innocent
mystification, of a kind common enough in the annals of literature,
to the perpetration of a commonplace fraud The Treasure House
chest supplied him with parchments ; and his caligraphic skill,
together with the application of ochre and other pigments, enabled
him to produce such imitations of medixval documents as satisfied
the not ver>* critical appetite of the Bristol antiquaries. Flying at
higher game, he submitted some Rowley poems to Horace Walpole,
who referred them to the poets Gray and Mason ; both at once pro-
nounced them forgeries. The closing chapters of Chatterton's sad
story do not come within the object of this paper ; and, in truth, it
is a story too well known to bear or need repetition. The only extra-
ordinary thing about his forgeries is their undoubted literary merit,
and their vast superiority to his own poems v.Titten in everyday
English. His strength as a poet seems to have been derived wholly
from the past, or rather from its picturesque accessories ; for the
spirit and tone of the Rowley poems are thoroughly modem, though
their subjects and language are mediaeval. " Whether, in the com-
position of these poems," says Professor Masson, " it was his habit
first to write in ordinar)' phraseolog)-, and then, by the help of glos-
saries, to translate what he had written into archaic language, or
whether he had by practice become so far master of ancient words
and expressions as to be able to write directly in the fictitious dialect
he had prescribed for himself, certain it is that, whenever his
thoughts and fancies attained their highest strain, he either was
whirled into the archaic form by an irresistible instinct, or deliberately
adopted it. Up to a certain point, as it were, Chatterton could
remain himself; but the moment he was hurried past that point, the
moment he attained to a certain degree of sublimity, or fervour, or
solemnity in his conceptions, and was constrained to continue at the
same pitch, at that moment he reverted to the fifteenth century, and
Bsed into the soul of Rowley.'' So one has sometimes seen an

Frauds, Follies, and Mystifications. 249

actor, who in the clothes of everyday life is tame and commonplace,
developmloagallant cavalier, bold, original, and picturesque, when he
assumes the plumedhat, doublclatid trunks of ihesevenleenih century.

In 1803, C. Vandetbourg, a man of letters of some distinction,
published a series of graceful poems under the name of Ciotilde de
Snrville, a poetess, as was alleged, of the reign of Charles VII., and
a friend and correspondent of Charles, the poet-Duke of Orleans.
These verses had remained unknown till 178J, when her descendant,
Joseph Etienne, Marquis de Surville, discovered them while search-
ing the family archives, studied the language, and deciphered the
hand-writing, and rejoiced that among his forbears he could reckon
so sweet a singer. In 1791, during the troubles of the Revolution,
he emigrated ; but, most unaccountably, left Clotilde's manuscript
behind him, and of course it perished, with other heirlooms, when
the populace plundered and set fire to his chateau. In 1798 the
Marquis unwisely reappeared in France, and was shot as a returned
imigrf ; but some copies which he made of his ancestress's poems
were given by his widow lo Vanderbourg, and were thus preserved
for the world's delectation.

Such was the story. The poems when published received at
first a hearty welcome, but by-and-by messieurs the critics began
to look into them with those sharp eyes of theirs, and soon detected
incontestable proof of their recent origin, in their metrical variety,
accuracy of scansion, and purity of language, as well as in their pre-
vailing sentiment; in fact, they were eighteenth-century poems tricked
out in fiftecnthcentury archaisms. Moreover, they contained allusions
to events of which Ciotilde, unless possessed of the spirit of prophecy,
could have known nothing. There was a quotation from Lucretius,
whose works did not penetrate into France until half a century later;
and an allusion to the seven satellites of Saturn, the first of which was
not obsen'cd until 1655 (by Huyghens) and the last until 1789 (by
Herschel). And finally, at the beginning of her volume Ciotilde
placed a translation of an ode of Sappho, chough the fragments
ascribed to that poetess were not printed till long after Clotilde's
death. It was sufficiently evident, therefore, that the poems to
which the name of Ciotilde de Surville was attached could never
have been written by her, though it is not equally clear whether these
compositions proceeded from the pen of the Marquis de Surville or
from that of Vanderbourg.

The career of the real Ciotilde may be sketched in a few words : —
Marguerite EWonore Ciotilde de Vallon Chalys was bom at the
Chiteau de Vallon, in Languedoc, In 140J. From her mother she
HO, 1917.

2 so TJu Genilamams Magmzmt.

mhrraed x \2SJt 2nd 2 tskc: for the Aslikf kttwt^ viiidi ^^*^tn^ con-
SIACUCKS 21 an earh- age, for she vss oclr eaercn wbcn she tiansbfcd
one of Ptinarch's odes virh so m::ch success that Chrwriiic de Pisan,
cpon reading il, exclaimed : ** I idtis: yi&d to this chUd aD my r^ts
to the tcepcre of Parmsszsu'^ In 1421 she married Bercnger de
SurriHe. a gallant young knighi. to vhom she was passionately
attached. Seven years later her husband fell at the siege of Orleans;
and thereafier she demoted herself to the edscatioQ of girls who gave
indications of poetical capacity, among whom were Sophie de
Lyonne and Juliette de Mvarez. Her poems attracted the attention
of Charles, the poet- Duke of Orleans, who made them known to
Queen ^larguerite. This princess, failing to induce Clodlde to
abandon the seclusion of her widowhood, sent to her a crown of
artificial laurels, surmounted by twelve pearls with golden studs and
silver leaves, and the device ^ Marguerite (the pearl) of Scotland to
the Marguerite of Helicon,"* a compliment quite in the taste of that
age. The date of ClotildeVdeath is uncertain ; but as she celebrated
the victory of Charles VIII., at Fomova (1495), ^^^ must have been
upwards of ninety when she died.

Among the poems published by Vanderbourg many are remark-
able for their refinement and delicacv. That such is the case the
reader may judge from the following " Verselets a mon Premier-nd"'
I give also the translation (of the first three verses) by I^ngfellow :

O cher crifantelet, vrai poarctrait de Sweet babe ! true portrait of thy father's
ton pL-re, face,

Don sar le fie)'n que ta booche a Sleep on the bosom that thj lips hare

presse ! pressed I

Dors, petist ; cloz, amy, sur le se}-n de Sleep, little one ; and closely, gently

ta mere, place

Tien doulx ceillet pax le somme op- Thy drowsy eyelid on thy mother*s

presbe ! breast I

Bel amy, cher petist, que ta pupile Upon that tender eye, my little
tendre friend,

Gouste ung sommeil qui plus n*y Soft sleep shall come that cometh

faici pour moy ! not to me.

Je veille pour te veoir, te nourrir, te I watch to see thee, nourish thee, de-
defend re ; fend ;

Ainz qu'il m'est doulx ne %'eiller que 'Tis sweet to watch for thee — alone

por toy ! for thee !

Dors, mien enfantelet, mon soulcy, mon Sleep, my sweet child, my idol, my
idole^ delight ;

Dors sur mon seyn, le seyn qui t*a Sleep, sleep upon the fond maternal

portc ; breast ;

Ne m'esjouit cncor le son de ta parole, Thou who so often with thy prattle bright
Bien ton soubriz cent fois m'aye en- Hast charmed my ears, sleep now,

chant^ ! and be at rest.

* See the Recutil des FoHes FranfcUs, par Anguis. Alto ViUemain, Cmtrt
i Liitiraiurt (tome ii.).

IMcrary Frauds, Follies, and Mystifications. 251

About the same time that these poems of Clotilde de Surville,
lalsely so called, appeared, Fabre d'Olivct published the " Poesies
Occiianif]ues," a work which he pretended 10 have copied from the
l'rovern;al and Languedoc languages or dialects, and in liis notes he
introduced some fragments in the languc iOc, which iie described
■s original. The>' aie written with an elegance, a refinement, and often
with a vigour, which have deceived no small number of litterateurs,
and ihcy have frequently been quoted as authentic. In order to
impose upon his readers the more completely, D'Olivet adopted an
ingenious stratagem. In one of his pretended translations he inserted
piassages from ihe manuscripts of the Troubadours, and ibis mixture
of Ihe genuine with the fictitious had, no doubt, in many cases the
cflect he desired. But he did more : as the language of the ancient
Troubadours whom he cited in his notes was marked by certain
differences, or nuances, which might have rendered comparatively
easy the detection of his mystification, he watered down this language
to the idiom he was himself employing, so that it became much
more dil!icult to suspect the authenticity of the fictitious poems,
I, by the way, possess very decided merits.

A mystification of a more than ordinarily skilful character was
fiactUed by the Italian scholar, Gigli. He published at Siena a
quarto volume entitled "Relaiione del CoUegio Pelroniano delle
Ttalie latino, aperto in Siena nel r7i9," wherein he minutely described
an instiluuon which had never existed, attributing its foundation
lo I'cttoni, a cardinal of the thirteenth century, and stating its object
to be the substitution of Latin for Italian as the language in use not
only ai Siena but throughout Italy. According to Gigli, a spacious
mansion had been placed at the cardinal's disposal by the Govern-
ment ; young nurses, who spoke nothing but Latin, had been brought
from Poland, Hungary, and Germany, and ibc children of the first
families in Siena placed under their charge. The names of the
nurses and of the families who patronised them, the l.itin discourses
delivered on the occasion of the installation of the nurses andadminis-
stafT^all were elaborately set forth in Gigh's work, the success

which was complete. In Italy and in several other European

Entries it was assumed as a fact that there existed at Siena a Latin
Ihe professors of which were nursemaids speaking Latin,
that this college was destined to revive in all its purity the
ige of Cicero.

M. Lalanne, to whom 1 have been indebted for some of these
note*, recalls the trick played by Uesforges- Mai Hard, who, having
been an unsuccessful competitor for the prize poem of the Academy,

252 The Gentlemafis Magazitu.

endeavoured to obtain the insertion of his rejected composidon in
the Mercure de France, The editor, De la Roque, refused ; and to
avenge himself Desforges, in a disguised hand, and under the
pseudonym of " Mademoiselle Malerais de la Vigne," addressed tohim
a number of fugitive verses, which De la Roque hastened to publish.
He admired them so much that he became enamoured of their
imaginary authoress, and wrote to her : *' I love you, my dear lady ;
pardon me, but the word has slipped from my pen." Voltaire and
Destouches were also duped. After a while, Desforges confessed the
trick — which was unwise, for thenceforth the wits, to punish him, lost
no opportunity of ridiculing the poems which appeared under his
own name.

I cannot omit so colossal a forgery as that of Psalmanasar, though
the story has often been told.

This man was born in France about 1679. After receiving
his education in a Jesuit college, he for some months acted as tutor
to a young gentleman ; but a restless temper rendered him unable
to remain long in any settled vocation, and a love of mystification
impelled him to assume a variety of characters. At one time,
having *' annexed " a pilgrim's cloak and staff which he found in a
chapel, he announced that he was going on a pilgrimage to Rome;
at another he appeared before the public as a Japanese ; and next
he masqueraded as a native of Formosa. Wandering from land to
land — by times a soldier, a teacher, a servant, and a beggar — now
professing himself a heathen and now attitudinising as a recent
convert to Christianity — he passed through a cycle of adventures,
sufficient for a dozen ordinary men. In some way he contrived
to secure the patronage of Brigadier Lauder, who introduced him
to the Rev. Mr. James, a regimental chaplain, and in his com-
pany he visited England. There his fluency of speech and confi-
dence of manner imposed upon the Bishop of I^ondon, and a large
number of savants^ litterateurs^ and persons of distinction, who
listened with deep interest to his picturesque recitals of incidents
that had never happened and his vivid descriptions of countries he
had never seen. In his latest assumption, that of a native of
Formosa, he published an account of the island, inventing a new
language with new characters, a new religion, a new form of govern-
ment, and a new calendar, in which the year was divided into twenty
months. In all this he showed a capacity and a diligence which were
worthy of better ends, and to better ends they were devoted, after he
had been brought, at the age of thirty-two, under the influence of
religious convictions. He then acknowledged his imposture, and

I Literary Frauds, Follies, and Mystifications. 253

oppli€(I hintsctr steadily to lilerary pursuits, compiling several volumes
of tlic "Universal History," a new version of "The Psalms," and
an essay on "Miracles." He died in 1763, at the age (as was re-
puted) of eighty-four. A permanent place in literature he was not
able to attain, and he owes his reputation, such as it is, not to the
creditable industry of bis later life, but to the ingenious knaveries of
hisyVwwMW ora^euse.

So it maybe said of Mr. William Henry Ireland that his notoriety
rests on his misdeeds, for neither the present nor any future genera-
tion will now care to revive any one of his works, plays or poems,
ftnd probably few persons remember that he wrote also a life (and a
very bad one) of Napoleon. I fancy that not even Mr. James Payn's
clever rehabilitation of the scamp in his lively novel, " The Talk of the
Town," has awakened the slightest interest in his productions. He
is remembeted only as the audacious perpetrator of Shakespearian
forgeries of a singularly bold complexion. Ireland was still in his
early manhood when he produced a deed of Shakespeare's which he
had discovered, he said, among some old papers. He afterwards
pleaded that he was induced to commit this forgery to gratify his
father, an enthusiastic collector of Shakespeare relics, whom, some
three years before, he bad accompanied on a visit to Stratford and
■alley of the upper Avon, But I fail to see that a forgery is
lOre excusable when perpetrated on one's father than on a stranger !
the elder Ireland was easily deceived and excessively de-
''Kghted ; and the younger, proud of his success, continued to put to
ihc test his imitative talent. A holograph profession of Shake-
speare's religious belief, various letters between the poet and his
friend, the Earl of Southampton, and at last a complete tragedy - one
inar%*els at the man's reckless insolence !— were successively presented
to an admiring circle. In our own day these forgeries would have at
been delected ; but in Ireland's time Shakespearian archaeology
n an elementary stage, and they not only met with ready accept-
_ from Dr. Parr, Pinkerton, Iloswell, George Chalmers, and
Mhers, but their genuineness was actually certified by experts from
■'■,c public ot^ces. The tragedy entitled "Vorligern" Sheridan was
nJuced to purchase for Drury Lane, where it was produced on
April 2, 17961 with John Kemble and Mrs. Jordan as representatives
of the principal characters. It was damned, of course. Kemble,
from the first, had disbelieved in its authenticity, and having to
deliver, towards the close, a line to the effect.

And nuw this solcniD mockery is o'er,
be Uttered it in a lone so signilicant that the whole house broke into
iltpghter. This public /««» set the writera thmtans. Makimmhe

K

EcNher

254 ^'^ c rirfiwgBX

».

di Ib ^iT, vko lad pcBBto^ QS*
cicCACfl iimjMi s icaKgKiciCimju^cno^ pgpBHKn a ocpcffiara nyw
vlikk fetded die ■EKSec Tk km^a «ss caled vpoo to produce
dse pcnoo frm wfaoi be badieoezvcd die so^alled SbikespeaniB
KSSl AshecooldBocdodMawheMadeHiiili iiiifioflusdecepdoDS,
dioc^ vkfa DO ptetmce at regret or lefmtf jim r^ but ntfaer as one
wbofk^nedin kzs sbazae.

V B. DATOCPOST ADAMS

ROWING SONGS.

^OR the tired slave song UAs the languid oar," and for the
hearty young athlete, too, if one may judge by the number
if rowing songs there are. ^\'ho has not feh the chann of music on
B water, the soft cadence of song st! to the rhythmical accompani-
It of sweeping oars, [he breea; from the river wafting the music
n shore to shore, or, it mny be, the echo from some wild crag giving
k the tones of the Gaehc boatman's /o/raw.' Canada, too, with its
pLainlive Toyageurs' chants, which bring back memories of the far-
away pilgrim days, and Louisiana, where travelling used only to be
by water, where ei-ery planter had his boat and skilled crew of black
Loarsmen, who, with their bare or turbaned heads and shining bodies
Riowed forward and straightened backs in ceaseless atlemation, chanted
■die praise of their broad-hatted master, who sat in the stem silent
Bmd unmoved by their eulogies. To go still farther away, there are
HUie boatmen of the Amazon, who have numberless songs and choruses
Brith which they relieve the monotony of their slow vo>'age3, and
nihich are known all over the interior. The Nile boatmen, too, are
Earoongst the best singers in the world, and the songs with which they
HBConrage one another at the labour of the oar are generally couched
Bb strains of invocation, and often they have a most beautiful effect,
^vhe Sonaiis, too, have their boat-songs, or professional melodies, and
Kfien wading and hauling the canoes up the rapids they sing a kind
Hb "Cheerily, boys," the chorus of which is " Voho Ram," and which,
H^eard above the roar of the waters, has a most extraordinarily weird
HRind. The Samoan and Tonga islanders have their paddling songs,
Hftiich they call "Tow AIo." the strokes of the paddle being coinci-
Bent with the cadence of the tune- They are most frequently sung
Bo leaving Vavaoo. The following is a specimen of these "Tow

V Ouooe 1 Btxia mow t^oo telow,

B Ca loiligoo M<l0Dg>-Ia(x, bea mo Talio J

H Gooi le Ic^U g« aiiSa ; coliii, lenne iloo ?

^B Ci l6ogoo Vavaoo, moe motoo Ulo,

256

TAe Gentlemah's Magazine

Licoo o*ne, M6e Vioo-ica,

Moe TUUa-vy ; gi Maccdpipft,

MitUl<bco, mo foDga Myile,

A'na a To6taw-i, b^ Mofooe,

Iky, S^oo to<S gi lu lufoanga,

Yio hifo gi he fel6w ta f;iDga«

Toogoo he foogi h^ a Tlifoolooh6w

Ger Vila he gnafi-giiafi a Toofo6a mo Kao.

Which, being interpreted, means : —

Alas I we are entering upon our voyage.

By leaving M6onga-lafa and Til6w.

Anxious am I to stay \ who can wish to go ?

Departing from Vavaoo and her neighbouring isles.

And Licoo-6ne, and Vavaoo-ica,

The road of springs near Maccapapa,

Mataloco and the myrtle plain,

The cave of Tootaw-i, the beach of Mofooee,

No longer can I stand upon high places,

And look downwards on the flood of small canoes ;

We must leave the crimson guatoo of Tlafooloohdw,

To wear the coarser mats of Toofoda and Ki6d !

The Japanese have some decidedly charming rowing songs,
which are frequently used on board the sampans, which are like the
salmon fisher's punt used on certain British rivers. They are sculled —
not what we should call rowed — by two or four men with very heavy
oars, and they stand up and use their thighs to rest the oars upon.
I give the notes of one of these songs as accurately as possible, but
the words I cannot translate, as I am told they have no meaning : — ^
Solo, Chorus,

^

1

X

Hou-ra Hoi Sa • no • San - ya Hou - yei • ya.

The chorus is to give emphasis to certain strokes, and is repeated
alternately with the solo without change of either words or tune.
The next song is a great favourite with the Nile boatmen ; it is a
little love-ditty, but it seems to suit them well as a rowing song : — *

lIGZCzg

Doos yd lel - lee, docs ya

lei

lee, Doos ya

5rrrt

m

lee; Doos yi lel

Doos yd lel - lee.

* From Lane's Modem Egyptians,

Rowing Songs.

Icc, 'Ksh ■ ke fe - ten • nee.

The choruses of the canoemen's songs of the Amazon consist of
P* simple strain repeated almost to weariness, and sung generally in
unison. Occasionally, however, there is an attempt at harmony.
There is a wildness and sadness about these tunes which harmonise
■■ell with, and in fact are born of, the canoeman's life ; the echoing
channels, the endless glowing forests, the solemn night, and the
desolate scenes of broad and stormy waters and falling banks.
Whether ihey were invented by the Indians or introduced by the
Portuguese it is hard to say, as the similarity between the customs of
the lower classes of Portugal and those of the Indians is very great.
One of the best known of their songs is very wild and very pretty.
The lefrain of It is : —

Mii Mai.

" Mai " means mother. There is a long drawl on the second word,
c verses are most variable, as, like our sailors' chanties, they are
rely improvised to suit the occasion. The best wit on the boat
s the verse and the others join in the chorus. They all relate to
e lonely river life and the events of the voyage — the shoals, the
■te of the wind, how far they shall go before they stop to sleep, and
Here are a few stanzas of a Creole rowing song : —

Sing ladi, oui masl*r biili us sing,
For master cry out laud and slrong.
The water wilb tlie long oar strike.
Sing, lads, and let us haste along.
T is for out master we will sing,
We'll sing for our young
And sweethearti tre must not foiget,
Zoc, Kfcltenle, Zabetlc, Louish.
SiDg^ r«11owt, for our own true loves,
My lolieiy prize ! Zoe, my belle I
She's like a wild young doc, she kno'
The way to jump and dance so well !
Blick diamonds are her bright, black cyi
Hei teeth are lilies while \
Sing, fcllowt, for my true love, and
The water with the long oar stiike.
.Sec, see the toitn ! hurrah I hurrah !
Master returns in pleasant mood ;
'• going to tie»t his bo)-3 all round,
: huriab for mMiei good I

258

The Gentleman s Magazine.

They were quite happy singing these simple songs, these fine fdiois
of Louisiana. They had a loyal love for their master, the planter,
and a chivalrous affection for their tawny Zilies, Zabettes, or Zallis ;
and a song in praise of them would carry them over the water quickei
than any other incentive could do. The n^roes of Western Afiia
row to thb tune, which is sung by the whole crew. It is strictly
regular as to rhythm : —

K, L. R. Z.(i)

It is a Sererc air. The change from triple to common time and from
common to triple again seems strange for a melody which is to
regulate work ; but nevertheless it is strictly rhythmical, for what can
be more isochronous than the movement of the oars of a well-trained
boat's crew ?

Almost as celebrated as the sailors' chanties of England, the
gondoliers' songs of Venice, and the troubadours' lyrics of ancient
France, are the boat-songs of the old Canadian vayagmrs. The
hymns to Saint Anne,^ which are so popular amongst the hardy Breton
fishermen of to-day, all owe their origin to the French-Canadian
pilgrims ; and to these we owe that most perfect of rowing songs,
Moore's boat-song, written on the river St. Lawrence —

Faintly as tolls the evening chime.

Perhaps two of the most popular of these voyageur songs are
" En revenant de la joli' Rochelle " and "Via I'bon Vent"

EN REVENANT DE LA JOLF ROCHELLE.

En revenant de la joli* Rochelle,
J'ai rencontre trois joli's demoisell's.
La voil^ ma mie qu' mon coeur aime tant,
La voil4 ma mie qu' mon coeur aime.

* The R above the stave denotes the oars being raised, and the L their bdog
lowered into the water.
' Their patron saint

tring Songs.

In letumiog from pretty Rochellt,
I met three charming demoiselles,
Theie's the dear aiy heart loves,
There's the deai my beail loves.

V'LA L-BON VENT.

■ tang, Tcoii beaux

Chtrus. — Thete's ti good wind.
There's a line wind,
There'* n good wind,
Aod toy love a calling me.
There's a good wind.
There's a fine wind,
There's a good wipid.
And xkj love is awaiting mi
£>&.— Behind our home
Thcie is a pond.
Behind our home
There is a pond,
Three hanilMimc ducks
Go theie to paddle.

s the pilgrim's rowing-song which they sing on their way to
e of Saint Anne : —

Mu, L* Vierce & m

con - daH ■« t^

26o

The GentUwuuis Magaame.

Kf/raxM,

joor, De

grc - er

The Frendi-CanadiAcs are a light-hearted, song-kmng people,
and the very poorest amoogst them haTe an instinctive taste for
music : many of the raftsmen and Tinagemn among the Iroquois
Indians who served under Lord Wolseley in Egypt might often be
heard singing their quaint old-world songs. The province of Quebec
has a peculiarly musical population.

There is a very characteristic sample of the style of one of the
old ^ Jorrams," or rowing songs of the Gaelic boatmen, to be found
in Sir Walter Scott's " Lady of the Lake." The song, « Hail to the
Chief," which the clansmen sing in honour of Roderick Vich Alpine,
is an imitation of the Jorrams —

Row, Tisals, row, for the pride of the Highlands

In the follfwing \o\c boat-song we have some touch of the true
Hebridean labour rhjrthm —

Row OD, row on, my hearties.
Seize an oar, and raise the boat-song ;
Bring her quick to yonder haren.
Lest from me my bride be taken.

Gaelic.
Falv ora ho, Ro shin Robeg,
Och ora ho, Ro shin Robeg,
Falv ora ho, Ro shin Robeg,
Lift up your song, and speed the boatie.

262

The Genileman's Magazine.

Chorus, —Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the win^
Onward the sailors cry.
Cany the hid that's botn to be king
Over the sea to Skye.

I.
Load the winds howl, loud the waves roar,
Thunder-clouds rend the air ;
Baffled, our foes stand by the shore.
Follow they will not dare.

Speed bonnie boat, etc.

2.

Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep
Ocean's a royal bed ;
Rocked in the deep. Flora will^keep
Watch by your weary head.

Speed bonnie boat, etc

One would fancy that amongst the gondoliers of Venice there
would be a fund of original song ; but no, those of the olden time
used to chant strophes of Tasso's as they skimmed over the lagoons,
and the gondoliers of to-day ply their oars to the same inspiriting
strains as the rest of their fellow-men. On St Mary's Day one may
hear them chanting the ever-popular "Sicilian Mariners' Hymn."
This they do in chorus, and very solemn it sounds in the still early
morning before the bustle of Venice has commenced. The German
boatmen row up and down the Rhine singing the popular songs of
their Vaterland ; such as " Goldne Abendsonne " ; this they will do
in the evening when the day's work is over, and there is time for a
little relaxation on

The broad and German Rhine.

And of course their beloved Ix)relei forms part of every river pro-
gramme. It is one of the most beautiful water-songs in the world ;
so harmonious that it seems of itself born of the silvery waves, so
melodious that it clings to the memory long after the spray from the
water has blinded the eyes to the passing boat.

It is not fair to omit such a country of good oarsmen as China in
this little account of rowing songs, so I quote this short one, which
is a great favourite amongst the sons of the Celestial Empire.

SONG OF CHINESE ROWERS,
Solo by the Master,

Hai - yo
Chorus by the Crew,

hai-yan !

hai

yo

hai

yan

yao 1

Rotving Songs.

263

htti - JO hai - ynn !

, wi[h this rowing song of the Eton boys, I must leave the
orsmen.

BOATING SONG.

I Jolly boating ncallicr
B.Alid a hay harvest breeze,
K'Blaile on Ihe feather
" Shideofftheirws.
' Swing, swing It^ether

With your bucks between your knees ;

Swing, (wing logelhcT

With youi backs belwcen yout kncei.

le'll V

IV tore

Steady from stroke to t>ow.
And nothing in lire shall h
Tbe chain thai ix round us
And nothing in life shall s<
(The cimin that is round us

264 The Gentlematis Magazine.

Twenty years lience this wemther
Mmy tempt us firom office stools;
We may be slow on the feather
Ami seem to the boys old fools. . . •
Bat well still swing together
And swear by the best of schools ;
Bat we*ll still swing together
And swear by the best of schools.

LAURA ALEX. SMITH.

SUIO ON THE GARIGLIANO.

SIGNOR I)E SIMONE, member of Parliament, landowner, poet,
and sportsman, one of our hosts for the next three days, was
»* i ting for us at the station of Cassino. Attired in a shooting-suit of
gi^y linen, with yellow high boots and soft felt hat, he, with his flow-
ing beard tinged with grey, jovial countenance (which, by-the-bye, in
feat tire strongly resembles the face of Michelangelo's " Moses"), and
his gun slang across his shoulder, looked the very model of an Italian
coxatitry gentleman.

Packing sundry boldes of wine he had brought from his vineyard
into a cairiage, he hurried us in after them, and, a party of five, we
Tolled away on a pretty bye-road shaded with trees. The lofty chain
"' the Abnizzo Apennines, and the monastery of Monte Cassino on
I'-s promontory under the peak of Monte Cairo, lay behind us ; and
't>e pretty River Rapido, worthy of its name, ran beside us on our left.
A special charm was lent to the anticipation of our excursion by
tbc fact that no line of railway, and not even a high-road, approached
■•■'ihin several miles of our destination, to which we were going by
"ver.

We passed the ruins of the Roman Amphitheatre in the valley of

^^n Gennano, admired sundry groups of peasants in the sombre

costume of that district, then mounted a little hill and drove through

^^^ qniet and sleeping village, obtaining a lovely view over the valley

^^BgeloK, where a bridge was thrown over the Rapido. To the east

^^^Mour.t Cimmlno rose into the sky, with the castle and village of

^^l^^^'^^ d'Evandro perched on a projecting rock in the centre of its

I 'Ujtiy bosom^-a village and castle which played a part during the

"niggle between the Uukes of Capua and the abbots of Mount

^^»5»ino in the Middle Ages.

We soon turned our backs on this view and reached a sandy lane

idingdown to the ferry of St, Apollinare, on the Liri, on which

*ve we were to embark. This lovely stream, anciently called the

riJrii, rises far away in the valley of Roveto, below Monte Passaro,

I ud ii soon increased in volume by the waters of other rivers, so that

tttfCaiux. »o. 191 7. n

566 The Gentlematis Magazine^

where we joined it it was already broad and siifficientlj c
few villagers from the hamlet above had come to the wat
stare at the rare sight of a carriage full of visitors.

Lying under the opposite bank we perceived a broad flat-b
boat about forty feet long, which was our sandolo — a species
used for carrying timber or other material down the riv<
some time all commerce of the kind has ceased on the n'
the sandolo procured by our hosts was the last of its kind, tb<
being rotted by disuse and broken up. The cute country i
so managed that our barge should be waiting for us at the wro
of the river, so as to force us to cross in the common feny t(
it A dozen pairs of hands seized our bags and wine-baskei
we were soon ferried across by means of a rope and deposited
big boat

Here we found half-a-dozen rush-bottomed chairs placed fafl
an awning in the centre of the barge. This awning was a teop
erection of coarse linen sheets stretched over a frame ofn
boughs, the intersections being tied together with freshly gidi
withes.

The sandolo is fitted with a huge rudder at each end, a pi
broad rough oars, and a number of poles with hooks or pn
Three men serve the rudders, and five the oars and pdes, fa
current in the river is strong. Among these men was a youth
six toes on his right foot, as we could plainly see when he picsa
naked against the crossbeams of the flat deck.

The ferry of St. Apollinare soon vanished behind us, vk
entered into perfect solitude.

Silently and swiftly the slightly opaque, grey-green water sfij
along beneath the dipping boughs of the luxuriant willofSOB
banks, whose shade deepened the green reflections in tbc <
Swiftly and silently we glided on between the gentle hills, the J
maize, and hemp fields at their foot, now and then catching sf^
the village of St Ambrogio, perched on a little hill round fhi*
wound.

As we twisted and turned with the meanderings of the iHft
caught new views of the mountains and valley at every turn.

Nought was heard but the creaking of the great oars, the ik
the gentle breeze, the lapping of the water beneath the laty flril
nought seen but, at rare intervals, a group of peasants beauv'l
in the water, a woman washing clothes, or a herd of whitecM
widespread horns coming to the top of the high bok ^\
at us.

Suio on the Garigliano.

267

As the hills encompassed us more closely, shutting out all distant
iw, wc found their leafy monotony very sweet, anJ, as the long
lernoon wore away in dreamy stillness, wc frequently applied out-
Ives to the sparkling wine of our friend the M.l'., while we listened
> the flow of brilhant conversation adorned with quotations from the
oets.

Now and then magpies and fieldfares, startled by our approach,

ould By across the river, loo far away lo be hurt by the ready fire

3m our sportsman's gun, who was thereupon mercilessly chaffed by

^^d friend Don Luigi, one of the promoters of the expedition.

e boatmen's smiling faces show that they appreciate the fun,

Bve time lo listen, though they are never at rest Now they

off some shallow towards which the current, in spite of sleer-

sistibly drives us ; now force back the willow boughs into

\ we rush on the opposite side of the river ; and now they row

ris we gain the middle of the stream and can go straight ahead.

^3^ cleverly guide us down a rapid where the little Rapido discharges

■raters into the larger river; and once, when we reach a sharp

I all their strength has to be exerted to resist the force of the

Pily breeze, which blows hard up stream, bending the supple

I trees to the earth, raising little waves on the water, catching

jnvas tent and nearly slopping our forward course, and roaring

I merry triumph among the trees with a noise in striking con-

I the utter calm and quiet of ihe moment before. Very

i this breene in the sultry summer afternoon. After

or three miles our rivet receives the Peccia, becomes

Seper, and soon we reach the ferry of Mortola, where the Liri

e of the Garigliano.

1 this point to the sea, the fine river, now never less than six

; feel deep (except where rapids — believed to have been

icly made by the successors to the Arab colonists, to prevent

n of the latler — interrupted its smooth course), runs in a

JPy southerly direction, with a gentle decline, through beds of

kic lufa, the result of the ancient activity of the now extinct

^^ Tio Rocca Monfina. This volcanic soil ceases abruptly on the

bank of the river, where the .\usonian Mountains, part of the

-4 chain of the Apennines, rise precipitously, covered with

■ -oaks, beeches, alders, and ilexes ; broken into craggy ravines;

•^^d with romantic grottos ; containing many veins of precious

^atcd marbles ; full of limpid springs; lovely to the eye, and

J with all their greenery, close over the rivet winding at iheir

zzi

T-i JiTsS^TLix's J!j£2ZZSU.

:• F - : :::- ; -n.: - v

e crr-3s::e short b
r J sriill valleys, and
l: ■:; Rjcca Monfiia.
:f '■j.tsr :n the basalt
ii ji tie sr^-le inherited

-'-•— . - I.*..-.

L _ . 1^7. _

:.-!."=. V Ll * : F 1:11 Tlr"

5;j.:e is occupied by
5. ies ii composed of
ir.L jlzr.ts, while the
2r,L close to the water,
2 cirob-iree, intrude
5 viricr.- of tinis of

."■-*^Lr' 1 ''Li. l^i liCZ^-l.Z ZJ^ \i

.Z 1' '^'
Hi »;

.. K. .

i-ji i* '.yir.z at ihe Mortoli fenyj
M-;. ;: of Caste lione, to whose
"1 :r.e scattered viILi;:es aroundi
:■=■=! ry in escc-rt of two sturdy
:: >..5 t=~:r\- with srreai cordiaiiU',
■' ..t the c : r.versation turns on the
^ ^-.: li S.z::rr.e his nude diligent

•■ . • ■ -■

:-? c:r-s:ar.:'.y been the scene
■< ::f surro'-ndinc: mountains
■■.-■-5 ir.in, the aborigines of

who took an a:::ve :-:ir: :n a'l s:rury.e^ before and after the rise of
the Ronun Kir.: ::e. The cr gir.al inhabitants lived on peaceful
terms with the ta:"> R"m.in tolonisrs established in this region.
Roman authors s],cak of the ri.irijiliano U-iris) as *' a ver)- gentle an^
tran']uil stream liov.-inj; throii^ih a !»ive!y vale," which description, it
spite of its five rapids, c i'lally a; i<]:ls to it now.

As we talked we aj»proached a bcrd of the river where the higl
mountains seemed to block iis course. We were entirely surroundei
by thick woods ovcrhangin*.; the stream, and halted to drink of a pur
spring that spouted a few feet above the bank. The scene was si
beautiful that we immediately named the spring "The Water 0
Paradisei" which name it specially deserved, because it was the onl]

Garigliano, 269

"spring free from the mineral mixtures brewed by Vulcan in his
subiemnean vaults.

Turning an elbow of tlie river, we now fairly entered that part of
ii called the Valley of Suio, Here we met with a small wooded
blind which we tried to explore: but, though the carabineers cut
do«ii the obtruding branches, and helped us 10 land and scramble
lip ilie bank, it was so overgrown with i^rickly plants that we preferred
lorelum to our filiating lent

We had reached the region of the mineral springs for which Suio
tr.y anciently, and is now locally, celebrated. These springs of
i-jiious iiualities burst forth along the river-side for a distance of
jboul ten miles, to the number of 3 hundred or more, and with more
nr less volume of water, Some rise in the hills, where no less than
five mills are moved by mineral water. Others have their birth close
imide the river, rushing forth from the rock already full-grown
iivulcts. Their temperature varies from cold lo about 104° Fahren-
li'.ii. Those strictly belonging lo Suio yield no less than 256 cubic
kttofwater per minute, and contain quantities of carbonic acid,
iulphut, magnesia, &c,, one of them, for its richness in chlorate of
udinc, ranking third in the world.

Vet this treasure is now hardly known beyond the district itself
Tradition alone, transmitted from Roman times and from the Middle
■Viti, when a sanctuary of St. .\ntonio, now loially destroyed, existed
ncof ihc beneficent springs, caused the country people year afier
}as lo resort to the beaulifu! valley, the delightful climate of which
«« no Uss precious than ils healing waters. They came, and still
comi^ these simple peasants, by thous.inds ; and lately, since the
)yl)Vi made of the waters by the Italian scientists Roccatagliata
J^J Ferrcro have drawn more attention to the place, well-to-do
iimilies begin to go to Suio, in spite of the difficulty of access. The
IJte Italian Minister of Public Instruction, De Sanctis, once resided
;r.'.rc during some weeks in a thatched hut.

We landed first on the right bank of the river, and walked through
"lubble maiie-field to a beautiful pool called the Mola Sohmont,
'■fnuse its waters move a mill in a romantic goi^e above, named
■'■^ i4av;ne of Spirits. The pool is circular, .about twenty-four feet
in cirtu inference and nineteen feet deep, and clear as crystal, reveal-
Jwety tiny leaf of the aquatic plants growing on its while bottom,
pttmperature of the water is 61* Fahrenheit, and it has an acidu-
kutd slightly biturninous taste. Lying solitary at the foot of the
Kb looked a true haunt of naiads. Once more we entered the
itad swept down th? river, and finally, after a voyage which ))44

Suio on the Garigliano.

K^/ng in TOWS like herrings in a box, and every numbered place costs

lime fianc These attics looked like the abode of a tag- collector.

; full of men, women, children, bundles of bedding and

tiing, cooking utensils and other necessaries lying about on the

, for not a table or chair was to be seen. That those who

|»"exthelcss come to the baths are not killed by all this ditt and

ro«'ding is owing, I suppose, to the small and unglazed windows,

■cilt give free entrance lo the pure air of the valley. But that such

>Bdition of things, contrary to all laws of hygiene, should be

wed by the authorities of this rich province, is incredible, Signor

; more than once raised his voice against the abuse in

»_ Still, in spite of all, he himself has seen miraculous cures

=ted by the use of the waters ; poor cripples arrivmg supported

"korscback by their relations, and able to walk alone after taking

• baths.

In the narrow space between the back of the establishment —

wW^te also is the only door — and the mountain, an outdoor kitchen,

j » Sort of lean-to with a roof of straw, had been erected. Here stood

^Bcroird of country people in their bright costumes, which resemble

^^b&t of the Roman peasantry. They were very quiet and courteous

^^Rit manner ; and many a lovely face, quaintly framed by flat, broad

l^^liiaids of hair drawn over the ears and temples, and softly shaded by

the white magnose on the head, did we admire. Both sexes wear the

leather sandals peculiar to Italian mountain folk.

The bathers come to the valley for periods varying from a week
to a fortnight, and bring everything they need with them — mattress-
covers, which they then fill with clean, fresh maize-straw ; clothes
and bedding, and cooking- vessels ; and the groups of families
constantly coming and going along the winding woodland path, each
with its ass or mule carrying the sick or the bundles, resemble so
many " flights into Egypt."

The horrible "provincial establishment" we have described,
.mother smaller one belonging to a private speculator, and the more
lentious "Hotel of the Quattro Torn" — the property of our friend
e Mayor of Castciforte, and kept by a custodian — are far too few
e lodging of the crowds who come to the baths. Therefore a
f primitive and picturesque custom prevails. At various points
iver-sidc, near the principal springs, are erected straw
■, many feet long and about five feet high, looking like a lengthy
r thatched roof planted in the ground. These sheds are
d by thick straw internal walls into numberless small compart-
I bigger than a dog-kennel — regular gipsy abodes. And

Suio Oft the Garigliano,

flie museum of Monlc Cassino, and at the Quattro TorrJ we were
wn a piece of amethyst engraved with the figure of a winged
ale genius, also found in the ruins.
I Is, perhaps, the figure that of Marica, mother of Latinus, whose
i temple and grove were situated near the mouih of the Liris,
1 frequented not on!y by the Ausones of ancient Minturna; but
f the Roman colonists ? Or is it that of one of her nymphs, the
»ding goddess of this particular spring? In such a miraculous
where every source heals some special malady, surely in
cient times each must have had its peculiar divinity. We were
) shown a small dark cornelian, beautifully engraved with the

jure of a bull ; and some thin, slightly convex silver coins, and tiny

gold ones, which we were told were Arab, all found in the ruins of
the Roman bath.

The Arabs, indeed, called by the Duke of Gaeta to assist him in
liis war against Capua, got possession of this very valley about
A.I). B8o, and fortified the towns near the mouth of the river, main-
l.iining their dominion for thirty-six years. They were powerful on
[he wa and on land, assailing with iheir light cavalry the heavy
liotie of their Italian enemies, whom ihey greatly admired, singing
of them in high-flown terras, One of their songs our friend Dc
Bione quoted in the foligwing translation : —

I They have it«eds beside which oui Itaibniy horses look like s-'tes, anti not
PB ma of the tiesert.

[Ontbesc ilccds, or latbcr eagles, sit Uoug wUh dcslniclive talons and Gcry

iThecolourof Ibc blood which flushci their chcclis rc=cmbf« the colour of
P wine dniDk by their chieftains, and it rcJdens ihe bJae blades of oar cimetcrs.

' It was from these Arabs that the present name of the lower course
I'the IJri is derived, the Arab word Garyt (nhence Garigliano)
ning "mud," the river in time of rain being very turbid wtih the
I washed away from its banks. The savage ravines and extensive
s so numerous among the hills are still called eala/ri, meaning,
taps, "African caves." A grotto on the left bank, beneath the
tillage of San Carlo, is celebrated. It runs into the mountain to the
length of about 1,200 feet, and our friend the M.P. loves to think of
it »s the last refuge of the Arabs when, in the year 916, they were
y defeated on the Garigliano. In this battle two Roman
*icians distinguished themselves— Theophy lac t, who was one
first to take the name of Consul, and Alberic, a foreign
r who acquired great influence in Rome, and whose son
tl second Alberic whom the rebellious Romans raised to be

t: '.^^x : J-S2r2z:K€,

i'-\i- :■' -.:: A-;? -.: zr. er.d to the

V ..-._- :

. T - :

»:•

V _- 1,: it := : :

ir .:" :'■=: k.^-ci:n: c: Nar-Ies,

*■ . ";

■ ■ I . • * - •

1 . "

\' -

« ■ * ■ •

• ^

T 1*"

-' -. • . ^ _i::r . T : rr. 0-: host,

T--.-1 - -: :il.:;". r.:ii iiker. pair.s

-• :-*ir ir.i ;>. -:-£?;-> :r::n his own

::..-=.;•. :-; :r. y :'..>i r^ be had on
■-: r .: > i:-:r.i:Lr.:. 2 few fowls,

-. fi-i--. :'..:?. Xe-v niilk is never
IS - :i-.- ::' ".".-esf, :r.D.:j:h droves

:• .L: "„.. zr.i uir.e are the or.!y
^_ > :..' . ,ri:'.j c :ri;:::n5 as ours,

-. M... .. :<;.-:.:V. is :: :s, b-t this
-.-". :'- . r.:~ r:ii ar.d the railwav

..: -: r ; :.: : re-er.: :: has on:v a
■ .:•.:.:■■■ ^ :r. : the s'.o-^cs of Mount
^ ^:.:,i t'r :n that of our s!eep-
:>.- lehlr.i the volcano, and
:"..". '. ^h:. whivh g'.::r.mered on

«

• * -

K.>.".: ;.;.:. :•.^•. ' r . z. -. .: >>:.: :hc fcTr>- near the hotel
t.^ \ >.: t:e -'■.-, :" : : A-- .'. . r, 1 v ::> i :::cr name, "Little
Ik!! O.r ■:.::. •- . - ::.'^:.-,^ : y :' j 1 :::r -!-y of Professor
l\r:L:.\ IVc.". : : '.' . \> ..:..." M.'.:. :.;.. i.-.-^rtn. \\;:o h.is analysed
the waters vt S/.:.^ a:t : ::"•.;. .".w ;. ..,./. ..o.:! -tuJy of the valley. The
waters of the Aspidi hjhMe w;:h a trc:ncr.dous noise from the side
of the h:ll, formin.: various turbulent pools, the noxious fumes from
which kill all vegetation for a distance of several feet.

Uarigliana.

275

uiei

ft

From all the cracks in the soil beside the little foot-path the gases
exploded wiih noises that often resembled the rhythmic lap of a drum.
'Ihe water is white, opaque, rich in carbonic acid, and has a rather
disgusting bituminous taste. \\'e then pursued a dewy woodland
jath, through male-fern and brambles, from which we made a regular
feast of large ripe blackberries that seemed so like home, and in
half an hour reached a ravine called, like many others, Catafri,
and containing a ferruginous spring named the Marziale. The
ravine is very beautiful ; a semicircular recess on the top of a hill,
surrounded with lofty basalt rocks, at the fool of which the plentiful
spring seems lo explode, rushing out of a small hole in great bubbles
w ilh a constant " woof ! woof ! " that sounds exactly like the muffled
bark of a large dog. Away runs the pretly brook as if glad of its
escape from under the rock, depositing as it flows its red sediment.
The water is effervescing and pleasant lo drink, and certainly scarcely
another iron-w.iter spring can rival it either in ijuality or in natural
beauty of surroundings, and it seems to endue Ihe vegetation near
with a peculiar succulent deep-green colour. The country-women
come all the way from Castelforte with baskets full of bottles on
their heads, which they fill at the spring, and return the same way
~ sell them in the little towa

We were followed up the hill by a semi-idiotic man who farms
land— not as well as might be, for, as we were informed, the
peasants often own larger tracts of land than they can manage, not
having the means of cultivating it to the fullest extent. This man
demands one sous from each person who visits the spring^not an
bitant tribute. W't returned by a different path in order to
dt one of the five principal mojfttu of the valley. These are holes
depressions in the ground whence issue sulphurous and carbonic
;, generally circular in shape and several feet in diameter.
in their circle the ground continually sinks, and is filled up again
throwing stones into the hole. In dry weather only gas escapes ;
wet weather the moffelte resemble liny mud volcanoes, giving a good
of volcanic action. The one we visited was dry, so our guide,
it was near the river, fetched some water and threw it in. It
idiatcly began to bubble as if boiling furiously, and was cast uji
the escaping gas out of the various cracks in muddy founts and
On returning home wc rested during the midday hours,
towards evening sat on the river bank to watch Professor Ferrero
Wc sat in the shade of the westward hills, but Rocca Monfina
st8l in sunshine. Down to ihe green water galloped a drove of
pcy sows wiih their lively litters, and a dog who swam afler_

2/6 The Gentleman s Magazine.

his master when the latter crossed in the ferry-boat, excited our
interest as he fought against the rapid current, which dragged him
down the river so that he finally bnded on the opposite side some
yards below the point from which he started.

In the hotel we had seen a grandson of Michael Pozzo, the
famous Fra Diavolo, who was well known in this district He took
to brigandage — or rather to revenging himself on the French — we were
told, because the latter had killed his old piralysed father, whom
during an attack he had tried to save by carrying him away on his
back. And we were joined on the river bank by a gentleman whose
brother had been killed by brigands only twenty years ago ; this
valley and the neighbouring hills having for a long time been a
favourite haunt of such bands, to whom, indeed, it must have afforded
inaccessible shelter.

We soon left the Professor " whipping the stream," and visited
the baths near our hotel, tasting the sulphur water of the most
copious spring, which rushes out a full-grown rivulet below one of
the largest and most steady of the moffdie. Our man set a large
bundle of straw on fire and held it about three feet above the hole,
when it was instantly extinguished. The fumes from this moffetta are
carried a great distance, and are considered, thus diluted by the air,
to be very beneficial in certain diseases. But close at hand they are
fatal to all life, and a bather recently arrived in the valley, and igno-
rant of the danger, had shortly before sat down on the edge of this
moffetta and been suflbcattd. On the river bank close by is one
of the rows of straw huts, and as we looked at the women with their
little children playing about, we wondered that the fatal moffetta was
not walled in, for a child going astray would easily fall a victim to its
fumes. The largest bath here lies close under the steep bank ; it is
covered with rushes and canvas, and after bathing in its bubbling
warm water one can cross a low wall and plunge into the river. A
little farther on is the last of the five rapids, after which the river
flows smoothly on, turning suddenly to the north under the Bosco of
Suio, and thence meandering through the plain to the Gulf of Gaeta.
After another merry supper at the hotel, in which the large dish
of fish caught by the Professor played an important part, we retired
to rest ; and at dawn next day the last bath was taken, the luggage
placed in a straw pack-hamper, hanging across the back of a donkey,
and our party soon after climbed the hill above the rapid and took
its last glance of the beautiful valley. A dozen women, immersed up
10 their necks in the sulphur bath below, nodded good-bye to us as
we got a peep at them from the tpp of the high bank. Descending

Su:o on the GarigUanQ. 277

3gain to the level of the river, where the hills reircat on each side
.ind ihe plain begins, we found ourselves at once in a more southern
tlimale. Enormous olive and fig trees, huge oaks, rich gardens of
onnges, lemons, and vines surrounded our pretty bridle-path ; the
hill* were clothed with chestnuts and carob trees, fruit trees showed
above the garden walls, the blue sulphur springs ran in ditches at
our side, and in bits of marshy ground we gathered lofty specimens
of the reed-mace with its tall spikes of brown-red blossom.

^Ve passed the village of Suio, which gives its name to the valley
at the entrance to which it lies, perched on the top of ahiil, and
forming, with the two broken lowers of its old feudal castle, a most
picturesque object. One of its ancient citizens, Tommaso of Suio,
was among the brilliant groups of savants and politicians at the court
of Frederick II, At- a later time Suio became one of the fortresses
of Terra di Lavoro, and, like Capua, was fortified by order of Pietro
delle Vignc in 1239. Now it has a population of only four hundred
souls. We ate, as we sat on our donkeys, fresh quince peaches from
S tiee hanging over the road, as different from the fruit sold in the
:et as hfc from death, for in this fruit but a moment ago the
g sap of the tree had circulated. We were presented with the
■t oranges of the season by one of the Mayor of Caslelforte's
lants, for to the former gentleman belonged a great jKirt of the
i through which we were passing. Wc rested at one of his farms,
a gigantic oak, and were regaled with muscatel grapes ; then
isscd Ihe dry white bed of a winter torrent, which seems to bring
real avalanches of stones when in its wrath, and climbed the
y stony and painful lanes which lead lo the smooth high-road
(rCastelfone, where we finally arrived about midday. At the entrance
le liilic town a crowd of gentlemen came to meet our friend the
,, welcoming him with great warmth. Castelforte boasts a fine
il castle, built of immense square blocks of stone, on the summit
e hill above- ihe town. It is faced by another mcdiieval tower on
B opposite hill— that of Veniosa, the feudal seal of the Dukes of
A little below this, and divided from Castelforte by a
\ the picturesque village of San Cosimo e Damiano, All
; ancient places, high up amid the mountains, are extremely
resting both on account of their beautiful position and theic
ary.

From the windows of out host — in whose quaint dining-room we
K)k our farewell meal, talking politics and drinking to future meet-
: looked down upon Ihe wide plain where once lay four
ng ancient cities — Minturnie, Suessa, Sinuessa, and Vescia.

27 S The Gentleman's Magazine.

The plain is now one green expanse without a break, the river flows
through a solitary land, and only far away on the opposite edge,
between Monte Rocca Monfina and Monte Massico, can we just
discern Sessa Aurunca, the modem successor of the ancient town.

Our kind host the Mayor accompanied us to the carriage which
had been sent for from Formia. It was an old travelling vehicle
which looked as if it had come out of a museum, and no doubt, long
before railway times, had carried many a traveller on the old road
from Terracina to Naples.

The whole population of Castelforte had gathered together to
witness our departure, and, after hearty leave-takings with our host,
we rattled away at a spanking rate down the hill. We noticed that
the women of Castelforte had a peculiar type of countenance, with
delicate aquiline features and golden hair, at which we were surprised
until we were told that it was bleached with lime in exactly the
manner used by the old Romans, the tradition having been handed
down by the successive inhabitants of these mountains and
practised to this day. We soon reached the plain, and frequently
looked back at the castled towns on the heights, and at the inacces-
sible mountains of Traetto, which towered into the sunset sky in awful
majesty — black against the gold. W^e passed the ruins of the aque-
duct— sole remnant of ancient Minturnie — and crossed the suspension
bridge across the Garigliano. The sea-breeze had fallen, and our
three horses dropped into a lazy walk as we began the gentle ascent
towards Sessa. We had a last glimpse of the river gliding quietly
between its willows through the dry and cultivated plain in which
Marius could hardly now find a hiding-place. Daylight still lasted
long enough to enable us to admire the celebrated beauty of the
women of Cascano, a village lying at the top of a hill. We walked,
allowing the carriage to precede us, both up and down this hill, stop-
ping on the way a group of girls who were bringing water from the
fountain, each bearing an earthen vase on her well-set head. They
had tall fine figures and a noble expression of countenance, very
Greek, with large solemn eyes. They wear much smaller magnose
than those of Suio, edged with lace.

In silence they lifted down their water-vessels from their heads,
for each had to share in assuaging the travellers' thirst, and the
prettiest was obliged to lower her vase twice, as the M.P., with many
compliments, begged to drink from hers again. His flattery and
thanks were accepted with a quiet smile.

As we re-entered our vehicle night fell, and we jogged on listen-
ing to the lively conversation carried on between Signor de Simone

Suto on the Garigliano. 279

and Don Luigi, who, to wile away the time for us, cleverly imitated the
hackneyed phrases and manner of different parliamentary speakers.
We could only dimly discern the rocks and hills, the ravines or wide
fields among which we passed. On the fields fires were burning
away the stubble, and the blaze was reflected by the clouds that had
gathered in the northern sky, where now and again the summer
lightning flashed.

We joined the railway at Sparanise after a drive of five hours, and
at Caserta parted with the last of our kind friends, to whom we owed
three days of unclouded interest and pleasure.

And now, when from the heights of Naples we look across the
Campagna Felice at the distant mountains, we feel that another tract
of beautiful Italian land nestled within their recesses has become
familiar to us ; a tract deserving the attention of tourists and those
in search of health, and to which access will soon be more easy if less
romantic.

LILY WOLFFSOHN.

Zc. Tie GiKiumsKS Jfmgmziiu.

"EL MAGICO PRODIGIOSO"
AND "FAUST."

*• Ej -est --^ti j-jct in G<=3« w-ri^er K^nscrerke, wena a nichtanf

\ j^jT-utL. fciriierz. is: w-rfi^cr K*^ — 11 nit. '—Goethe.

Let's wriii y>:«i az^ oc "±e deril's b>Dni :

TR-\GEDY is the highest product of the human intellect when
that U ap7^1:ed to the drama or to dramatic poetry. Sir Philip
Sidney, writing in 15 S3, speaks, in his " Defence of Poesie," "of the
high and excellent tragedy that openeth the greatest wounds and
sheweth forth the ulcers that are covered with tissue : that maketh
kings fear to be tyrants, and tyrants to manifest their tyrannical
humours ; that with stirring the efifects of admiration and comnus-
cration, teacheth the uncenainty of this world, and upon how weak
foundations gilded roofs are builded." Sidney evidently imagined
tragedy to his own mind as dealing chiefly with such stately stories
as those of Pelo^js' line, or of the taie of Troy divine ; and saw, with
>lilton, the gorgeous Muse in scepter'd pall come sweeping by.
Sidney did not realise that wonderful union of regal dignity with
human sorrow which Shakspeare blended into the highest ideal of
tragedy which the world has seen : but then Sidney died before
Shakespeare wrote for the theatre, and was acted before he was read.
Tragedy is that form of dramatic i)oetry which exhibits action and
shows character, passion, pathos, thought, sorrow, crime, by means of
dialogue only— dialogue unassisted by narrative, unaided by descrip-
tion. Earnestness is tragic ; sport is comic ; but a drama only
attains to its fullest vitality when it is nobly acted to a noble audience.
The abstract ideal passion of the poet must be embodied and lived
bv the mighty actor. Tragedy, which presents the idea of fate
ruling or inducncing human action, involves a moral conflict between
man and fate, and suggests the unseen powers workmg behmd aU

^""itutThUe the tragic poet, as a rule, suggests the presence behind
the action of the Good Spirit and of the Evil Spirit, he ha= yet but
l„ely shown these mysterious essences mingling with his numan

El Mdgico Prodigioso" and "Fausl." 281

and taking part in the progress of the drama. The Deity
mains invisible ; but the demon has sometimes, though in
mces, been allowed to tread the boards and to visibly affect
ancems. To find God the Father represented on the stage
sink far below the poets, and descend to the coarse
e and gross blasphemy of monkish miracle-plays. Scherri
Eschichte der Dcutschcn Kultur," quoted by George Henry
es a striking instance of this monstrous buffoonery applied
;hest religious themes. During the crucifixion an angel
I the sleeping Deity, and the following dialogue occurs : —

wlint is not right, and ■will covet
n is just deid, and you sleep like a

i FATHea : Is he, Ihen, dead ?
Ay. ihal he is.
Ha FATHEk : Dcvit take me ir I know anylliing about it.

idly rise from the priest to the poet. Out of several poetical
fhich the attempt has not irreverently been made to let the
idet human disguise appear upon the scene and act among
here are two works which stand out supremely^ Goethe's
pnd Calderon's " Mdgico Prodigioso ;" and these two works
interesling and profitable critically to consider and to com-
Marlowe's "Tragical Historic of Docior Faustus "
now ray hint to speak. Goethe and Caldcron are more
n in respect of their spiritual art treatment of Mcphisto-
1 of Lucifer.

tar differeth from another star in glory, but when we try
re Goethe with Calderon it must be borne in mind that we
tmparing one star with another, since Goethe is a sun and
only a star, even if a bright one. The true plan of com-
RSists in forming first a just estimate of each of the two
nas, or dramatic poems, separately, and then in bringing
tiniates into conflict and comparison.

eaiamining the " Mdgico " of Calderon, it seems in place to
densed account of the man and the leading incidents of
and lo endeavour to picture to our minds the poet,
utTOundings, and his sombre if sincere beliefs. Pedro
la Barca was born idao and died in i68i. Like

began life as a soldier and ended it as a Churchman,

iced his career as a dramatic author i

■, the

year

nming and Condell collected together all the genuine
Ihakspeaie aii^JBy||^g^the invaluable "first foUu"

282 The Gentleman s Magazine.

edition. Caldoron entered the Church in 165 1 and became chaplun
to the Chapel of the Kings at Toledo. Philip IV. of Spain, idK)
died in 1665, was live years younger than Calderon. Wlien, in 1623
our Charles I. visited Madrid on his romantic marriage expedition,
Calderon was living in the royal capital of Spain. The prolific
Lope de Vega, author of some 1,500 dramatic works, recognised
Calderon as his successor as stage poet Cervantes died in 1617.
Velas(piez, who, as Murillo also was, was a contemporary of our
poet, i)ainted the cession of Breda to Spinola in 1645 ; and it is pro-
bable that Calderon, as a soldier of Spain, was present when the
keys of the city were yielded to the conqueror.

Calderon was the contemporary of many of our dramatic poets
of the I'Uizabethan age, of Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, of Ford,
Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher, and also of Shirley ; and his life
and work included the time of the Restoration and its comedy, and
covered part of the career of Dryden. Of the events of history
which occurred during the long life of the Spanish dramatist no
notice need be taken here. It seems improbable that he was
aci^uainted with I^nglish dramatic literature, and Calderon himself
was not known in England until after the Restoration. Indeed, the
first real discovery of Calderon as an European poet was made by
August Wilhelm von Schlegel, to whose writings on the subject we
shall refer later on. Calderon was the youngest of four children,
and was educated in the Jesuit College. His parents belonged to
the class of gentry, his father having been secretar)' to the Treasury
Board under Philip II. and Philip III., while his mother was de-
scended from a good I'lemish family long setded in Castile. They
are said to have been virtuous and discreet persons. Calderon was
a i)roliric writer for the stage. He is credited with more than 120
dramas and with some 70 autos sacra mcntaks^ or religious masques
or mysteries, and with several fiestds^ or festival pieces, written on
occasions of national fetes or rejoicings. He wrote, by preference,
in the trochaic line of seven or eight syllables, and relied upon the
assonants or rhymes, which are not full rhymes, but require only that
the vowels should accord. 'Hiere would seem to be in this metre a
certain fiital facility which leads to length, an instance of which
may be found in the long speeches of Sigismund in the " Vida es
Sueno." His best works — those works which most fitly display his
characteristic talents — are probably his comedies and dramatic
romances, either historical or of cloak and of sword. In these latter he
depicts with equal skill and charm a world that took the pleasures
of life boldly, and was not restrained by conscience from cultivatiog

"El Mdgico Prodigioso" and "Faust." 283

and enjoying lo ihe full intrigues and amours. The mimic stage,
which presents to men a magic mirror in which all human life which
rises above the commonplace sees itself reflected, was filled by
Calderon with true and lively effigies of Spanish cavaliers and Spanish
ladies. His figures, if conventional, are lifelike, and his pictures
portray manners truly. Of his fiestdi it is not necessary to speak.
It is the autos concerning which the opinion of criticism is most
strongly divided. In these Calderon quits the earth, upon which
his footing is so secure and his step so firm, for theology and for
religious miracles and mysteries. In his comedies, one of the best
is, I think, " Beware of Smooth Water." He is ingenious, animated,
full of invention and of fire and colour, and he can depict love
intrigues, jealousies, quarrels, successes, with real mastery. In con-
struction he is able, in situation skilful. His strength does not lie
in drawing character, nor is his gift of humour great, though he makes
due use of the gracioso, or low-comedy clown. He cannot fairly be
accu.<>ed of indecency, though his comedy morality may be open to
question, " One great and infallible sign of the absence of spiritual
power is Ihe presence of the slightest taint of obscenity," says
Kuskin ; and Calderon does not descend to obscenity. He has not
drawn a single character which lives as a figure in European thought.
With Calderon the incidents or occurrences arc the main thing.
Unlike Shakspeare, he does not use events in order to illustrate
character, greatly conceived and nobly drawn, but he uses his per-
ith a view 10 assist and illustrate event. There is not

■h evidence of heart in the work of Calderon ; nor does he, true,
'haps, lo his land and time, care lo depict ideal love. His

;|]ence consists rather in easy invention than in true creation.
He does not always touch the passions with a master hand.

Cioelhe wrote and said much about Calderon, but many of his
opinions, especially those recorded by Riemer in his " Mittheilungen,"
are so well known that it is not necessary lo do more than slightly
10 refer to Ihem here ; wliile many of his criticisms, recorded else-
where, are less known, and it may be well worth while to cite them.
Goethe's criticisms on other writers are always as generous as they
ATn luminous ; and Goethe valued Calderon to the utmost of his
worth, while he never jiushed praise beyond that high limit.
Goethe naturally and rightly ranked Calderon's merely dramatic
above his religious work. The depth of Christian meaning which
itnany find, or affect to find, in Calderon was not so apparent to

it Goethe, Thus, speaking of the "Steadfast Prince," Goethe

that, though many put the Prince forward as a Christian martyr,

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and he add^. ir. ar.otr.c: j l-ce, " I wjuld r.:: in the least keep out of
sight that Calderon, a zca'.ous Ron^anis:, and that, too, after the
Spanish fashion, writes earnestly as such ; and sometimes, therefore,

''El Mdgico Prodigioso'' and ''FausC 285

in the interests of his Church, as distinct from and opposite to the
interests of eternal truth." Shack, in an eloquent panegyric, lauds
highly the religious tendencies of Calderon's autos \ but two
thorough partisans of the poet remain to be noticed. These are
Friedrich Schlegel and his brother, August Wilhelm von Schlegel.

Of August Wilhelm, the cavalier of Madame de Stael, Gottschall
says that he nur ein formelles und philologisches Talent besass \ that
his talent was only formal and philological. He, like his brother, was
a learned man, but he put so many coals upon a small fire that it
could only feebly bum. He rendered good service as a translator of
Shakspeare and of Calderon ; but, as Goethe says, alle Gelehrsamkeit
ist noch kein Urtheil (all the learning in the world confers no critical
powers) ; and A. W. Schlegel is not eminent as a poet or really
important as a critic. His judgment is warped, one-sided, poor ; and
he has no love, and therefore no light. He is doctrinaire and dry.
Denn im Grunde reicht dock SchlegeFs eigenes Fersonchen nicht hin so
fwhe Naturen (those of Shakespeare and Calderon) zu begreifen^ und
gehdrig zu schdtzen : " Schlegel is too small a creature to be able to
comprehend and properly to estimate such high natures as those of
Shakspeare and Calderon " — so says Goethe.

Tieck, to do him justice, w^as a much greater man than was either
of the Schlegels ; and Tieck does not concur in the Schlegel estimate
of Calderon. Tieck ranks Calderon much below Shakspeare, and
finds in him no evidence of the grosse Vernunft of our great
dramatist. Tieck calls Calderon " a mannerist," though he applies
the term in a good sense. Goethe also stigmatises Calderon as
" conventional."

The high priests of the Romantic School, so called, which also
became a Romanist school, were the Schlegels, Tieck, Novalis, and
Zacharias Werner. Theirs was a dilettante plunge into mediaeval art
and into Catholicism. It was a sickly and affected school, started by
men who were neither genuine nor even thoroughly in earnest.
" Theory was bursting with absurdities " amongst them. Belonging
to that unvirile class out of which such converts are commonly made,
Friedrich Schlegel joined the Church of Rome in 1805, and plunged
with Werner kopfiiber into Catholic reaction. For this school
Shakspeare was " too Protestant ; " and Goethe, the Voltaire of
Germany, Herder and Luther, were fiercely attacked ; and Calderon
became die ideale Bliithe alter Poesie (the ideal blossom of all
poetry).

Calderon in his one aspect was the verv Doet for such men as
the Schlegels, Their soub ^

286 The Gentleman s Magctzine.

ecstasies by his autos, 'Fhey rank him above Shakspeaie.
Oehlenschlager describes Fricdrich Schlegel and his irtmisck-fitUs
Gesiiht (his fatly ironical face), which betokened a convert who, ia
half sincerity, was full of the mischievous freaks by means of which he
sought to prove zeal and to attain to reclame. Schlegel put ii^
evidence his efforts to stupefy his former self, to proclaim his ne^
doctrines, and to prove his degradation. Of course men like th^
Schlcgcls both envied and hated Goethe,, and the great tolerant^
sage has seldom spoken so severely as he did of foes whose ten^
dencies he despised so thoroughly. Of August Wilhelm's " Ion,"
Gottschall says that der Inhalt ist so drmlich und undramatisch wit
moglich \ and yet Goethe, in his noble tolerance, and in his desire to
give any poet a fair chance, produced this play on the stage at Weimar.
Friedrich Schlegcrs " Alarcos " is a " barbarous mixture of Greek and
of Spanish romanticism ; " yet Goethe gave it its opportunity on his
stage, though the result was a fiasco. The theatre echoed with a
tumult of mocking laughter ; and then the Jupiter arose and called
out in his jxDwerful voice : " Silence ! silence ! " The piece was a
total failure on the boards. " Beauty, like limpid water, must be
drawn from a i)ure well ; " and yet Friedrich Schlegel, the romantic
Romanist, is the author of " Lucinde" (1799), a poem which is, says
Gottschall, eine Mischung vom BordcU und Atelier. Goethe speaks of
the Pfiffigkcit^ of the cunning of Werner and the Schlegels ; and
again, talking to Boisscrce, he complained iiber die Unredlichkeit der
Schlegel und Ticck (of the dishonesty of the Schlegels and Tieck).
In den hochstcn Dingen versiren und daneben Absichten haben und
gemein seyn, das ist schandlich. Of August von Schlegels attack on
Molicre Goethe said that Schlegel felt that Molicre would have
turned ///*/// into ridicule if he had met with him in life. The
Schlegels, in their jealousy of Goethe, tried to set up Tieck as the
rival of the author of " Faust," but such an effort was naturally vain.
When August was in Weimar, Goethe gave a great party in his
honour. Schlegel, after his manner, tried hard to " shc^ir off'* before
the ladies; and Goethe said privately to Eckermann, er ist freilich
in vieler Hinsicht kein Mann, he is certainly in some aspects no
man ; but then the noble poet went on to praise the learning and
the merits of a guest for whom he could feel but little real sympathy.
We have now obtained a glimpse of the chief partisans of the
Spanish dramatist, and have had the advantage of hearing their
'^ninions of the poet and also the opinions of the wisest, greatest man
8 time, a man who knew the Schlegels and could thoroughly
date Calderon.

dail

1

"El MSgUo Prodiposo" and ''Faust" 287

Calderon belonged lo ihe Spain which finds its representative ruler
in Philip II. His comedies, "poured like bullets out of one mould,"
are those of his works which have for us ihe grealesi attraction and
the highest charm. It is improbable that he could have known more
than the mere names of the Elizabethan dramatists, if he even knew
the names ; but several of his productions might have been based
upon hints given by our poets, Thus, " We are such stuff as dreams
are made of" might have served as a motto or text to preach
from to his " La Vida cs Sueno." His fine allegory, which contains the
noble line, " Act your best, for God is God," and which he calls the
" Great Theatre of the World," might have had for its sponsor "All
the worlds a stage ; " or Heywood's " The world's a theatre, the
earth a stage." Goethe, a critic as capable as impartial, preferred the
comedies and plays ; Schlegel, a convert of affectation, naturally
preferred the autos. It must be borne in mind that Calderon had to
write in subjection to the censorship of the Inquisition ; but there
is little evidence to show that he fell himself greatly lamed or
hindered by Ihe priestcraft of his land and time. His nature was
subdued to what it worked in. Calderon, like Dante, was scarcely
greater than his Church ; and yet we love to fancy the soul of
the dramatist struggling, if unconsciously, to free itself from its
dark environment ; and we imagine gladly a wistful gaze trying

pierce through the black shadow which fell between him and
light. He sometimes seems to transcend his bigoted, narrow

.itations and surroundings. The soul, pressed down by the

priest, seems at moments to escape into the free air in which

the poet best can live. No dramatist could probably have less felt

the restraint and restrictions of his Church when dealing with high

lemes ; and yet Calderon must, we like lo think, have yearned

lionally at least to soar beyond the shadow of the sacerdotal

;ht. His art undoubtedly suffers from the laming influence of the
priest whenever the adroit dramatist essays themes which lie outside
the comedy of manners or the drama of romance.

It may be disputed whether the " Magico Ptodigioso " should be
classed as an auto or as a tragedy, but it will rank higher if estimated
as an aula rather than as a tragedy. How much greater would
Calderon himseH and therefore his works, have been, had his lines,
time in which he lived, been cast in the country of Shak.

e " Faust " legend is a creation of the Northern imagination.
i no evidence known to me to prove that Calderon had
if the Teutonic conception of the vi"'" '

288 The Gentlentatis Magazine.

spirit. It seems likely that the " Migico" was based upon Surius, Dt
probatis Sanctorum historiis, t. v., Col. Agr. 1574 ; Vita et Martyrium
SS. Cypriani et Justince^ autore Simeone Metaphraste ; and also on
chapter cxliii. of the Legenda Aurea oi Jacobus de Voragine dc Sancia
Jusiina virgine,

Cyprian — ^Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus — lived between 200 and
258) and was bishop of Carthage. In 245-46 he was baptised as a
Christian by Caecilius (whose name he adopted) presbyter of Carthage.
Under the persecution of the Christians by Decius, in 250, Cyprian
had to fly, but under* the milder rule of Callus he returned. He
was banished (253) by the consul Valerian. He was beheaded in
Carthage. Gibbon says of him : ** He possessed every quality which
could engage the reverence of the faithful or provoke the suspicions
and resentment of the pagan magistrates." The character and the
fate of Cyprian of Carthage would, doubtless, be known to Calderon.
There is a memorable passage in Gibbon on the subject of martyrdom
for religious opinion and faith, which, well known as it is, it seems
good to quote here. Gibbon says (chapter xvi.) : —

It must, however, be acknowledged that the conduct of the Emperors who
appeared the least favourable to the Primitive Church is by no means so criminal
as that of modem sovereigns, who have employed the arm of violence and terror
against the religious opinions of any part of their subjects. [Gibbon here alludes
specially to Charles V. and Louis XIV.] The multitude of Christians in the
Roman Empire on whom a capital punishment was inflicted by a judicial
sentence will be reduced to somewhat less than two thousand persons. . . .
Even admitting, without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded or
devotion has feigned on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still be acknowledged
that the Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far
greater severities on each other than they had experienced from the zeal of
inHdels. . . . The Church of Rome defended by violence the empire which
she had acquired by fraud : a system of j)eace and benevolence was soon dis-
graced by proscriptions, wars, massacres, and the institution of the Holy Office.

. . In the Netherlands alone, more than one hundred thousand of the
subjects of Charles V. are said to have suffered by the hand of the executioner ;
and this extraordinary number is attested by Grotius, a man of genius and learn-
ing, who preserved his moderation amidst the fury of contending sects. . . ,
If we are obliged to submit our belief to the authority of Grotius, it must be
allowed that the number of Protestants who were executed in a single province
and a single reign far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three
centuries and of the Roman Empire.

In dealing with Calderon's " Mdgico" we have the advantage of
two translations of mark — one by Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy , the
other by the late Edward FitzGerald. The translation of Mr.
MacCarthy may be nearer to the metre of the original, while that of
f itzGerald pierces more ne^rl^ to t^e meaning of Qald^rpn. Mr.

^'El Mdgico Prodigioso'' and ''Faust!' 289

MacCarthy's work in its stress and strain gives evidence of being a
translation, while FitzGerald's rendering, as does his version of
"Omdr Khydydm," seems to be, not a translation, but an original poem,
written in stately lines of vigour, purity, force and melody. The
rich harmony of FitzGerald's blank verse gives us the idea that
Calderon might have written in English. FitzGerald paraphrases
and omits, but he gives us the best of Calderon, and renders nobly
the entire essence of the poet. George Henry I^wcs has a pregnant
passage on this difficult art of translation. He says : ** I do not say
that a translator cannot produce a fine poem in imitation of an
original poem, but I utterly disbelieve in the possibility of his giving
us a work which can be to us what the original is to those who read
it." Goethe, on the other hand, maintains that it is a note of greatest
work that the ideas are in themselves so powerful that they can be
reproduced and conveyed through translation. Shelley has given us
a free and musical rendering of a portion of the " Mdgico ;" but we may
esteem ourselves fortunate to possess two such translations as those
of MacCarthy and FitzGerald. The scene of the play opens in a little
wood near Antioch. "And the disciples were called Christians first in
Antioch." Cyprian appears in a student's gown attended by two
young, poor scholars, who carry the master's books. The philoso-
pher has sought retirement for study because it is the day when
Antioch, the mighty city, celebrates with festive rejoicings

The great temple newly finished
Unto Jupiter ; the bearing
Thither, also, of his image
Publicly, in grand proccsbion.

Calderon depicts Cyprian as a sage, a rhetorician, a scholar, who
has yet some touch left of the Spanish pundonor, Cyprian is also
a pagan agnostic, a heathen sceptic ; and, though he is the " wonder
of the schools," he doubts the gods of heathendom, and feels ignor-
antly after that Unknown God whom St. Paul declared unto men.
Cyprian is studying '* this last Roman," Caius Plinius, and yearns
after a God who shall be

One all-informing, individual whole,

All eye, all ear, all self, all sense, all soul ;

when to him enters Lucifer attired as a merchant ; and the evil
spirit, incarnate in the flesh, appears upon the wonder-working scene.
In tragedy, the Evil One, whose occult workings are often suggested,
yet remains commonly invisible •«*' ««»«^nf to the thinkeri is not

290 The Gentlematis Magazine.

revealed to the spectator. Calderon shows us Lucifer in the guise
of humanity, and his drama becomes a miracle-play.

Satan and the scholar soon become engaged in high argument,
and the fiend uses dark speech, pregnant with cynical suggestion and
chilling with scornful doubt. Cyprian doubts the gods of Polytheism
and distrusts Zeus himself. Lucifer bids him " eat, drink, be merry."
Up to this time the scholar knows only a wandering merchant learned
in sophistry and in the lore of the schools.

To them enter Lelio and Floro, two young gallants, who belong
more nearly to Madrid than to Antioch, and who, rival lovers of
Justina, are about to settle their claims by the sword. Calderon's
genius for love intrigue renders this scene very lively and striking.
The mild wisdom and sage eloquence of Cipriano have their due
influence with the incensed lovers ; they agree to suspend their quarrel
until the great master shall have visited the lady to ascertain which
of the two she prefers. Justina, the fair and chaste, is painted as

Scarce of earth, nor all divine,

and the lovers go out with Cipriano, who is to execute his delicate
mission without delay. The devil, in the drama as in life, often tempts
men to their ruin by means of woman's love ; and Lucifer, who now
reveals himself to the audience for what he is, but who seems a daemon
by no means very astute or very powerful, declares his intention of
ruining the souls of scholar and of maiden. He hates Justina,

Whom I have long and vainly from the ranks
Striv'n to seduce of Him, the woman-bom ;

but it appears that this poor fiend has so little supernatural pre-
vision or occult powers of combination that

Two fools have put into my hand
The snare that, wanting most, I might have missed.

Mephisto needed no suggestions from fools. We must now see how

Cipriano fares on his embassy. The time is that of the persecution

of Christians in Antioch, and Justina is secretly a Christian, liable to

be denounced and exposed to danger of death. Cipriano has not

this key to her motives and actions, and supposes that she is only

cold towards love. He does not see that she, a Christian, would not

listen to the love of any pagan. However, he pleads ardently the

cause of the rival lovers, but finds that they must despair. He asks :

" Is the throne preoccupied ? " and is told enigmatically, " By one

that Antioch little dreams of." Cipriano himself falls in love with

Justina, and Lucifer says :

The shaft has hit the mark ; and by the care
Of hellish surgery shall fester there.

**El Mdgico Prodigioso'' and ''Faust'' 291

Alexander VL, the infamous Borgia Pope, when he rode to meet
** his eyes and his heart," Madonna Adriana and Giulia Farnese,
was attired as a cavalier, wearing sword and dagger, Spanish boots,
a black velvet doublet, and a velvet barret cap ; and Cipriano in the
second act appears, for love of Justina, in the habit of a cavalier,
with feather in his cap. Love has changed the scholar into a gallant,
but we leam that he had not been fortunate as a wooer. It seems
that,

For me
She closest veils liersclf, or waves aloof
In scorn.

And the resolute Justina, with her secret motives for action, tells
the sage that she

Will never but in death be his.

In the despair of his passionate, vain love the demented scholar
cries:

I would, to possess this woman,
Give my soul

and the demon, now about to become known to Cipriano for the
first time, answers :

And I accept it !

The dramatist, divided between poetry and priestcraft, makes
Lucifer declare himself as he might do were he trying to pass an
examination before a college of theology. The Evil One's statement
of the case would be approved by any sacerdotal censor ; and yet
this speech of Lucifer is a noble passage, the mighty line being nobly
translated, with all his characteristic swing and melody, by FitzGerald.
A compact, signed with his blood, is entered into between the
scholar and the fiend, and Satan promises to procure Justina for the
lover and to teach magic to the sage. The storm ceases, and the
apparition of a vessel shows Justina to the man who has just sold his
soul in order to possess her.

Cipriano undertakes to study magic for a year, locked in a moun-
tain with his preceptor, and the twain depart in that "wondrous
Argo " that sails for

Such Hesperides
As glow with more than dragon-guarded gold.

Be it observed, in a parenthesis, that the theatrical machinery
of the stage for which Calderon worked must have been excellent.
Stage-mountains are moved by the cunning of the scene ; storms
rise and cease ; magic barks appear and disappear. The scenic
resources of Madrid theatres must have been sreaL

292 The Gentleman s Magazine.

There is in this play, or auto^ a comic underplot relating to one
I.ivia and her lovers ; but the whole of this business is trivial and
wearisome. Mr. MacCarthy renders it all, but FitzGerald does not
deign to translate the low comedy of the piece.

Act III. opens " before the mountain " that we wot of. Cipriano's
year's apprenticeship is complete. He is a master magician, and
desires the fulfilment of the devil's compact and the possession of
Justina. Lucifer proceeds to tempt Justina. Soft music floats around
her and her senses are steeped in images of sensual delight. Mean-
while Satan whispers at her ear, as he did at the ear of Eve ; but all
in vain. Justina remains firm in her purity, and calls upon the
sacred name of Jesus Christ. The impotent and easily baffled fiend
recoils. He has magic enough to give a theatrical representation,
but knows nothing of that subtler magic that can seduce and win
a soul. When the virtue of dear Gretchen seemed quite impregnable,
Mcphisto found out a way ; but Calderon*s Lucifer can effect
nothing.

Enter to Cipriano a veiled figure of Justina, Inflamed with mad
longing the enraptured lover clasps it in his arms, when the veil falls
away and reveals a skeleton, which exclaims morally, vanishing as
it speaks :

Behold ! the world and its delight
Is dust and ashes, dust and ashes

The maddened Cipriano calls on Lucifer, A greater master
knows how to make his fiend powerful or terrible, but Calderon's
dxmon is neither powerful nor terrible, and can only offer lame and-
futile excuses for his ^ross failure. The blood-signed bond still
exists, but Satan has evidently failed to keep his part of the compact
Now comes a case of Satan casting out Satan, of Satan divided
against himself; for the fiend, when straitly interrogated, admits
all that it is his interest to conceal. He concedes reluctantly that
Justina was saved by the (lod of the Christians, and that He is more
l)owerful than the Prince of this world. The premonitions of Cipriano
as to the existence of an ideal God find their realisation in this God
of the Christians, and, calling upon Him, he escapes from Lucifer.
Cipriano thanks the God who saved Justina from his unholy desires.
In his remorse and regret he sees how vain are

All the guilty wishes of this world.

He resigns his wand ; he abjures magic ; and, more than all, he
becomes an ardent convert to Christianity !

To such a pass has Calderon's Satan brought all these tangled

^'El Mdgico Prodigioso'' and ''Faust '^ 293

matters. The result is edifying, but the process must gratify the
priest rather than the poet. Antichrist has plumply and naively
served the Christ

The hall of justice in Antioch. Justina,

This cursed woman, whose fair face and foul
Behaviour was the city's talk and trouble,
Now proved a sorceress, is well condemned,

and waits her death ; when Cipriano, in a sort of noble madness of
conversion and defiance, enters and declares that he too is a Christian.
Doomed also to death he falls senseless to the ground, and then
Justina appears, passing to her death, and is left alone with her former
lover. This terrible last interview, dealt with by such a poet as P'ord,
would have been a scene of profound power and pathos ; but Calderon,
a hybrid, composed in part of practical dramatist, in part of technical
theologian, wholly neglects the human element, and Justina acts
chiefly as Cipriano*s chaplain. She admits, however, at the very last,
that her heart had yearned to him

Acro>s the gulf
That yet it dared not pass.

The twain are united, theologically, in death, as Christian mart>TS ;
and it only remains to heap one crowning indignity upon the con-
temptible and unfortunate Lucifer, who, floating in the air upon a
winged serpent, above the scaffold on which lie the headless corpses
of Cipriano and Justina, is constrained to confess alike his failure
and his faults, and to preach true orthodox doctrine before he sinks
into the earth.

So ends the marvellous miracle-play which, however it may fail
wholly to charm poet and critic, must yet certainly have yielded the
fullest contentment to the Inquisition.

Johnson says : " The topicks of devotion are few, and being few,
are universally known ; but, few as they are, they can be made no
more ; the)i can receive no grace from novelty of sentiment, and very
little from novelty of expression."

The stage is a magician, with strange and singular gifts and
powers, who exacts rigidly his dues both from subject and from treat-
ment. Indeed, the boards of the stage slope so much downwards to
the lights that it is hard to erect upon them a pulpit which will stand
upright and remain steady.

Turning from the " Mdgico " to " Faust," with what a different
feeling we are filled ! Measures have been taken to prevent trees
growing into the skies, but Goethe's altitude of idea seems to knc**
scarcely any limit How the imagination is sublimed as we tp

294 The Gentleman s Magazine.

the narrow limits of a constricting creed and rise to the loftiness of
noble Christianity ! Calderon's doctrines are dark and restricted ;
Goethe's belong to the service which is perfect freedom. The
priest yields place to the angel There is in " Faust " no lowering of
divine ideals to the circumscription and confine of priestly limitation ;
there is in the " Mdgico " but little escape into the loftier regions of
ideal truth. The noble theme which Goethe created upon the basis
of the old Faust legend rises into the loftiest idealisms, and soars
almost beyond the reaches of our souls. An ardent soul, desirous of
storming the very skies, life wear)', having exhausted all human
learning, is withheld from suicide, and turns to the black art and to
the eager demon. Led through flat commonplace, after acquiring
restored youth, Faust is plunged into sensual love, and, while causing
such unutterable woe and wrong, finds that all devil-given joy is but
dust and ashes.

Mephisto is a fiend of infernal power, and can enter with
demoniacal possession into the souls of Gretchen and of Faust
Gretchen is the sweetest, saddest victim which poetry outside of and
below the Shakspeare women has created. Mephisto seems trium-
phant, and has full power given to him until the harvest. It required
a second part of the great tragedy in order fully to work out the
final triumph of Good over Evil, of God over Satan. Calderon
makes his demon impotent and baffled ab initio ; Goethe's tragedy
is supernatural and infranatural, but is also divinely human. In the
presence of his fiend we shudder at a hellish being who is not one
of our like. And then the humour of Frau Marthe Schwerdtlein,
and the deep pathos of the fate of poor Gretchen ! It is to be
noticed that in the sublime last scene of the Second Part, Goethe
cites those passages of Holy Writ which are the bases and the warrants
for his great conception of the Evangel of Redemption. Our very
souls respond to the gigantic mental difference between Goethe and
Calderon, to the glorious poetry of the German, to the range and
power of his intellect, to the wealth of his imagination, and to the
height and depth of his spiritual insight. The lofty poem which ends
with the ultimate victory of God has, at its beginning, and has most
fitly, that Prologue in Heaven in which the great spiritual problem of
the play is suggested in such noble melody and through such profound
thought.

The learned Rabbi Rambam, called Maimonides, who lived in
Cairo between 1135 and 1204, when Arab philosophers were dis-
puting about the nature and operation of the divine knowledge and
wisdom, interposed, saying :

ffC

El Mdgico Prodigioso'' and ''Faust!' 295

" To endeavour to understand the divine knowledge is as though
we endeavoured to be God Himself, so that our perception should
be as His. It is absolutely impossible for us to attain this kind of
perception. If we could explain it to ourselves we should possess
the intelligence which gives this kind of perception."

Goethe agreed in opinion with Maimonides. He felt with reverent
awe that we cannot fully comprehend God or pierce to the mysteries
of the divine nature and actions ; but he recognised deeply all that
is revealed, all that it is given to man at his highest to know or to
apprehend, and he, too, could dare to justify the ways of God to man.

FitzGerald, in his swinging, sonorous verse, translates the chorus

in the " Agamemnon " : —

Oh, Helen, Helen, Flelen ! oh, fair name
And fatal, of the fatal fairest dame
That ever blest or blinded human eyes !
Of mortal women Queen beyond compare.

There are one or two curious things in literature in connection
with Helen's cheek if not her heart ; things which may or may not —
there is no clear evidence on the point— have been known to Goethe;
but which it seems worth while to put on record here.

In Plato's " Republic," Book IX., Chap. X. (translated by Henry

Davis, M.A.), it is written : " Hence also they must fight about

these things, as Stesichorus says those at Troy fought about the

image of Helen, through ignorance of the true one." A scholarly

friend, the Rev. J. M. Rodwell, informs me that this Stesichorus was

a Sicilian poet who flourished about b.c. 600, and wrote a poem, or

Palinodia, about Helen, of which fragments are included in (iaisford's

collection of Greek minor poets. " I also find similar stories about

the mythical character of Helena in Philostratus's * Life of Apollonius

of Tyana,' that strangest of mountebanks," says the Rev. Mr.

RodwelL Simon Magus, or magician, is pilloried to everlasting

infamy in the Acts as the sorcerer who, when he saw that, through

laying on of the Apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, offered

them money, saying, " Give me also this power ; " to whom Peter

replied : " Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought

that the gift of God may be purchased with money." In the

" Clementis Romani Epistolae," edited by Adolphus Hilgenfeld

(Leipzig, 1886), occurs a passage referring to Simon Magus and to

Helen, which my learned friend thus renders for me : " There was a

certain John, a disciple of Simon Magus, who was a Hemerobaptist,'

' The Hemerobaptists were a curious sect who seemed to bave i*^
Mosheim, that the oftener they baptise the holier and bappkr ^r
therefore^ would recdve baptism cyoj daj if tbqr cookL

296 The Gentlematts Magazine.

and had thirty disciples, to correspond with the da>'^ of the month,
and a certain woman called Helena, for a definite purpose — viz.:
that as a woman is an imperfect part of a man, so she might com-
plete the proper number of the monthly days when they are thirty-
one. After the death of this John, Simon travelled about in the
company of Helena, teaching that she had come down upon earth
out of the highest heavens, and that for her sake the Greeks and
barbarians waged war with one another, deeming her an image of
truth." The date of the Clementines is the latter part of the second
century, about 160 of our era.

In literary criticism comparison is, if half unconsciously, an
attempt to find likeness in the works considered, while contrast is
an effort to detect disparity; and if we begin by comparing Calderon's
" Magico " with Goethe's " Faust " we inevitably end by contrasting
the two works. The one is so narrow and imperfect ; the other is
so majestic and so complete. Calderon preaches didactically, while
Goethe shows and teaches through the purest forms of delightful
art Calderon's " Magico " extorts a very qualified admiration, while
" Faust " remains one of the masterpieces of the world, one of the
highest productions of human intellect, insight, imagination.

H. SCHUTZ WILSON

297

OUR VAGABONDS
HUMAN AND FEATHERED.

THE humours of sign-painting, as to paradox, comprehensiveness,
or inscrutability, especially when we come upon these sign-
boards as quaint revelations, are delightful to contemplate. Fre-
quently with them, as with much else on this planet of ours, " things
are not what they seem." Who of us in travelling by the cliffs of
Antrim or the wilds of Donegal, amidst the grandeur of Morven or
through the Moor of Rannoch, along the picturesque coast of Corn-
wail or amongst the silvery reaches of the Wye, has failed to observe,
and not. without a smile, the quaint legend inscribed over the door of
some wayside hostelr)', " Refreshments for Man and Beast " ? The
cottage may be unpretentious to the last degree, yet clean and sweet-
looking withal, with the accumulated thatch of generations on its
lowly roof — thatch tenderly folded in by a coverlet of green moss
and golden stonecrop, which Time's hovering hand has been weaving
through storm and shine for many a day. To our delight and wonder,
often, however, on alighting, we, mayhap, have been courteously
ushered into a delightful, clean parlour, with floor well sanded if not
carpeted, and, as that fine old gentleman, Izaak Walton, the poet-
angler, has it, " with lavender in the windows and twenty ballads
stuck about the wall.'* As a rule, we find, too, that the homely fare
is as delicious to our whetted appetite as that which he describes
with his dainty wholesome humour : " The dish of meat we will
have is too good for any but anglers or very honest men ; and if
thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee
to be a competent judge."

If we were asked by the immortal Dr. Johnson to define at the
present moment the term "Vagabond," it is probable ihat that
ponderous, erudite genius would be ill-satisfied with a definition one
tithe less elaborate than, " A Vagrant : one wandering from place to
place, having no certain dwelling, or not abiding in it, and usu^
without the means of honest livelihood." But, in the inter
humanity, and much that is sweet and perfect on this planet

VOL. CGLXIX. NO. I917.

298 The Gentlematis Magazine.

is not this definition somewhat like a desolating whirlwind, which
not only reaps with sharp sickle the earth's rich grain, but at the
same time ruthlessly carries it away? We would qualify its finality.
"The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," and there are
many delightful creatures, apart from human bipeds, who are classed
under the comprehensive " vagabond," yet who, while in their own
modest sphere can accomplish Heaven's sweet will, are happy and
honest in all their wandering and work.

Let us go abroad, and afoot, together, on the breezy highway in
this shining summer day. While we trudge along with light heart and
keen, reposeful eye, our hand and our heart open to every genial,
honest soul we meet, we shall be all the better able to get a passing
glimpse of "vagabonds," both human and feathered, for in the
bird-world as well as in human society there are wanderers whom
we could ill spare.

We may fitly begin with ourselves ere we consider our feathered
friends, whose domain is as large as this green shining earth, from
sea to sea. As to the choice of their happy homesteads, or where
they will spend the summer, they have decidedly the advantage over
us. They sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into bams, yet
they are happy and contented, and, on the whole, find life sweet
The rising or falling of all the Bourses in Europe does not affect
their share list, and their little hearts are saved the affliction of the
latest bulletins from the wars. Fire and sword may wreck cities and
change frontier-lines, but their pendant homes are always safe and
leafy bowered, and they have a life-rent of all that their wicgs can
compass, even to the ends of the earth.

With reference to the human vagrant, if we would see vaga-
bond life, not in its squalor, amidst pothouse exhalations and
clothed in rags, but in its fresh, picturesque, and not by any means
dishonourable existence, we must take to the breezy highway, with
the sweet sunlight of heaven on our face and no shadow of the
world or human care within our souls.

Let us assume the role of vagabond, then, for a brief space,
treading the hard grit of the healthy highway together, and touching
humanity at instructive angles in village and ioym. What though
the millionaire pass us by in his liveried chariot, supremely uncon-
scious of poor pedestrian wights, we can afford to let him roll on,
and felicitate ourselves on this royal privilege we have — the liberty of
going afoot anywhere on this fair earth of ours at our own sweet will.
We do not require to invest anything in our journey ; so, if we keep a
cheerful heart, a keen eye, and be satisfied with moderate returns, all

Our Vagabonds — Human and Feathered. 299

nivolved in that state of grace which true pilgrims must possess, we
shall return both wiser and happier for our journey.

Ah ! we are in luck, even at the outset. There, before us, is a
•cene not only of present charm, but worthy of being retained as a
quiet picturesque memory : an exquisite bit of Nature and humanity
combined, a gipsy encampment down in the green hollow there,
amongst the golden gorse, and under the shelter of the dark belt of
pines. What a picturesque cluster they are, old and young, as they
encircle the camp-fire ! Two strong, swarthy-looking men are en-
gaged in tinkering ; whilst two women, who, even under such adverse
conditions, are decidedly beautiful, are mending some garments of
the little community. The patriarch of the company, old and bent,
sits by the fire, smoking in calm contemplation. Over the blazing
feggots stands a triangle, at the apex of which hangs a huge caldron
attended to by an old crone, tall and gaunt, and who, without any
additional stage garniture, could step at once into the rdle of the first
weird sister in " Macbeth." Half-a-dozen frolicsome brats are
tumbling about in that glorious deshabille which essentially belongs to
the children of nomads, their beaming laughter literally shining
through faces of long-standing nigritude. The company's huge
yellow-painted caravan and their tent are in the background, at the
very fringe of the fir wood ; whilst in the foreground their white
mare, with a quiet happiness, crops the long luxuriant grass. The
whole picture is delightfully fascinating, and, coming on us like a
revelation, as it has done, has to us a charm which far exceeds in
picturesque effect and human interest the finest canvas of Jacob
Ruysdael or Claude I^rraine.

But, beyond the picturesque setting of the scene before us, there
b a romance about the personality of these gipsies which is fascinating
in the extreme. They seem to be contented ; and, if not demonstra-
tive in their joy, they have a quiet happiness which is more enduring
and better than mirth. There is another, and not the least pleasing,
feature in the little community — the hereditary look of solid comfort
in their faces, strong and seated, as if of the growth of generations.
The hunted, ca7ved look of the shiftless and seedy vagrant has no
place here. That they have money in the camp it does not require
the most subde jwwer of analysis to see ; and though they may not
have a place in any share list of our commercial centres, they have
that which is infinitely more satisfactory— sweet content, a competence
for the present and an ample margm to keep them from the from-^
line of adversity or want.

These wanderers have another charm— the vagnr

3oa The Gentlematts Magazine^

they raise in our minds as to their touch with humanity in the varied
scenes which their lives have compassed. The infinite variety of
place and circumstance which has been the warp and woof of the web
of their destiny is supremely suggestive, and could furnish many a
reverie of inexhaustible romance. Tradition ascribes the cradle of
their race to Egypt, whilst the earliest voice of History places their
first home under the shadow of the Himalayas. If they have been
sent forth, like Cain, to be vagabonds and wanderers over all the
earth, the terms of the mystic fiat were never announced to the
world, and its seal-royal shall never be known to mortal ken. If ever
a curse was given it has been long ago revoked, and no brand is now
on their brow. They come upon us like a vision, wholesome, pic-
turesque, and pleasant to look at withal, work at their craft, sell their
handiwork, strike their tents, and, like a dream, glide again into the
infinite, from whence they came. Amongst the vagrants of earth
they are undoubtedly the real, genuine article, the Simon-pure
** Original Company," as theatrical parlance has it ; and, upon the
whole, the recording centuries have never disputed their letters
patent As they are now so they were in the days of our grand-
fathers, changeless amidst change, charmingly picturesque and repose-
ful in the very centre of the hurry and commonplace whirl of
commercial life, within touch of our institutions and civilisation, and
yet not of us in language, or religion, or aims of life. Their ancestors
may have encamped by the fields of Boaz on the green hills of
Bethlehem on some autumn eve when the nightingale's song

Found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home.
She stood in tears amidst the alien corn ;

or under the cedars of Lebanon which the axe of Solomon had not
yet touched, the ruddy gleam of their camp-fire blending strangely
with the silvery light of the full Syrian moon.

In our own country and our own time semper eadem may be con-
sistently claimed as the modest legend for their peaceful and humble
escutcheons still. The gipsies that encamp under the oaks of Sher-
wood Forest today are kinsfolk in the craft they ply and in their
modes of life to those who may have dined with Robin Hood, or,
mayhap, have mingled with the crowd who gazed on Ivanhoe in the
lists at Ashby-de-la-Zouch. We have seen encamped amidst the
blue gentians of the Bavarian Alps, and in the Vale of Chamounix,
beneath the shadow of Mont Blanc, groups whose setting was identical

— and certainly not more charming or romantic-looking to the eye

with tl at on the green holm before us, with the background of

Our Vagabonds — Human and Feathered. 301

sombre, sheltering pines. That picture there has now become part
of our life. We have met, and will part, like ships at sea, each one
sailing again into the infinite. This scene, transient though it be,
is one factor in the countless number which are giving tone to our
spiritual complexion for all time.

There is another class of vagabonds which to the bucolic mind
have a peculiar fascination — the circus folks and strolling-players.
They are part and parcel of the scenes and events of each rural
district, and come round with the regularity of the seasons.
Christmas-tide, Easter and Lent have, of course, their places in the
Calendar, and so has the advent of these delightful vagabonds — with
this difference, the exact date of their recurrent arrival is not a fixture
•either by canon or Church. They arc movable feasts, and if they
have not been officially blessed in an ecclesiastical sense, they have
had that which is to them as comforting and beneficent — the blessing
of honest hearts, old and young, who by their coming have been led
through the delectable regions of Fancy and Romance. These
itinerant artistes are benefactors in their way, and their visit stirs the
stagnant blood of many a thorp and town. The circus comes upon
the rustics with that charming glamour which combines memories
of the past with the dawn of fresh expectancy. Will the acrobats
display feats more daring than when last they were with them ? Will
the clown's jokes be as good ? Will harlequin be as nimble, and
columbine as pretty ? All the village is on the qui vive, sire and son,
matron and maid, tottering age and laughter-loving childhood. The
circus tent is pitched, and all the little world of Hayslope, or Kirby-
Grange, or Dreamthorpe " steps up " to the melUfluous music of a
clarinet, a bass drum, and a wheezy trombone. The " house " is
densely filled with all the neighbouring peasant world, with here and
there a sprinkling of those who are a step or two higher in the
social ascent, and who possibly wouldn't like to see their names in
the Sloptown Herald as of those who patronised the performance.
The assembly is representative, at all events, and the human interest
is as keen as ever was that at the Colosseum, with its gladiator fights
and eighty thousand spectators. It has this advantage, too, over
Vespasian's mighty amphitheatre — it doesn't profess to supply any-
thing so realistic as that provided by the Roman emperors when they
had their slaves

Butchered to make a Roman holiday.

There is no hint in their performances of

Dacian mothers weepinjjfi far AWtj-*

302 The Gentlemaiis Magazine.

widows, now, of course — and

Young barbariaDS, all at play,

amidst the distant marshes of the Danube ! These circus friends of
ours have, happily, nothing so blood-curdling and classic in their
bill of fare, but they have that which touches the human heart with
a witchery more fascinating and healthy — " Dick Turpin's Ride to
York." How these villagers follow the dare-devil hero in all the
dramatic scenes of the play, till comes the pathetic denouement^ the
death of Black Bess ! The death of Black Bess ! Why, the event
is historic ! What to these assembled rustics is the death of Alex-
ander the Great's Bucephalus, or that of Marengo, which was with
Napoleon in the victory of Austerlitz ? Wellington's Copenhagen,
which he rode at Waterloo, has, it is true, a far-off hazy personality
to those — a painfully limited number — ^ho know anything of its
existence ; but here was Dick Turpin's own Black Bess, in prof rid
persond^ tricking their senses by the wondrous witchery of her acting,
and " dying " for the tearful delectation of those who have paid their
money and are now getting its value ! It may be safely averred that
the death of that horse has a pathetic corner in the heart of every
child in the English-speaking world, and its name shall be fresh
when those of the chargers of the world's conquerors are forgotten.
It never yet ** died " in a circus without having the pathetic event
baptised with children's tears ; and, after all, the tears of a child are
the purest which this world of ours has yet to spare.

The strolling-players who visit our villages and small towns are
equally dear to the hearts of the people. The demands of these
rustics are small, and they are delighted with modest returns. Tinsd,
spangles, and stage-scenery painted at the rate of one penny per
square yard are to them spectacular splendours, and commonplaces
are regarded with a kind of awe if delivered in velvet cloak and
buskins, and in stately Ciceronian style. These rustic audiences
have no touch with the great world, and if knowledge of it, past or
present, shall be had by them it must be imported. The strolling^
player in a sense becomes one of their benefactors, teaching them the
deep records of histor}', and leading them through the enchanted
realms of Romance. Puck, Ariel, and the Fairy Mab convey
them to the sweet lands which they have never seen since their
childhood's days — and then only in dreams. They cheer with
Henry V. at Agincourt, and, with a grim satisfaction, thank the destiny
which slays Richard III. at Bosworth Field. ^Vhat a charmuig witcheiy
has been wrought for thera b^ lYv^^^ m^ciactvs oC the stage I What

Our Vagabonds — Human and Feathered. %o%

a bridging of the centuries ! What a resurrection of history-making
events ! Agincourt ! King Henry the Fifth ! Why, here they are,
this very night, rubbing shoulders with the monarch, and within
touch of the fateful fight that contributed so much to make England's
greatness ! Or, mayhap, they have a delectable glimpse of pastoral
life so like that in the hamlets, dales and woodlands of merry
England. Beyond the footlights there, reclining on the grass by the
huge bole of an oak (foliage and vegetation hastily improvised — but
no matter), the melancholy Jaques moralises on human life : —

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.

They see Rosalind gleaming like a heavenly vision amongst the
shadows of the wood, and in the sharp wit of Touchstone, and the
wholesome laughter of Audrey hear echoes of their own round of
life, and, as they go home to dream again of " As You Like It," they
begin to realise that, after all, the Forest of Arden is not so far re-
moved from them, and that Jaques, and Corin, and Touchstone, and
Audrey are wondrously like themselves.

As we trudge merrily along the highway on this breezy summer
day, the snow-white filmy clouds driving along the sky of unfathom-
able blue, we are led to think of another class of vagabonds, our
friends the birds. VVe call them friends, advisedly, for, as a rule, the
birds are alike worthy of our protection and friendship. Tis true,
some of them have a slight infusion of freebooter blood in them,
and, uninvited, have carte blanche of our orchards and gardens ; but
do they not give in return a melodious recompense enough to fill
us with rapturous joy ?

Amongst the vagabond or wandering birds who charm us with
their more or less lengthy sojourns, may be named the cuckoo, the
thrush, the swallow, ^vA— facile frinceps—iht nightingale. Who of
us can ever forget our first memory of the cuckoo's flute-like call ?
He is the most solitary bird of our woodlands, frequently hidden
far away in the deep boughs of umbrageous beeches, or within
the sombre shadows of the pines. His notes have a dash of
melancholy in them, as if " some natural sorrow, loss, or pain " were
weighing on his mind. He is so shy that he is more a melody than
a visible thing. Wordsworth has said this well for all time in his
fine touch —

O cuckoo ! shall I call thee bird ?
Or but a wandering voice ?

Tennyson makes a pleasing reference to him in those charming

304 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

lines in " The Gardener*s Daughter," in which he describes so well
a bird-chorus in Nature —

From the woods
Came voices of the well-contented doves.
The lark could scarce get out the notes for joy,
But shook his song together as he neared
His happy home, the ground. To left and right
The cuckoo told his name to all the hills.

There is another melodious vagrant whom we meet in sum-
mertide on the margin of the woodlands, now amidst the golden
bloom of the gorse, and again on the topmost bough of a solitary
ash — the wood-thrush. There is one before us at the present
moment. Listen to his peculiar kind of song and his wide range of
notes! His fluting pipe extends from a shrill treble to a deep hollow
bass. He compasses the whole gamut, and has at his command all
the tremulous vibrations and artistic changes of an accomplished
fnma donna. Some birds, as the wren, the yellow-hammer, and the
robin, are pretty much restricted in the compass of their staves,
especially so the robin. He always begins well, but in the midst of
his lilt suddenly breaks down, as if he had forgotten his score or lost
his music. The wood-thrush, however, has a complete musical sylla-
bary of his own, whose notes he can vary at pleasure. His discourse
is versatile, too, and has in it such a tenacity and flexibility that you
would imagine he was turning the point of a logical syllogism, or
ending an oratorical climax with a finality which no feathered philo-
sopher could gainsay or resist.

The swallow has to us all a peculiar charm, from his nestling,
trustful nature, from the grace of his form and his measured circling
flight, and on account of the wide compass of the earth which he
overtakes in his journey from home to home throughout the circling
year. If by chance we may be early awake or astir in that still hour
just before dawn we can hear a faint twittering beneath the eaves.
Just as the first grey streak comes up from the rim of the East, these
swallows have opened their eyes and are pluming their wings to go
forth and forage for breakfast long ere the thrush has awoke in the
copse at the sheltered corner of the meadow, or the lark has risen to
salute the dawn. And as we hear from time to time their faint
chirp, we cannot refrain from falling into a reverie of surprise as to
the historic lands and sunny climes they may have overtaken in their
flight. These swallows may have been fledged amidst the rose-
gardens of Damascus, or may have reared their young under the
cares of the Church of iheHoV'^ St^\ik.Vvie in Jerusalem. They may

Our Vagabonds — Hainan and Feat/iered. 305

have seen the red sun sink into the hot heart of the African desert as
they flew over the Pyramids, or, as they passed the mosques of
Cairo, may have heard the Mussulman, from the top of the minaret,
call the faithful to evening prayer. Be that as it may, these beloved
sharers of our home are ever welcome, and of each of them we can
always say —

We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.

Amongst our delightful feathered vagrants it would ill beseem us
not to find a favouring place in our affections for the nightingale.
Who that has listened spell-bound on a summer gloaming to the
nightingale's song, the dark poplars standing like weird sentinels
against the grey sky of the west, and the lustrous evening star hanging
over the old church-tower, like a heavenly lamp suspended over one
of the altars of earth, can forget those throbbing rills of divine
melody? It is the one perfect song of the universe, the one melo-
dious wonder that has in it no shadow or regret. Many a time have
we heard the round, full, lute-like plaintiveness ot his melodies that
seem to sink deeply into the soul, there to remain tor ever. It seems
to us that the delicious triumph of the bird's song is its utter
abandon^ its fluty sweetness, its liquidness, the bubbling and the
running over of its wild gurgling strains. Never poet sang more
sweetly of this bird — so well deserving the theme — than Keats :

Thou wast not l)orn for death, immortal bird !

No hungry generations tread thee down ;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown.
. Perhaps the selfsame song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn ;
The same that ofttimes hath

Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faihry lands forlorn.

The nightingale's song can never be reproduced. Try to grasp
it and it eludes you. It is not the melody of mortals, but is ecstatic
and ravishing, like the music of heaven. Well did (juaint old Izaak
Walton realise this when he said of the bird, "The nightingale,
another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet, loud music out of
her little instrumental throat that it might make mankind to think
that the age of miracles had not ceased. He that at midnight, when
the very labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often,
the sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the doubling and
redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted up above earth and say,

3o6 The Gentlemaiis Magazine.

' Ia)rd, what music hast Thou provided for Thy Saints in hea?en,
when Thou afTordest bad men such music on earth?'" This
language is surely exquisitely fine. As a pastoral in prose it could
not be well surpassed, and the object is worthy of the theme.

In our ramble we have been in touch with humanity and nature
at some of their most picturesque and charming angles. Our
demands have been modest and our expectations limited. We have
thus been all the more easily satisfied with the retiuns obtained, and
can trudge homewards having in our hearts that grateful satisfaction
so well expressed by Wordsworth :

The common growth of Mother Earth
Sufficeth me, — her tears, her mirth.
Her humblest mirth and tears.

ALEXANDER LAMONT.

307

THE ORDEAL BY POISON:

AN EPISODE OF FETISH WORSHIP.

TO Students of racial idiosyncrasies the peculiar freemasonry
societies existent among the tribes of Central Africa offer a
rich field of research. From the meagre knowledge I could gain
about them during my travels there they may be succinctly described
as societies in which the youths of both sexes were enrolled, and
placed under what corresponded to a priestly supervision, to be
initiated into many occult ceremonies and signs and to learn a
language known only to the inner circle of members. The influence
of these societies and the members of them over the people at large
was naturally enormous ; the native African being of an extremely
superstitious cast of mind, and the members of the societies claiming
for their especial control the sphere of spiritualities. The notorious
medicine-men and witch-doctors are recruited from their ranks, and
the power of an initiated member is supreme in all things — over his
neighbours' souls and bodies in theory, or, what amounts to the same
thing in practice, over their goods and chattels. Fanaticism is a
motive power at once dangerous to encounter and difficult to with-
stand, but, added to the low cunning typical of the religious impostor,
it becomes a power by no means to be despised amongst peoples
peculiarly prone to its influences.

Chance made me an unwilling spectator of an instance of the
abuse of this power. It had been my fortune to be intimately
associated, in performing the duties of my position, with a villanous
old African chief whom I will call Emba. He was an obese, sensual-
looking black, with small wickedly-leering eyes. His head was
adorned with a towering head-dress made of cocks' feathers inter-
woven with strings of cowries, and his body was wrapped in a large
red blanket. He was a man much feared in his locality, where his
character for low cunning and cruelty had become proverbial. The
tribe neighbouring on his own was ruled by a native queen named
Nkula, and at the time I met him this queen was his pet aversion,
and he was occupied daily in devising schemes of mean vengeance

3o8 The Gentlematts Magazine.

on the members of it whenever a chance for doing so presented itselC
Emba's district was one in which the influence of these societies I
have alluded to was paramount, and he possesed great influence with
the leading medicine-men, whose services he was able to command at
any time — a power that increased his indifferent reputation. I had
seen a good deal of him when orders reached me to advance into
Nkula's territory. When I bade farewell to Emba I hardly thought
I should be so soon unpleasantly reminded of his vicinity. It
appeared in the sequel that his enmity towards Nkula had never
slumbered, and that he had conceived a plot of diabolical ingenuity,
which he was able to carry out successfully, in order to indulge it to
the full.

Having taken leave of him we started on our march, advancing
well into the heart of Africa, and each step bringing us into more
fertile and more thickly- populated country. The farther we had
advanced from the coast the more we had got beyond that territory
upon which the old slave-dealing days has, even at this distance of
time, left its irretraceable marks in the thinly-populated districts and
villages sparsely distributed and well concealed. Daily the aspect
of the country partook more and more, as far as natural luxuriance
went, of the nature of an earthly paradise. In the vicinity of the
villages the land was well cultivated, and each homestead was sur-
rounded with thick plantations of maize and banana. Central Africa
is a curious conglomeration of diverse peoples, who, in their tribal
relations, .resemble in a larger degree the cliques of an English country
town. Each tribe subsists by and for itself, to- the rigid exclusion
of outsiders. Though the mode of life is the same in all, because
all have the same natural conditions to which to adapt themselves,
the customs are not infrequently dissimilar. Thus it is by no means
uncommon to find a tribe of restless cannibals with roving and brutal
instincts bordering on another that is peaceful, industrious, and
home-loving. Another striking trait is the var}^ing degree of differ-
ence between the sexes. In the majority of tribes the women are
only so many slaves, representing the real property of their lords and
masters, and upon them falls the most laborious and menial portion
of the daily toil. It was now, however, my good fortune to view the
reverse of this picture, where the females were the recognised chiefs
of the land and the tribe was ruled by a queen.

The short tropical afternoon was rapidly closing in when I
reached the chief village of Nkula, a tributary princess governing
one of these latter tribes. As I neared the clustering group of dome-
shaped huts I heard the monolotvows atvd lugubrious sound of a torn-

The Ordeal by Poison. 309

torn, mingled with the crooning of many voices raised in lamentation.
Our approach was not unexpected and did not disturb the mourners,
who were mostly females, seated in an open space in front of Nkula's
hut. On the report of our arrival Nkula stepped out to meet us.
Her appearance was a pleasant surprise. She was young, tall, and
well-made, with shapely limbs and figure. Her face and expression
were full of meaning, and intellect of an unlooked-for capacity seemed
to beam from her dark and dreamy almond-shaped eyes. The sun-
light glistened on and accentuated the clearness of her smooth dark
skin — for her only garment was a grass cincture— and flashed upon
her heavy brazen ornaments.

She received me with a quiet grace and manner not altogether
free from curiosity, which she repressed with a studied courtesy that
elsewhere would have been called well-bred. In response to the
usual salutations she offered me the shelter of her village, and grace-
fully accepted a present in token of good-will. When asked what
was the cause of the mourning and lamentation going on around us,
her pouting lips seemed to quiver with momentary pain and her
nostrils to dilate with sudden passion as she faced me. Then it all
faded away, and she simply answered " Come."

Silently I followed her into a hut, to a corner of which she
pointed sadly, and in the half-light I could distinguish, lying side by
side, the bodies of two small black children stiffened by the hand of
Death, The scene had a striking pathos all its own. The dim
interior ; the tall, sad figure pointing silently to the tiny forms on the
ground, over which Death had cast a halo of impressive calm ; the
wailing sound of the distant threnody, with its rude chant and ruder
poetry, contrasting with the hushed chamber and its silent occupants;
made up a picture of which I have never lost the memory. Nkula
stood thus for a few moments, and then, with pathetic simplicity, she
said, with a perceptible tremor in her voice :

" They are mine. Some one bewitched them suddenly, for they
were playing together when bed-time came."

Sad little souls ! A heavy and unbroken sleep would mark their
lengthy bed-time !

Before we had pitched our camp I had learned the particulars of
this event. Nkula^s two babes, on whom, as is common with all
African women, she had lavished an extravagant amount of affection,
had died the day of my arrival quite suddenly. In accordance with
the customs and traditions of the tribe their death was attributed to
witchcraft, and I learned that a messenger had been despatched to
Emba, Nkula*s foe, to send a witch-doctor, who was to discover the

3IO The Gentlematis Magazine.

bewitcher, in order that he or she might be forced to submit to the
invariable punishment in these cases — the ordeal by poison.

As the brief twilight of the following evening faded into night,
I was summoned to attend the witch-doctor's ceremony. I found
the village assembled in the open space by Nkula's hut In the
centre was blazing a large wood fire, by the side of which the medicine-
man squatted. He was a thin, meagre and hungry-looking individual,
clothed from head to foot in a fantastic robe of twisted grasses dyed
in patches. His hair was abnormally long, and stuck out round his
head like a bunch of crimped black wire. In his hand he held a
quaintly-fashioned stringed instrument, made of a hollow wooden
box with thin strips of root-fibre strained tightly across it At his
feet stood a curiously carved calabash containing the poison to be
administered to the culprit, and which I afterwards found to be a
strong infusion of the bark of a particular tree, and very rapid and
deadly in its effects. In the centre of her people stood Nkula,
looking very calm and stately. When the whole \nllage was placed
she began to speak with the whole force of her rude language. She
detailed the tragic deaths of her children, and then, in loud and
determined tones, announced the punishment of the accursed wretch
who had bewitched them.

I could with difficulty follow her speech, so measured and yet
so rapidly delivered were the periods ; but the impression of out-
raged dignity and intolerant pride that animated her voice ; the pro-
found and bitter threats of vengeance against the offender, whom,
high or low, male or female, it was her reiterated determination to
punish to the bitter end ; the fanatic fervour with which she explained
how her weird creed enforced the rigid law of vengeance, awed and
stirred me and infected me with something of the same spirit that
held spell-bound the hushed and awe-struck crowd around me. A
low murmur of approbation greeted her as she closed her speech and
resumed her seat — her eyes sparkling with excitement, her lips firmly
compressed with invincible determination. During the whole of the
harangue the women around her beat their breasts with both bands
quickly and unremittingly ; and the light, regular sound echoing along
the line had a curious effect on the listeners. It was a strange, rest-
less, pulsating accompaniment to the words that harmonised with the
whole scene.

Then the weird and interesting ceremony commenced. Fuel was
heaped upon the fire until its lurid flames played fiercely on the set
features of those around it, sending red shafts of light high up amidst
the surrounding trees. The witch-doctor seated himself on his

The Ordeal by Poison. 3 1 \

haunches and began a solemn monotonous incantation. Accom-
panying himself with a running series of tones from his stringed
instrument, which, without pretence to harmony, rang out, now sharp
and dear, now falling to a low vibration, as the cadences of his song
were fierce or sad. The music was savage in the extreme. There
was nothing of the tender or the vague, the expression of the whole
coincided with the rude denunciation and the description of the
unalterable decrees of a stern fate depicted in the song. At its close a
band of women with their bodies daubed with red and white paint,
their heads hideously decked with feathers, marched round and round
the fire, each holding a fowl in her hand, plucking it as she walked
and throwing the feathers into the flames. At first their steps were
slow and majestic ; then, as the chant gathered volume, they became
quicker and quicker till nothing could be distinguished but a maze of
whirling black figures over whose bodies the leaping flames flashed.
When the last feather was plucked the fowls were thrown on one side,
and each seized a small stringed instrument and twanged it loudly to
a new chant Faster and faster round the fire they danced, twirling
round in a circle till one became giddy with looking at them. Crash
after crash of wild music, mingled with screams and mocking cries,
growing shriller and sharper at each repetition, accompanied them as
they trod their mad bacchanalian measure, twisting their bodies into
nameless contortions and still whiriing madly round and round, until
exhausted nature gave way beneath the strain of this maddening
excitement and one of them fell to the ground in a fit of violent
hysterics.

Instantly the music ceased and a dead silence followed, broken
only by the crackling and roaring of the flames. On each face was
set a look of fearful, heartrending anxiety. Slowly the medicine-
man rose and, lifting the panting figure from the ground, supported
it in his arms. With the wild gestures of a maniac she seized his
arm and dragged him forward, giving vent to a shriek so wild and
despairing in its intensity that my blood ran cold. Dragging him along
with superhuman force, she flung herself violently on the ground at
the feet of Nkula and was seized with a second horrible fit of
hysteria.

A perceptible shiver went round the assembly. Expressions of
agonised surprise and fearful doubt flitted across their features. The
die was cast. The beivitcher of Nkula s babes ivas Nkuia herself!
She who had been so uncompromising in her denunciation of the
culprit, so vindictive in her animosity and so full of threatening
vengeance, was singled out by a fiat that admitt'*''

312 The Gentleman's Magazine.

victim of her own dread sentence. Who could tell what hands
pulled the strings which worked the puppets who performed this
tragedy ?

The fantastic scene was dramatic in the extreme. My eyes were
riveted on Nkula's countenance, and never shall I forget the fleeting
expressions of anger, agony, doubt, fear and despair as they swiftly
passed over her features so that one could read as in a book the
tragic course of those inexpressible emotions.

But her native nobility asserted itself. One moment, and no
more, of hesitation and she rose to her feet. Even then, before her
affrighted and awe-struck people she might have flung aside the fetters
of relentless fate her own fanaticism had forged. But her nature was
of sterner stuff. She spoke not, and her eyes seemed to stare dully
before her as she stretched her hand to the calabash of poison,
destined for the victim of her vengeance. One swift glance round
on her silent subjects, one swift quiver of the mobile features, and
she raised the bowl without trembling to her lips. Ere one could
have stayed the action she was quivering in the dust in a frightful
death-agony.

CUTHBERT WITHERS.

3*3

OUT OTTERING.

WHAT a long breath the blackbird must draw, to be sure !
Here am I doing my best to feel that I have not risen earlier
than usual ; trying to be as matter of fact as one can between the
pauses of tea and toast. There is a calm in that slow, deep-chested
alto of the blackbird that is beyond all words. And yet he is telling
me, for all his own self-possession and May morning quiet, that there
are, for such inferior wingless animals as men, certain helps to loco-
motion which can only come at certain times, and unless taken
advantage of, speed off and leave us very much where we were ; and
I seem to hear in the oft-repeated, slow-drawn, blackbird's alto
some such words as these : " Now sir— make haste — sir — or — you'll
— miss— your train — sir."

One would not so much have minded what the blackbird out on
the laurel had got to say had one not looked at the hour and found
it close to seven o'clock, and realised that in less than thirty minutes,
if one failed to catch the train, one would fail to join the pack of
otter-hounds who were travelling from Cockermouth to Threlkeld by
the said train, and miss the first of their morning hunts for the year
along the river Bure and up the valley of St. John's.

Just then a thrush in the lilac bush close by the breakfast-
room window began to aid and abet my philosophic blackbird
monitor.

"Going, going," it said, "be quick, be quick, be quick." This
thrush must have come of a good French family, or else high-schools
have been the rage in the thrush world also, for he immediately
altered his tongue and called, "Vite, vite, vite," as plain as any
Frenchman ever cried it.

" You must really, sir, make haste, sir. Now look sharp, now look
sharp, look sharp, pray make haste, pray make haste, pray make
haste— vite, vite, vite, be quick." The thrush's call was on my nerves ;
I could stand it no longer. Bolting the last mouthful of toast, pouring
the cup of tea into a saucer and gurgling it down, I seized my stick,
and away out of the house I ran, to catch the train that was convey-
ing the otter-hound pack, and tfl

VOL, CCLXIX. NO, i$'

314 The Gentleman's Magazine.

It is not so easy a matter to fall in with th% otter-hounds as is
supposed. No meets are advertised, and except to an inner circle
no meets are declared.

" You see, sir,*' said a yeoman friend at the station, " it 'ud niwer
deu to hev a vast o* fowk come trailing oop beck sides and river
banks at sic a time as thissen. Seed-corn already startit grawin', and
a lock of ley-gurse (meadow grass) to be kep' quiet for the mowing.
As it is, otter-hounds stops off for ley-gurse mowing."

I did see, and confess that the comparative quiet gained by the
fact that the chosen ones who followed the hunt were few, added
not a little to the rich enjoyment of the morning.

" Theer*s anudder thing as maks for a sma' hunt," said a sports-
man as we stood together on the platform. " Otters is few — excep'
for bloodin* young dogs we're not particlar to killin' them— and if
there's a gay lock o' fowks oot wi' t' hunds, and there's a drag, otter
hesn't a chance, ye kna."

We were soon talking over otters' ways and 'otter-hound
characteristics with the huntsman. A dark-eyed man was he, dressed
in blue cloth with silver buttons whose sign was an otter, and who
wore knee-breeches, and was evidently made for the "running
huntsman's " game. He was no salaried whip, but just a friend of the
Master of the Hounds, who in the Master's absence took control

I learned from him that both otters and otter-hounds were on
the increase. There were now in the Lake District and its confines
four packs — Kendal, Cockermouth, Carlisle, and Egremont

As for the hounds, there were ten where there were two twenty
years ago ; and if only the rivers could be kept pure from poison, so
that fish would multiply, there need never come the time when otters
should be scarce.

Only a few weeks since otters had been seen at the mouth of the
Keswick town sewer, and otters had been tracked by their " prints *
as the spoor is called, up the River Bure we were going to hunt to-day,
and also on the sides of Thirlniere Lake, within the past few days.

" But what about the hounds and the size of the packs ? "

*' They vary. We," said my friend, " hunt with as few dogs as we
can ; six to eight couples are quite enough. If you have more the otter
has too little chance. As to breed — well, there is the pure otter-hound
first and foremost, and then we have strains between fox-hounds and
bloodhounds. I generally draft into the pack some of the older,
slow-going, safe old fox-hounds from the neighbouring fox-hound
pack. You will see all the varieties when we empty our horse-box
at Threlkeld presently. M loi l^ttfeis^ vre generally take wiA

Out Ottering. 315

old British breed— a Dale breed, as it is called ; the Ulpha and
Patterdale rough-haired terrier is of the hardiest. No one seems to
know its origin about here. Crib 1 Crib ! " and up jumped from
under the seat as good a specimen of an ancient Briton as might be
seen among dogs.

Colour — a kind of American walnut ; thicker set than most of
the wire-haired English terriers I had seen.

" * Crib ' is a caution," said a gentleman beside my friend. " He
houses with the doctor all the year, won^t look at me when I meet
him any time between mid-August and now, but I send down for
him the night before we throw off for the season. He knows all
about it, and nothing will induce him to leave me till after hunting
is done."

« When islit done ? " I asked.

" Oh, as soon as it gets too hot and water gets low — mid-August
or September."

" And when does it begin ? "

" As soon as it gets warm enough for the dogs to face the water,"
replied my friend. " This is an early start. We are often unable
to go to the rivers till June, but this season is mild — no snow water
in the rivers — and so we are going to our first meet now, in the
second week of May."

" But have you no close time for otters ? "

" No ; they don't need it. They have cubs at all seasons, so far as
we can learn, and so that does not enter into our account"

" What kind of state of water in the rivers do you like best for
your hunting ? "

" Oh, neither too low nor too high. We are oft-times forced to
give up hunting in a dry season because of the shallows. An
otter, unless he has depth beneath him, is at such disadvantage.
And the fact is that the otter is game whose life is too valuable
to us to be sacrificed easily, for otters never seem to have more than
two cubs, and appear to breed only in alternate years."

" What time," I asked, " do you usually like to meet?"

"We used to meet at five, and half-past ^\\q^ in the morning ;
but the scent is so tearing hot at that hour that we have found it
best policy, and for the sake of the otter's chances altogether better,
to meet a couple of hours later, when the scent is colder."

As he said this the train drew up with a " girr " at Threlkeld
Statioa

What a picture of a meeting-place it was 1 Here, where Thorold of

3i6 The Gentlematis Magazine.

tured his flock, and drank of the " keld," or cold spring from the
Blencathra's height ; here, where in later time that "shepherd lord"
grew up amongst Thorold's descendants and learned "love in the huts
where poor men lie." He " whose daily teachers were the woods and
rills " — did not he, bethink you, on just such an exquisite morn of
May, stroll, crook in hand, among the flowery meadows either side
the Bure, startle the heron and flash the sandpiper, and watch with
wonder the otter at his feast ?

Yet, as one gazes from the vast buttresses of dark Blencathra —
Blencathra "that many-bosomed hill," so the Greeks would have
called it — to look south and east upon Helvellyn^s side, one goes in
thought on this our hunting morn, to the shepherd lords of an earlier
time, to hunters of an older prime. For there, up above the quarries
below the ruddy Wanthwaite Screes, there lie the remnants of the
huts of primeval men, who, for aught we know, trained dogs of just
such breed as to-day shall hunt for " game '* by the river banks they
haunted and the river banks they loved.

Certainly about these otter-hounds there is a most primeval look,
thought I, as with a yelp the motley pack came tumbling out of their
horse-box. I expect these animated doormats, for so the otter-
hounds seemed, were just the kind of cross between a stag-hound
and a bloodhound that would be needed to press the game through
a bethicketed England in the hunters' days of yore.

Gazing at the pack we set aside the old fox-hound stagers, and our
eyes fell on what seemed to be bloodhounds. These bloodhound
pups were in reality out of a pure otter hound by a shaggy father
whose father had been crossed with "a bloodhound, and had thrown
back into the bloodhound strain. Yet the Master of the Hunt assured
me that the same mother and father had presented the world with
hirsute hounds, and he doubted not that in all but the rough coat
these pups were otter-hounds indeed, and that their children would
return to long-coated- dom.

We certainly got a good idea cf the otter-hound build by seeing
these smooth-haired gentlemen, for the otter-hound in his long-
haired suit defied eye- measurement. The otter-hound shaggy seemed
a constant surprise to me. His heavy coat gave him a heavy look,
which, however, belied him. Once in movement one saw his
litheness.

Dark of muzzle and back and tail, his ears and haunches and

belly and legs were ochrey yellow, and when, as was frequent during

the hunt, a hound dashed up the bank and rolled upon the grass^

one could hardly loi iVie momttvv vVVcvV ^^\. ^\& ^<^«s«^ ^Ka^^llf-

Out Ottering. 317

shining beast was the dark-haired, sombre creature seen below in
the shallows just now.

We threw off with the eight couples and a half, and soon found
that our field was a small one — not more than a dozen men at the
outside. There was, of course, among these the yeoman whose farm
we first entered, and the retired gamekeeper, who knew where the
otter was last seen.

" Want-thet's handkercher's folding up," said a man at my side ;
•* it will fair yet." And as he spoke a light veil of cloud on Wanth-
waite's crags seemed caught up by invisible hands and passed out of
sight

Now we gained the river what scents were in the air ! The
birches just putting into leaf were fragrant as with paradisal odours;
the bird-cherries poured out their honey perfume ; larks filled the
air with song ; cuckoos cried as it seemed from every naked ash and
budding oak. And oh ! the flowers. First over carpels of anemone,
then through little strips of pearly wood-sorrel we went. At every
bank primroses were sweet, and in the open meadows here and there
in beautiful isolation orchids bloomed. Such marigolds, too, gleamed
in the soughs ; such cuckoo-flowers freckled the grass ; such black-
thorn blossom whitened the hedgerows. Shundra was passed ; Hollin
Farm, fairly veiled in plum and cherry blossom, was left upon our left.

The silent hounds cast up the bank, not keeping close to the
water, but spreading over the grass within 60 or 100 yards, then
making for the water again. At last there was a sound of music,
and Ringwood, the shaggiest of the doormats on four legs, put his
feet well upon a projecting bit of boulder-stone by the bank, and,
lifting up his head, seemed baying to the sun.

In an instant the whole pack gathered and gave tongue, and then
all was silent again.

" Cush, they've spokken till her," said a man. " But I dar* say
she's nobbut touched shore happen, and it 'ill be lang eneuf afore
they speak agean."

It was " lang eneuf."

But that note of music marvellously possessed us, and the fact
of an otter's existence in this old valley of St. John's seemed to make
the valley doubly interesting.

We scrambled down to the water's edge, and saw among the
many " footings " of the hounds who were not scouring away up
stream a queer-looking footmark ; a creature half-goose, half-cat one
would have said had been there. It was the otter's '* print," as it is
calUdi and up stream we ^'

3i8 The Gentleman s Magazine.

Hilltop was passed, whitely shining on our left — such an ideal
spot for a farm. Ah ! how the weary Londoner might rejoice,
thought we, to find the May dawn break above his head at such a
valley homestead. Lowthwaite Farm, quite as enchanting, stood in its
rustic loveliness beneath Helvellyn's side a little farther oil The
hunters paused. For after crossing the road that leads up Naddle
to St. John's School and Chapel, the River Bure runs into a noble
horseshoe of liquid silver, and we watched the dogs cast and recast,
speak and be silent from point to point all round the emerald
meadow.

Music here and music there ;
Music.'music everywhere.

Yes, and music of a very different order specially floats upon the
bird-cherry-scented fragrant moving air as the wind from the south
drifts the sound of the bleating of the lambs from Naddle Fell. For
there, as we cross another road and pass into the fields, where the
vale seems to grow more narrow, the river turns and glides west
right under Naddle, and stepping-stones placed strongly in mid-
current give to the river just the kind of natural harp the clear
stream loves to twang.

But not with river melody nor with the chiming of the hounds are
our ears filled ; for by a solemn yew tree, and overshadowed with tall
dark pines and budding poplar trees, there stands beside the bank
beneath the hill a very simple Cumberland cottage, "four eyes, a
nose, and a mouth " upon its white face, in shape of dark windows,
porch, and open door.

That cottage has sent forth songs that will not die — songs bom of
sympathy with simple men and solemn nature.

There, till lately, dwelt a kind of Isaac Walton among men— a
village schoolmaster ; one who himself was ever at school learning
what streams and winds and flowers in this beloved vale might tell him
of high thought, and gathering from the words and faces of his yeoman
friends the deeper melodies that make our common life a psalm
which bids even angels desire to listen thereunto.

Truly, as long as men know what pathos is, they will, as they read
Richardson's ** Cumberland Tales and Other Poems," be glad that
the River Bure sang sweetly at yon humble threshold, and of these
stepping-stones made so rich a harj) for his hearing.

" I dunnet kna," said a yeoman friend, " much aboot potry and
sec like, but I kenned many and many of the men as he put down
in verse. You couldn't be off kennin' them. It was o* to t* vara life,
his ipak' of potry, ye kna ; naw nonsense nor nowt, but just tot' life —

Oh( Ottering. 319

tHrara life. Bat what thar, dogs is at wark ; otter uU happen bt in
e of the soughs twixt here and Feliside."
Away we went, splashing through the wet ground, leaping the
soughs full of rich golden light from the thousand mary-buds that
had inlaid them, till suddenly Ringivood laid nose to ground and
broke away from the bank, and in a moment the dogs seemed to
have forgotten all about the windings of the liquid Bure, and to have
gone mad across the meadow towards Helvellyn's side.

" I'idn't I tell ye sae?" said the gamekeeper ; andafterthem we
B Kurried.

^h Away across the meadows to the road beyond the wood and to

^K>|he rocks. We had run the otter to earth— nay, we had run it to

^■^tocks ; and such a "beald" it was that all the "Cribs" in the

^K'^World could never have stirred his ottership from there.

^P So back we came, and up the stream we went through the

K meadow haze ; the cushat,s cooed sadly from the " Fornside " larch

wood, the sandpipers flitted with sharp and piteous complaining

hither and thither; but we were as light-hearted as boys, old men and

grey though some of us were. Owr the bridge we passed, along

under Naddle, through I.ow-Bridge-End Farm byre, and the men

ran out and joined us, and the dogs barked and shrank back into the

house. Presently the leading hound cast among huge boulders on

our left, opposite the Manchester Waterworks gauge-house.

"Game's afoot," shouted a yeoman. "Didn't I tell ye sac?"
said the gamekeeper ; and all the hearts beat faster as upon the

I terrace path towards Smelhwaite, or Smith-thwaite, "Brig" we
went.
I doubt if Sir Walter Scott ever saw the Castle Rock he speaks
sA in the " Bridal of Triermain " in greater glory than to-day, in the
pleasant May light. The chinks upon the natural bastions emerald
^cn, the castle walls gleaming as if the wandering sun had found
that here was rest and peace at last. The little white houses of
Legburthwaile, called " The Green," shone out as if they had
gathered beneath the castle hold for sweet security, and could laugh
1 their peace and hearts' content. The moist fields between the
Castle Kock and the Howe were just cloth-of-gold with the marj--
puds ; and as wp neared the bridge all travellers know — for they
,t hard and hold breath in the mouth as the coach dashes down
over and up from the dangerous crooked little Smelhwaite Bridge
-we could see beneath the woods on the Howe, as yet not fully
*aved, a veil of white anemone, woven, tt Kerned, into a lucent
(amask, and broidercd with ri"''

3^0 The GentUmatis Magazuu.

like a sur up.3n die deep-brown amber of the stream (for there
T.Z.I. beer, n:- :n :r.e r.fjht and the pools were discoloured) fkshed
t y i wi:er-o.i5cL and sciiLnz on a stone, ducked and curtsied, and
sr.oweii u> her l.fJc white bib and tucker over and over again, as she
Lcib-cd ind bijbbed her saiLitation to us.

*- Carters now jy nar if Bessie Doucker's about," said a yeoman.
'• Lcssie's \-ara shy cf much disturbance, whether of man or beast'

" Bctsie Doucker \ " I said. " What in the name of fortune is
Bc>s:e Dc'jcker?"

•• We ca' them di; j<:rs Bessies hereabout ; they mostly what git
F.cs>ie r>oucker and nowt else," my friend replied.

•• Bu: whist ! L)ar Bon ! that's Ringwood, he's hit drag, he has
ho*3i\Ter ! and sees: tha' he's gaaing reet across owr midder for
Hc'vellyn Beck theeraway.'' The yeoman was right ; we rushed
down :o the river bank, and how we jiot across the Burcis more than
I mind. Sjcn we were knee-deep in marigolds, splashing away for
the leek that flows down from Brown Cove Crags, and leaves the
smiihy beneath the Howe that Wordsworth's " rosy-cheeked
schoolboys ' have made immortal, and makes a straight course by
ash and sycamore tree to join the Bure just the low side ol
I^methwaite Bridge.

'J'he otter had been too swift for the hounds. A splash down
stream, a flash of a brown body that looked like a seals cub, a cat,
a beaver, and gigantic water-vole in one, was all I saw ; and away
the hunt — dog, man, otter-hound, terrier, yeoman, gamekeeper,
huntsman, and whip- -tore down the heck towards the river.

I made for the bridge- the most ]>icturesque, but the worst bridge
for its particular purpose between Keswick and Windermere. Who
does not know that bridge ?— how many hearts have leapt into ho>v
many mouths as to the cry of '* Sit hard, gentlemen ! " the coachy
has dashed at the narrow, crooked, low-parapeted viaduct, and
gone with a crack of his whip at a hand-gallop up the steep pitclB.
beyond.

Running round I stood on a kind of miniature escarpment
beneath a long-tasselled flowery poplar, and saw the hounds div<^
into the dark pool, struggle up against the stream, then turn, ani
with their months full of water-stifled music, allow themselves to be^
swept back to the bank.

Then a fleck of silver whiteness rose under the bridge, and a^
cry of *'Forrard on !'' came through the archway, and the dogs dashed^
and swam on forward, and their melody died away. I stayed on the
bridge, with good view of the river pools cither side, and scarce had

OiU ottering. 321

the hounds owned the drag in the meadow below Bridge-End House,
and seemed to be going away beyond the stepping-stones and the
tiny-arched upper bridge in the direction of Raven Crag and the
Thirlmere thickets, than I noticed bubbles rise — " beaded bubbles,"
not " winking at the brim," but breaking in long line across the still
backwater of the current. Another moment, and a shadowy some-
thing that seemed almost like a black fish — might have been a
seal — shot through the pool, and a brown body, swift as light,
hustled along under the overhanging brow of the bank, and with a
flop dived into the pool higher up.

I confess I had no heart to halloo for the hounds ; my sympathicb
were with the " game." It was, as one analysed one's feelings after,
not the chance of being in at the death of an otter that had brouglit
one out into the glories of a May dawn, but the chance of a sight of
one of these ancient dwellers from primitive times in the old valley
of St. John's.

And doubly serene did great Helvellyn seem, and the Naddle
Fells shone out in sweeter beauty, as back by the rippling Bure
and the otter's " beald " among the rocks near Low Bridge we passed
with certainty of that otter's safety. Thence we turned by Fornsidc
and the Green, and went along under Castle Rock to the quaint old
farm upon the fellside known as Stanah.

There, where the water leaps down from Helvellyn's shoulder in
ceaseless cataract, and sends upward such rainbows that the miners
as they pass up the zigzag path hard by the ghyll to go to their
work at Glenridding mines on the Monday morning are more than
comforted, we too found comfort and good cheer for a time.

As we sat and cracked on over our " few poddish " in the cosy old
kitchen, and enjoyed a downright good " rust," as the saying is, in the
easy-chair, the farm lad came in to tell us that " dogs had spokken
till anudder otter, and gone gaily weel intil middle o' lake efther
it." But lack of boats on Thirlmere had frustrated the hunters*
aims, and with some reluctance the hounds had been recalled by
way of Dalehead Pasture, and were now going down road to
Threlkeld. 1 sauntered out, and followed down the Vale of St.
John's homewards and stationwards, " in silent thankfulness that still
survives."

I confess the freshness of the morning and all the first excitement
of the chase had passed away. The day was much more ordinary
in its general appearance now. I had seen skies bend »"•* "• ■
over Naddle Fell ; Blencathra had seemed a hf
as full of witchery and shadow. Yes ; tberp

322

Tlie Gentlemafis Magazine.

slug-a-beds between the ways of sun and air at seven o'clock on
a May morning and at noon, that words cannot describe.

But as home we trudged, with the pack twinkhng along the dusty
road before us, we blessed the otter and the hounds for that sense
of " all the beauty of a common dawn " they had been the means ol
giving us ; blessed them for glimpses of dewy meadow-lands and
May morning joy in an enchanted vale, and vowed to meet the
huntsman at his favourite haunt, Oozebridge, below Lake Bassen-
thwaite, at the earliest hour of the earliest day the Master of the
Hounds should next appoint

H. D. RAWNSLEV.

;23

TABLE TALK.

The Bodleian Library.

THE great Oxford Library has been fortunate in its friends and
its chroniclers. Twenty-two years ago the Rev. William Dunn
Macray published his " Annals of the Bodleian/' Since that time,
in his capacity of assistant in the department of MSS., he has accu-
mulated further notes, and the result of his recent labours appears
from the Clarendon Press in a second edition which is practically a
new work. The task accomplished is more difficult and more important
than at first sight appears. Though small beside the British Museum
Library, the Bodleian, with its half-million or so of printed books
and its other treasures, is one of the most important of existing
collections, and one of the most delightful haunts of literary re-
search. Enriched by the splendid bequests of Sir Thomas Bodley,
Archbishop I^ud, Selden, Sir Kenelm Digby, Rawlinson, Gough,
Douce, and other benefactors, it is perhaps the English library that
makes most direct appeal to the imagination and sympathies of the
scholar. An account of its growth and development is in some
sense a record of intellectual progress in England. During a long
period, as the historian points out, the library seems devoted
chiefly to English antiquities. A mere glance at the list of bene-
factors shows how natural this is. While owning that this is a worthy
object, Mr. Macray holds that it is hardly co-extensive with the work
of a university or the objects of the library. With the revival of literary
activity which followed the period of the eighteenth-century sleep
came ** a revival of the old antiquities within their wider sphere."
Like most ot his predecessors, and like most who have used the
library, Mr. Macray is a worshipper of the institution, and a warm
adherent of the present system of arrangement, a system which, as
he pointed out in the preface to his first edition, " often imparts an
interest of its own to well-nigh each successive shelf of books ; for
each tier has its own record of successive benefactions and suc-
cessive purchasers to display, and leads us on step by step from one
year to another." It is impottibl^ ♦« fnllow the historian through his
record of donation i

324 The Gentlevtaiis Magazine*

times due, it is painful to think, to theft. The book will be in the
hands of all scholars as a monument of loving, loyal, and competent
workmanship.

A Woman on Woman.

WITH my masculine education or ignorance, I dare not attempt
to discuss feminine dress or enter upon any question of
feminine conduct. It is, however, interesting to hear a protest from
Mrs. Ward (Miss Elizabeth Stuart Phelps) against the immodesty of
the feminine portion of English and American society. The various
points in the tremendous indictment Mrs. Ward brings against her own
sex may not even be enumerated. It is sufficient to say that in their
conduct in the theatre and in society they incur equal condemnation.
They listen without a blush to scenes which are morally monstrous to
"the edge of abomination," they take too much to drink, in the ball-
room they wear a costume which is nothing but " a burlesque on civili-
sation," and which exposes the body with an indifference which nothing
seems to abash. Our censor holds that the time will come when our
present licence in regard to ball-room practices will be regarded " as
we now regard the practices attending the worship of Aphrodite."
So many "giddy offences " have not, indeed, been brought against
womanhood since the days of "the old religious uncle "of Rosalind,
who " was in youth an inland man, and one that knew courtship too
well." When asked which were the principal evils that he laid to the
charge of women, this worthy was wont to say : " There were none
principal; they were all like one another, as halfpence are; every one
fault seeming monstrous till his fellow.fault came to match it '* {As
You Like Ity Act iii., scene ii.). I am not inclined to treat with
levity Mrs. Ward's protest, for which I fear there is more justifi-
cation than will be universally granted. I am less hopeful than she,
however, of improvement from the means of reformation she suggests.
Certain, at least, am I that any change as regards evening dress
in this country must be preceded by a decree prohibiting the custom
of appearing at Court in a state of quasi-nudity.

SVI.VANUS URBAN.

«t

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

October 1890.

HUNTED.

By Ella Edersheim.
Chapter I.

INTRODUCTORY.

IT was the cosiest time in the day. The clock over St. Bede's
Chapel had just warned St. Bede's Warden's butler that it was
meet time he should carry up the tea-tray. The same monitor had
probably suggested to Charles Graeme that this was a fitting season
in which to pay his respects to his Warden's wife. And though
guile and careful plotting could never for one moment be associated
with the candid and respected name of Professor Wheatley, it was
certainly a strange coincidence— the chapel clock would have insisted
something more— that led that worthy and simple being to find him-
self about five o'clock of most days in a chair — nobody's particular
favourite — in the Warden's spacious drawing-room.

The May sun came in a straight mellow ray from the window
that faced due west, and this in spite of the fact that a good deal of
the said window was taken up with mullion of grey stone and lattice
work of lead. A low comfortable fire was contentedly smouldering
under the wide chimney. It must have known that it was unneces-
sary and merely a thing tolerated ; yet, unlike most objects super*
seded, it kept a pleasant memory of past usefulness, and was only
careful that it should not by undue crackling and boastfulness call
attention to the present superfluity of its existence. Ove^^
classic heights of carven white marble glittered and beap*
vox. ccLxix. MO. 1918.

326 The Genlkman's Magazine.

hundred little trivialities which, to the educated of this day, implf
refinement and culture. Photographs of blooming maidens, vhosc
main idea seemed the insistence of beauty triumphant over mind,
and of young men whose principles must have been diametrically the
Opposite, appeared at intervals amongst an extraordinary mel^e of
fans and bric-i-brac, and scraps of the silken dulled embroider)- of
other ages and peoples. And everywhere the same inappropriate
confusion met the eye. The great grand carpet, with its leviathan
freehand and antiquated colouring, was strewn with fragile wicker-
work and scarlet mi Iking- stools of mushroom growth. The chimney-
pot that had been formed to brave the elements and laugh defiance
to the wind that threatened the kitchen-fire, and with it the dinners
of at least two hundred hungry souls, here found itself, by the help
of Aspinall's enamc! paint, a reformed character, and meekly stood
to hold a vase of white narcissus. And all the room, which should
have been grave and silent, or have echoed only to the sound of
learned feet, was brave with gay hangings, and soft with that unseen
touch which comes from woman's hand.

Outside, the ycHow laburnums reached all the way up from
dark soft velvet lawns Co laugh in at the window to the west, in
tassels that were already beginning to look rather draggled and
moulty. And the boughs of redolent May, proud in the conscious-
ness of selection, leant stiffly back in their great earthenware jars
each side the chimney-piece, leaving all wrangling to the bowls of
yellow marsh- marigold, whose dank odour clashed disagreeably, to
their fastidious way of thinking, on their own sweet fragrance

Inside the party sat and sipped their tea, and made silent but
eflcctual inroads on the hot buttered cakes, and it was very evident
that there was "something in the air." Mrs. Hawthorn, indeed,
endeavoured at intervals to assert her position as hostess. But
Professor Wlicatlcy was one with whom it was proverbialiy imi>os-
sible to make conversation of any description. Why he |jaid calls
no man ever knew ; for he certainly had not anything to say at .such
times, or, if he had, at least he never said it. \'et he was the most
sociably inclined of men, and the most inveterate, and, be it
added, untimely of callers. If ever there was an inconvenient
moment or an inauspicious occasion, Mrs. Hawthorn could have
divined with fatal certitude that the gentle, kindly Professor would
make his appearance. She knew also that it was inaccordant with
his notions of politeness to remain at any time in the house of a
fiieod for less than three-quarters of an hour.

S^bil btd ponred out the tea, and was endeavouring to soU her

Hiitittd.

lonversation to the young fellow who sat shyly near her. For
Charles Graeme, although he could not have numbered more than
one -and' twenty years, was already a man of some importance
amongst his contemporaries. For he was prize poet of the past
year, and a delicate and promising classical scholar to boot So
Sybil bethought her that her words must be nicely chosen and her
demeanour seemly, not considering that sunny hair and limpid eyes
might be merit sufficient in ihe judgment of the diffident young
pnel.

There had been one of those terrible lulls in con\'crsalion so
dreaded by al! good hostesses, when the buller once more threw
open the door to announce another guest. Sybil sprang up with joy
lo yteel Harry Latimer, the great comely new arrival. Here was a
thoroughly congenial spirit, and, [n do him juslici,-, the young man
seemed to reciprocate her thoughts. For after he had exchanged a
few words with the Warden's wife, and greeted the silent Professor
with that strange little duck of the head due to a don, he brought a
perilously slight stool as near to the girl as the prudent tea-table
would admit, and confided to it his massive weight, winding his tegs
complacently round its slender form.

" Now, Miss Sybil, how can you I " he remonstrated, as his com-
panion held towards him a tempting cup, and swung ihe fragrant
tea-cake in his neighbourhood. " It really is too bad ! I shall
prosecute you as an inciter lo crime." He laughed prodigiously at
his own wit, or perhaps only because he was looking at Sybil
Hawthorn and she was looking at him, and thai was so very jolly.

" Vou boating-men," began Sybil oracularly, "are a set of
bigoted "

But her sentence, however just, was interrupted. For her sister
Kitty, who was older than she, and should have known better, sud-
denly broke into their midst, her coat flying open, her hat awry;
and then, without so much as accosting any one of their callers, she
sank straight into an arm-chair opposite lo her mother, with her
pretty feet stretched forth and her pretty head thrown back. In
this suggestive aliiiude she remained perfectly motionless for some
minutes, whilst her mother and sister gazed at her helplessly.

*' Oh, Kitty ! whatever /i she like?" Sybil gasped out al length,
her fresh young lact^ pale with anticipation.

But her mother hushed her down, inquiring rather more intetli-

y dear child, what have you done with Miss Le Marchant ? "
Litt^ rallied herself and sat up.

328 Tlie Gentleman s Magazine.

** She has gone to take off her things and to lie down, mimmie,
dear," she answered. " She says she is very tired" Then turning
with contracted brows and lifted hands to her sister: ^'Sheisper*
fectly indescribable, Syb.," she said. " You must just have patience,
and wait and see her for yourself. And in the meantime I can only
say that I require to be fortified with very much tea."

Mrs. Hawthorn, feeling that so much mysterious allusion required
some explanation, now addressed herself to Professor AMieatley.

"My daughter has just been to the station to meet Miss Le
Marchant," she said. "You must know her father, Victor Le
Marchant, very well by name?"

" Victor Le Marchant ? Why, perfectly, to be sure ! " responded
the Professor, with a sudden accession of speech. " It was the
Warden and Victor Le Marchant and my eldest brother, poor
Constantine, who made up that brilliant trio of which the L^niversity
was so proud some thirty years ago. But with my brother's death I
lost all personal knowledge of Le Marchant. What became of him?
Did he not have some mishap, or get himself into some scrape, and
disappear ? "

" Well, not exactly that, and yet very near it," Mrs. Hawthorn
answered, her air that of a woman who knows far more than she
means to say, and is bent on putting things in the most charitable
light. " The fact is, he made what some of his friends considered
a disastrous marriage, with some young Spanish or Italian singer— I
really forget which." She made an impressive pause, and then con-
tinued : " You will readily see that it was considered wiser for him
not to attempt a return to his old circle. My husband has often
regretted it, for indeed he was a very able man. Still, of course, the
claims of such a society as ours are paramount, and must be con-
sidered. We lost sight of Mr. Le Marchant for many years, and it
was only lately that a correspondence was, by some chance, reopened.
It seems that for long he has held an honourable post in the University
of Pisa, where I suppose it would not matter about his wife. How-
ever, the poor woman died, and my husband was so anxious to see
his old friend again, that at last he persuaded me to join with him in
inviting him over here for a few weeks* visit. Of course I did not
suppose Mr. Le Marchant would really come, for I knew that he was
very sore against the University, thinking that we had behaved
shabbily by him, and so forth ; although, as you see, his exclusion was
in fact entirely his own fault, poor man ! So, knowing of these feel-
ings, and that Madame Le Marchant, who was no doubt like all those
sort of people, exceedingly pushing, was dead, I did not anticipate

Hunted. 329

Duch risk from our invitation. Imagine my dismay, tlien, when his
Answer came. He refused for himself; indeed, he would never visit
England again, he said. Bui he accepted of our ' kind hospitality '
tor his 'only child,' his 'daughter Juanila.' And I had never even
known that there was a daughter or a child at all 1 Her father said
he had always been anxious for her to visit England, and he was
delighted at this opportunity. He thanked us profusely, and entered
into a thousand quite unnecessary explanations and courtesies— a
fashion he had picked up abroad, I presume. He had already
■ecured for the young lady a travelling-companion, he announced,
and he made every other arrangement immediately. Now, as you
lear, she has arrived, and is in the house. Vou may imagine that,
mnsidering the girl's birth and probable up-bringing, I cannot help
eeling that the whole situation may be extremely awkward and un-
pleasant. Still, I never shrink from duty, and I am resolved to do
nine towards her, however disagreeable it may be. And I rely u|>on
er father's old friends to assist me in my task."

Mrs. Hawthorn stopped and sighed, directing a rallying glance
t the Professor, such as is fully authorised to the respectably sedate
of middle age. Receiving, however, no intelligent symptom from
ener, who had relapsed once more into his habitual silence,
ihe sighed again, but more profoundly, and turned to her eldest
latjghter.

" Is she, is she- — — " she asked, glancing at the young men and
owering her voice, "is she at sW firesentabk, my dear?"

It was not Mrs. Hawthorn's wont to be nervous. But pictures of
Strange foreign women, who powdered their faces and painted beneath
their eyes, wore their hair anyhow, and dressed in the most out-
landish costumes, had all day long been disturbing the poor lady's
mental vision. And now, when she was desirous of discussing the
Boaiter once more and fully with her daughters, and of giving them
^undry sage warnings and oft-repeated mature advice, there sat those
len, and no power on earth would, she knew, be suflicient to
pUDve them, till the chape! clock should warn them that it was time
D prepare themselves for dinner.

But Kitty looked straight back at her mother, and answered
tavely, soberly, and reas,suringly, if still with some mystery 01

"You need not be in the least alarmed, mammie, dear. I have
iver in all my life seen any one half so lovely, or so - . . weird."

A confusion of voices asking for more delinitc information imme-
Btely arose. But Ivitty]^^^anB|^B||W) more exactly her

330 The Gentleman's Magazine.

original statements were quite useless. Only Charles Graeme
remained throughout the hubbub silent and absorbed. Leaning
forward in his chair, with his head thrown slightly back, and grasping
a cane and a most prosaic-looking brown billy-cock hat, he seemed
with rapt gaze to be enjoying some inward vision.

Chapter II.

IN WHICH THE HUNT IS BEGUN.

There were few evenings during term-time on which the Hawthorns
dined alone. The proverbial hospitality of St. Bede's Hall was
carried out also in its Warden's private Lodgings. In renouncing the
blessings of a single life. Dr. Hawthorn had entered into a solemn
compact with his wife that she should never make objection to his
bringing in with him an odd friend or two to share his evening meal.
On her part Mrs. Hawthorn made no complaints, and at whatever
personal ennui resolutely stuck to her bargain, so long as her lord
remained true to his share of the agreement — that the number of
unexpected guests should never exceed three.

Mrs. Hawthorn was a very wise woman. She knew full well that,
if she but looked for it, there was a silver lining to be found to most
black clouds. For years she had borne, and borne unmurmuringly,
the burden ot .her husband's constant, and, to her, uninteresting
visitors. Now that her daughters were grown-up, and her maternal
mind, no longer employed in knitting their socks and cossetting their
childish ailments, was directed to schemes of matrimony, she was
able at last to turn this little idiosyncrasy of her husband to some
good account Many suitable young fellows, of family or prospects,
could, in the routine of these quiet little dinners, be easily and
unobtrusively introduced into the home-circle. Thus, while Dr.
Hawthorn happily discussed his port and his college with some old
crony, this estimable matron had the satisfaction of knowing that
now Mr. Canning (the Junior Bursar), and again Mr. Radley (the
Senior Tutor), were having the very best opportunity in the world for
becoming more intimately acquainted with, and interested in, Kitty's
beauty and Sybil's worth.

Mrs. Hawthorn and her daughters sat awaiting their guests, while
their cousin Geoffrey Bankes hovered about the room. This was a
privileged young man, as might be gathered from the fiact that he
was bidden to dine at his aunt's house when the two most di$-

Hunted.

331

shed, if nearly the youngest, dons. of St. Bcde's were to be
present ; also from the frct'dom wilh which he discussed his cousins'
toilcltcs and louks.

"Sybil, yuu should never wear heliotrope," declared this young
SUtocraL, pausing apposite to his cousin, and eyeing her disgustedly.
" It does not suit you in the leasL As for you, Kitty, whoever can
have clawed your hair together for you ? "

Now Ihe girls would never have borne with such rudeness were it
not that their cousin was President of the Union, and of the College
Debating Society, and was undoubtedly a ver>' superior young man,
■whose judgment in general even their mother respected.

[aving thus asserted his critical discrimination, Geoffrey took n
turn or two up and down the room, and reflectively arranged his tie
1 front of a mirror before he allowed himself another remark.

'• 1 do wish I could get some clear notion from one or other of
you as to what this superb Juanita Le Marchant is really like," he
■aid, taking up a fine position on the hearthrug, and letting his eye
«Iip criticisingly down his trim, slim, black figure. "If only a woman
Could be taught, firstly, clearly to separate and define her ideas, and
secondly, but not less importantly, to clothe them in fitting words, a
new era might . . ."

His prophecy, though doubtless very flattering to the less explicit
sex, was cut short by the arrival of the expected guests.

Frederick Canning and James Radley entered the room together.
They were meh of the same standing, and they were both Fellows
^nd Tutors of St. Bede's ; but here their points of resemblance
leased. Frederick Canning was a man of good family ; his father
ft prosperous member of the House of Commons, his uncle among
Ibe Peers. He liad been educated at Eton, and his manner bore
the stamp not only of the most polished of our public schools, but
of that indescribable something which comes from the habit of an
Barly respect not only for oneself, but for one's antecedents. He was
I tall, well-made young man, dark-haired and eyed, and he presented
to the world a frank and easy manner, which, notwithstanding its
|lp|iarent freedom, it was singularly diRicult to penetrate. He was a
whom it would have been impossible to take a liberty, and
pfho had but few close and intimate friends. So far he had not
Tcceived the esoteric University stamp, but might have been regarded
merely as a pleasant man of the world, who happened to possess fine
classical attainments, rather than as a product and specimen of the
gleamed life.

Many thought it strange that the compar'

332 The Gentleman's Magazine.

Canning most assorted should be James Radley. Radley, indeed,
was the most distinguished scholar of his day, and one who it was
confidently prophesied would attain the very highest position in the
world of scholars. His parentage was doubtful : some declared his
father to have been a mill-owner, others a mill-hand. All that was
definitely known about him was that he came from a triumphant
career, at the greatest of our Northern schools, to carry all before him
at the University. There seemed no branch of science, no depart-
ment of knowledge to which young Radley could not devote himself
with an energy beyond fatigue, and an eagerness akin to genius. He
undertook all, and he accomplished whatever he undertook. His
successes he received with a stolid immovableness. He was never
suiprised at his victories, and yet he could never incur the suspicion
of vanity ; with perfect simplicity he had merely never contemplated
the possibility of defeat. Outside the schools he did not make
much progress. Men of his own age found him unpracticable, un-
impressionable, stolid, even morose. Certainly he could discuss a
book or a subject as well as the most ardent of them ; his field of
illustration was larger, his mental horizon wider. Yet he never
seemed to possess the same keen vitality, the same personal interest.
It was somehow as though the very essence of individuality were
wanting in this otherwise extraordinarily gifted young man. Pre-
judices he had, strong predispositions, likes and dislikes. Yet these
seemed more constitutional than the result of mental strife and
acquirement. They were, besides, too clearly defined and too im-
mutable to further him in a society which prides itself, above all
things, on its toleration and adaptability — large-mindedness it is
called ; its readiness to be reasoned into any new way of thinking.
Thus it was that through nine years of college-life Radley had
remained practically friendless ; and though since he and Canning
had been elected at the same time Fellows to the same college they
had seen a good deal of each other in the way of college work, and had
acquired the habit of long country walks in each other's company,
there was between them by no means that degree of intimacy with
which they were credited by the outer world.

Of Canning's character and disposition Radley inquired nothing
and knew little, recognising in him merely an able colleague and an
inaggressive companion. But Canning's shrewdness had early pos-
sessed itself of all the most salient features of Radley's personality,
and had summed it up in what, to a less acute observer, would have
seemed an impossible verdict. His judgment, nevertheless, was correct.
With unerring intuition he bad detected that the brilliant and finished

Hunted.

333

scholar was, other than intelleciually, raw and undeveloped ; more
JQex]>erienced of the world than is, in most cases, the freshest fresh-
man. His smdies had lain exclusively among siill hfe ; of human
nature he was crassly ignorant. He had, in fact, never been awakened
or aroused to ihc fact of the life of the world among which he moved ;
he was unaware even of the existence of its mighty, stirring interest.

In appearance Radley was by no means ill-favoured, although he
did not appear altogether to advantage by the alert and pleasing
figure of his friend. He was of a powerful build, broad -sh ou!d ere d,
and massive in the chest. His long arms hung rather awkwardly by
his side, disclosing the fact of neglected athletic possibilities. Though
his shoulders did not stoop, his head had a slight poke forwards,
as though he were constantly inquiring into the nature of things.
It might al once be inferred, however, hy his vague and somewhat
listless expression, that his curiosity was not directed towards the
things of the outer world. He had a broad, low forehead, which
protruded nobly over a pair of good and generally mild-looking blue
eyes. His nose was short, straight and thick, being peculiarly
broad over the bridge. His hair was thick and fair, but somewhat
colourless. Once only had James Radley been known thoroughly
to lose consciousness of himself in the presence of his fellows, and
that was so many years ago that the incident was now quite for-
gotten. When siil! fresh from school, in a meeting of the College
Debating Society, some member, considerably his senior, under the
influence of his own eloquence, had let fall a slighting allusion to
"canting Me thodisticai preachers." Young Radley had sprung to
his feet, his mild eyes aglow, his pale face aflame, and had flung
forth such passion of bhing invective and poignant scorn that the
unhappy speaker had felt himself bound inimediateiy to retract his
words, and— though why he scarcely knew — to apologise in abject
terms to the wrathful school-boy for his objectionable expression.
The meeting had broken up in confusion, and the next diy Radky
withdrew his name from the list of ihe Society's members. Ii was
his first and last appearance in the party or social life of his
college.

As dinner was announced the Warden came into the room with
his young guest. Mrs. Hawthorn noted with some surprise, but
indubitable satisfaction, that no one, unless indeed Geoffrey Bankes
were lo be taken into account, was, so to speak, arrested by their
entry, impressive though it was ; and that the very palpable loveliness
of the young foreigner seemed to CKcite no i
Juaniia Lc Marehant's beauty, indeed, was '

334 ^^ Gentlematis Magazine.

upon you imperceptibly, slowly, but so surely and eflfectually that you
wake at last to find that it has crept into your very soul, and has
taken whole possession of it She was of about the middle height,
but of exceeding slightness. Her face was small, and of a delicate
oval, the chin being somewhat more pointed than is common in
beauty. Her skin, of a warm white over the low, square brow, and
the delicate nose and chin, was deepened to a mellow golden-brown
on the outline of her cheeL Her coal-black hair was luxuriantly
thick, and its waving masses threw a deep shadow over the upper
half of her face. The full promise of her wonderful eyes was only
realised in intimate conversation. She was simply dressed in a
plain gown of soft white material, which trailed around and behind
her, her throat and wrists being relieved by falling lace. Withal
there was about her an indescribable atmosphere which fully justified
Kitty's first incoherent attempt at description : a something unsub-
stantial, unreal — in a word, " weird."

It was evident that the Warden and his guest were already very
good friends. Juanita hung on the old gentleman's arm, and,
though silent, seemed an appreciative listener to the good stories he
was retailing for her benefit. From time to time she answered his
sallies with the tokens of a clear intelligence, but she carried on her
share of the conversation in French. Though extraordinarily quiet,
both in manner and voice, she did not seem at all bewildered by
surroundings which must have been both novel and perplexing to
her. She seemed to divine what was required of her, and Mrs.
Hawthorn experienced a little chill of disappointment when her
watchful eye could detect no gleam of surprise on the stranger's face
as they took their places at the dinner-table, glistening with snowy
damask and rare old silver, delicate flowers and harmoniously-shaded
lights. Of the presence of the young men, also, Juanita seemed to
take no note, a slight lowering of her heavy lids being her only
acknowledgment of the introductions which had preceded dinner.
And yet, although so still, she did not appear shy. Her manner to
her host was charming; her attention to his conversation lasted
unabated all through the meal, and that the old gentleman was
thoroughly enjoying himself was evident from his show of devoted
gallantry.

The rest of the i)arty grew gradually more and more silent
Geoffrey Bankes, abstaining for once in his life from the utterance of
platitudes and aphorisms, did not attempt to conceal the extra-
ordinary interest he felt in the strange and beautiful creature opposite
He watched her in unceasing and open-mouthed wonder,

Hunted.

335

•

the same rime that he by no means neylucted ihe requirements of
very hearty appetite. Ftcdftick Canning, although seated nest to
Kitty, for whom he had loni; shown a spwial interest, grew slowly
but surely during ihe meal more and more distrait in his attentions.
His eyes wandered continually in the direction of the stranger, and
now and again he would interrupt himself in some desultory talk
with Mrs. Hawthorn or Kilty to join eagerly in ihe conversation
between his host and Jtanita. James Radiey alone of the little
party remained impervious to the influence which was vaguely
unscttltng and disquieting the others. He sat, indeed, next to
Miss l.e Marchant, but he pursued his dinner with unremitting
attention, and he did not so much as glance during the whole of the
meal at his undeniably attractive neighbour. His small talk was
never good, and he did not attempt now to exchange anything but
the barest and coldest conventionalities with Canning, who sat
opposite to him, and sometimes perforce lo Sybil, because she sat
beside him. The dinner parly, thus broken into two, did not pass
very comfortably, and Mrs. Hawthorn was glad when it was lime to
retire to the drawing-room. Yet she dreaded the prospect of a
iilt A-iele with her young visitor. She was not a fluent French
scholar herself, and she was ignorant of Juanita's English abilities.
Besides, though why she scarcely knew, she was possessed by an
instinctive dislike lo the stranger. But when the ladies bad filed out
of the dining-room, Juanita dropped behind the two girls, and
slipped her slim hand into their mother's capacious palm as she
stood for a moment to gain breath half-way up the wide shallow oak
staircase. She was a btile taller than Mrs. Hawthorn, but she
writhed herself into such an attitude that her hostess seemed to be
looking down into the great glowing black eyes as she murmured :

"Oh! but everything is so beautiful! I wish I had a lovely
mother, just like you !"

There was so much coaxing charm in the altitude, and so much
unexpressed pathos in the mournful depths of those wonderful eyesi
that Mrs. Hawthorn could not resent the allusion to the departed
Madame Le Marchant, nor resist the ajipeal to her motherly nature.
She fell a little ashamed of her own recent antiiiathy,

" My dear," she said kindly, " you must try and feel i)erfectly at
home with us here. My girls will do their best lo make you iiuilc
like one of themselves, I know. And if ever you want anything, or
feel lonely, you must just come straight to me."

For answer, Juanita put up her lips and kissed so*^*"" "' '"^\i
iconi^lacent cheek.

336 The Gentlemaii s Magazine.

Thus it was that when the gentlemen left their wine, which ihe|
did somewhat earlier than was the custom of the house, a very iireil]
picture of harmony and union met their eyes.

Against Ihe wide background of Mrs. Hawthorn, spread oiit in ■
capacious arm-chair, came the supple white figure of Juanita, lyinj
back almost full length on a low semi-couch of Indian wicker-wort
This seat was unlined and uncushioned, so that the graceful
of the girl's figure and the fall of her draperies were plainly
discernible, and it suited admirably and seemed to enhance the
general impression of litheness and airiness of its holder. Her head
was thrown back on a drapery of Gobelin-blue silk which adorned lbs
back of the chair, and the cold hard colour threw none but deathly
reflections on the whiteness of the face against it. A heaiy coil ol
dusky hair had partially unloosened, hanging low over her brow, and
helping to preserve the black and white effects of the picture thus
formed from the warm light of a shaded oil-lamp burning on a table
behind. Juanita was playing the guitar : perhaps, too, she had been
singing. At her feet on a square siool crouched Sybil, her round chin
supporled by two white hands, her elbows buried in the folds about
her knees, her eyes fixed in an enthralled gaze on the musician.
Kilty sat on a sofa hard by. Her embroidery had fallen on her knee,
one bare arm lay along the polished table beside her, while her
fingers piayed rervously with a vase of flowers. She seemed .to be
fighting with the same strong fascination to which Sybil had wholly
yielded.

Mrs. Hawthorn merely glanced up as the gentlemen came ii
and Juanita's fingers continued to si ray softly among the strings i
her guitar. Then she looked at the Warden with a sudden laugh ii
her eyes, and, without at all changing the languor of her attiludt
burst into a quaint little jig of a song. It stopped again as suddenly
as it had begun, but the girl did not cease her playing, nor >-ei did
she wait for further invitation. She drew out some lingering cadence^
which changed both key and mood, and then the softest, sadd<
ditty fell on the company. The words, as those of her former song,'
were of a Spanish /a/diV, and they could not understand them. But
the air was so melancholy, and yet each verse ended with so suddci
a transition into a chorus fierce and rapid, that Ihe effect upon ihefii
quiet English people, accustomed only to Ihe vapid sensation of thi
conventional " drawing-room piece,'' was marked in the estremc.

Dr. Hawthorn had sal himself down decidedly in a chair a
Juanita's head, ready to lake repossession of her immediately tha)
the should release them from the spell of her singing. The girl tmlj

Hunted. 337

acknowledged his neighbourhood by a comprehensive sweep of her
magnificent eyelashes. Geoffrey stood facing her, fidgeting on the
hearthrug, his shaven finely-cut features reflecting every tremor and
change in the singer's voice, as the unsheltered downs reflect each
light and passing cloud. Frederick Canning had instinctively placed
himself on the sofa by Kitty ; but he sat stiffly upright, his entwined
fingers dropped between his knees, his gaze intent on Juanita's
languid reclining figure. Only James Radley stood apart, his back
towards the rest of the company, and turned at distinct intervals the
leaves of a review in which he had engrossed himself.

Suddenly Juanita dropped her guitar and sat up as one awaked
out of slumber. The spell lay still on the others, and they did not
move nor speak as she let her eyes wander slowly from the one to
the other grave and attentive face. Then the Warden roused himself,
and leant forward eager with some compliment to be couched in
old-world and courteous phrase. But the girl ignored the implied
promise of his expression, turning from him and working round in her
chair till she had found Radley's flgure.

"Kw do not care for music, then, Mr. Radley?" she inquired.

They were all astounded that she, who till now had seemed
unconscious even of the existence of the other guests, should thus
correctly address one of them by his name. As for Radley, he was
so taken aback by the abruptness of her question, its directness, and
the way in which he was singled out for attention from and before
the rest, that he answered straightway and without pausing to attempt
a disguise for the rude truth.

"Not at all," he said ; and then, with perhaps some dawning ot
the crudeness of his answer, reiterated nervously, " not at all, not at
alL"

Juanita laughed, partly at his answer, partly at the dismay
depicted on the countenances of the others. It was a wonderfully
musical and infectious laugh, but it smote painfully on Radley's
wounded selMove.

"Ah! how charming, how nai/\'' she said, turning to the
Warden. " I have never met such an one before. This it is to be
English.*'

Then she addressed Mrs. Hawthorn.

"But you must not allow me to tease your guests," she said,
prettily deferential " I had even now forgotten. I thought that I
was at home. . . . There we have just such a chair in the which in
the evening I always sit and sing to my father — for my fiidier la^^
music. But there there is at this season a great pot with an*

338 The Gentleman's Magazine.

of fragrance other than this " — waving her hand at the May -blossoms,
which had already strewn the place around with delicately flushed
petals — ". . . and roses." She laid her hand to her breast and hair
to indicate the position of the chosen flowers, and her thoughts had
evidently wandered far enough away.

They sat silently watching her, until Mrs. Hawthorn, who detested
anything which bordered on what she designated as "the high-
flgwn," recovering with a bound her commonplaceness and het
common sense, turned to inquire of GeoiTrey the latest enormities
of his washerwoman. This fairly broke the spell. Canning, with
a start and a sigh, caught up Kitty's embroidery and brought his
strong mind back to discuss it. The Warden, as his custom when
neglected, had fallen into a gentle slumber. This power of covertly
snatching a nap he highly prized as perhaps the only solid fruit of
half a lifetime of college meetings. Sybil had lifted her elbows and
her cheeks, and, shifting on her stool, had turned her back on the
enchantress to gaze into the fire Radley stood looking fixedly at
the fantastic tortoiseshell with which Juanita had again caught up
her wandering locks of hair. He knew now clearly enough that he
had been guilty of a breach of courtesy, and that it was incumbent
on him to say something to atone for his rudeness ; but what to say
he was wholly at a loss to know.

The girl lifted her soft eyes, as he stood thus, pale, repellent,
awkward.

"I am not in the least offended with you," she said quietly.
"You only said the truth."

He thought she spoke, and spoke thus, because she pitied his
unwieldiness. He hated pity : with him it was not akin to, but
synonymous with contempt. He was sure that she secretly despised
his gaucherie ; that, inwardly, she was still enjoying the laugh she
had had at his expense. He could not cope with her. He was
powerless to use her weapons, and he feh that the heavy artillery
of his own angr^- irony would be here quite out of place. Uncom-
fortably and unhappily he became for the first time in his life aware
of a lack which neither hard study nor undaunted energy would avail
to supply. He was at the mercy of a vain and foolish foreign girl,
and that because he could find no words. He merely made a stiff
little bow in acknowledgment of her speech.

But Juanita was not discouraged: this irresponsiveness seemed
to have the effect of making her persist in her efforts at friendliness.
She glanced up at him again, and her eyes were very lovely.

" You aie from the North countr}'," she said. " Will you not sit

UnnUd.

339

I
I

I

down and relate to me about it? My father used to love the bleak
North country — when he was an linglishman."

As she spoke she made room for him towards the fool of the
Teclitiing chair, displacinc some of the ample white folds of her long
tobe. Radley sat angrily down. In his eyes Miss Le Marchant
was acting lorwaidiy. It was not consistent with his rigorous notions
of propriety that he should share with her the seat. Surely, also, she
might see that he had nothing in this world to say to her, that they
had no ground at all in common. But the lovely eyes were on him,
so he sat down.

" Who told you that I was a North countrj'man?" he inquired
tesentfully.

" The Warden," she answered, adding : " He totd me all about
the people who were to come to-night, in order that I might not feel
so strange."

Radley's brow lowered ominously and his moulli took a disagree-
able set He was in the unpleasant position of a man who is not
:aware how much the world in which he lives may know of his
personal history. He had always concealed his humble origin. He
would not have told a lie to save his life, but the attitude which he
had consistently adopted had prevented any undue liberties or
inquiries on the part of his companions. In truth these attached
far less importance to the history of his antecedents than the sensitive
self-consciousness of his nature led him to believe. Besides, what
added to his mental discontent on this point was that he was an
honest fellow, and at bottom heartily ashamed of himself for being
ashamed of what both reason and principle could characterise as the
accident of birth.

" I know very little of the North country," he answered coldly.
" It is many years since I have passed any time there."

Then he got up abrujUly, and going round to the Warden an.'used
that good old gentleman by a sharp inquiry into the proceedings of a
Select Board.

Juaniia sat for a minute when Radley had left her, as if petrified.
Then she too rose, if less aggressively, and slipped from the room.

Half an hour later Canning and Radley crossed together the
deserted quad. There was no flutter of leaf nor rustle of bird's
wing to thwart the insistent si lence of the dark square of surrounding
buildings. The college was a studious one, and the lights that shone
at many windows alone sufficed to Jndiuaie the presence of life.
Canning must indeed have been strangely moved out of his ordinary
condition of polite Indifference, otherwise he would ncvu have allowed

340 The Gentleman's Magazine.

vestige of his dominant thoughts to appear to so unsympathetic a
companion.

" Rftdley," he said, in a low voice, laying his hand on the other
man's arm, " I don't believe I shall ever get that melody out of my
head." He whistled just below his breath a bar or two from the
refiain of the Spanish love-song. "What a wonderful creature," he
added, interrupting his musical reminiscences. " AVhat a beautiful
creature ! "

Radley shook himself free impatiently.

" I don't understand music," he said irritably ; " perhaps that is
why I cannot sympathise with your enthusiasm. It struck me only
that Miss Le Marchant sang without waiting to be asked, and that
she usurped more of general attention than I had believed to be
consistent with good breeding. Bui there again you should have the
advantage over roe."

There was always something sneering in Radley's deference to
Canning's better knowledge of the laws of society. For indeed he
longed to scorn what he secretly envied. But Canning was in no
mood for carping.

" If one were in the East," he pursued, undisturbed by his friend's
ill-temper, "I could believe that we had all been under the spell of
some wonderful sorceress — some divinely lovely, perhaps infernally
wicked, disguised princess ! "

" Not all, with your leave," Radley interrupted contemptuously.
" Perhaps you will confine your statement to your own case, my
fiiend. For, in the West, where we happen at the moment to be, it
seems to me, at least, as if the young lady sorceress might also be
characterised, more simply and less poetically perhaps, as a bit of an
adventuress,"

" Oh ! God forbid," cried Canning hurriedly, and as though
his companion had been guilty of a profanity. And then he burst
out laughing,

Radley freed himself from his detaining hand impatiently, and
nodding a good-night, passed into his rooms, leaving the other to
wander and to mutter long in the quad below.

(7(1 be continued.)

341

THE COMMERCIAL RELATIONS
OF GOLD AND SILVER.

A POPULAR EXPOSITION.

GOLD and silver have been used as a medium of exchange and
a standard of value from very ancient times. The reason
is not far to seek. Even savage tribes, far removed from civilisa-
tion, are able to appreciate the beauty of newly melted gold and
silver, the golden glitter and the silver sheen. The moderate and
steady production of these precious metals in olden times kept their
value stable and comparatively free from depreciation. Their divisi-
bility without deterioration made them a convenient method of
payment and a welcome relief from the endless bother of Barter.
Their capacit)' to contain great value in small bulk was specially
serviceable during the unsetded governments of other days for
purposes of flight and concealment. In later times their suitability
to receive the most artistic impressions as delicately moulded medals
and coins, and as beautifully designed plate and jeweller)', has been
widely appreciated. Diamonds, and pearls, and precious stones may
contain even greater value in still smaller bulk, but, unlike gold and
silver, they cannot be readily valued by weight, and require pro-
fessional experts to rightly appreciate them. Besides being more
liable to fluctuation owing to the fads and fashion of the time, a
valuable diamond is not divisible, and a " pearl of great price " is
easily damaged, whilst gold, however roughly handled, is well nigh
indestructible.

A rich country like England, with its immense resources and
extensive trade, has long ago adopted gold as its only standard of
value, whilst poorer countries are satisfied with silver. Several
countries, as their wealth and commerce have increased, finding
silver an inefficient expression of their enlarged transactions, the
totals running into enormous figures, have partially adopted the gold
standard, and thus assisted with other causes in depreciating the

VOL. CCLXIX. NO. I918. A .

342 The GentUmatis Magazine.

value of silver, bringing about those evils which some
Bimetallism, that pathetic fallacy, is alone competent to cure.

In the British Isles, in Australia and New Zealand, gold is I
only standard of value ; silver and copper coin, being merely t<
money and legal tender only to the amount of 40J. and ;
lively, are simply commodities bought and sold for what they (
fetch in the metal markets, according to the supply and demand
the time.

Large quantities 01 gold are every year used for ornameH
purposes in the manufacture of plate and jeweller^-. The wealttd
a country grows the greater is the demand for these articles
adornment, and until more gold is imported the less there remains fi
monetary purposes as bullion or coin. Some years ago, Mr. GISl
estimated that in this country alone ^{^50,000,000 worth of go
existed in the shape of plate, jewellery, and ornaments, and about on
half the total production of silver is said to be used in ans u
manufactures. The amount of gold in this country for monets
purposes the same high authority estimates at ;^6o, 000,000.

International trade, though represented for convenience
monetary terms, has its real basis in barter. Commodities are **
changed for commodities. For the sake of simpHcity lake the casi
of two countries trading with each other, excluding all other cot*
plications, which will be separately considered. One country exportt
a certain value in goods to another, and receives as imports a cenaiQ;
value in return. The balance of indebtedness, if there arc no other
factors in the problem, has to be paid in the coin of the recei'
country, whether gold or silver. A London merchant who owi
debt to another abroad can pay it in one of three different w
He may remit bills of exchange which he has purchased, and whi(
are payable in the place where his debt is owing ; he may ask I
foreign creditor to draw bills upon him ; or he may send the a
in bullion. As the freight and insurance of so valuable a commodity
are very high, ranging from \ percent, to 2 or 3 percent., making thin
last by far the most expensiixmethod of discharging a foreign debt,
every one is anxious to avoid it. The result is that when the demand
for bills on any particular place exceeds the supply, the remittini:;
merchant is willing to pay a premium. This premium can r
exceed the cost of freight and insurance of bullion. This contrivani
distributes the cost of transmission of coin, where necessary, ;
all the merchants in want of these bills, instead of leaving the t
man to be the unfortunate victim who has to pay the whole.
This business is chiefly done not by merchants, but by bill

T^e Conimerciat Relations of Gold and Silver. 343

and exchange dealers, who traffic in these bills, and when the
premium reaches what is called " bullion point," which varies in each
country according to distance and facility of communication, they
export or receive the consignments of bullion. Having agents or
correspondents in nearly all the continental capitals, when the stock
of commercial bills is exhausted, they sell lo the merchant, at a
premium sufiicieat to cover the cost of freight, insurance, and their
own commission, bills drawn against the bullion which they consign to
their agent abroad. This simplest form of the Foreign Exchanges
and the export of bullion between two countries only, is called the
" Direct Exchange."

As the remittance of bullion from some countries is often a
difficult matter owing to various impediments, and is always an
expensive operation, the utmost ingenuity is exercised to avoid the
trouble and expense. Bills and drafts on a third country are often
utilised to settle a difference between other two where the exchange
would otherwise be unfavourable. For instance, a favourable exchange
on France may be utilised to prevent an unfavourable exchange with
Germany. When a settlement is made between three countries in this
way, it is called the " Indirect Exchange," and when more than three
countries are involved in the arrangement, it is called the '" Circuitous
Exchange." Tea shipped from China to New York and American
cotton sent to Russia are nearly always paid by bills on London.
The reason is simple. The reputation of London bankers is world-
wide, and bills on them are always in demand and saleable anywhere.
Russian and American houses may be quite as good, but, being less
widely known, their bills are not so readily negotiable.

Mary provincial banks in England insist upon the bills they dis-
count, say (or a Liverpool cotton merchant drawn upon a Manchester
manufacturer, being made payable in London, because in case of re-
discount they are more easily negotiable. In a similar manner London
has become the Clearing-house not merely for internal but also for
inteniationat trade, and foreign bills are made payable in London,
although the commodities may have gone from New York to St.
Pctersbu^.

Let us suppose there have been very large shipments of goods
from London to Paris ; that Paris has exported unusual consignments
to Vienna ; that Vienna has sent quantities of commodities beyond
the ordinary to St- Petersburg ; and that Sl Petersburg's exports
of wheal, timber, tar, tallow, furs and hides have been abore the
average to London. If each cotmtty was obliged lo settle with iti
creditor according to the " Direct Exchange," l^ndoa would tend

344 The Gentleman's Magazine.

gold to St. Petersburg, who would remit it to Vienna, who would pay
its debts with it in Paris, who would send it back again to London. By
means of the " Indirect" or "Circuitous Exchange," all this trouble,
risk, and expense are avoided. A merchant at Berlin requests his
debtor in London, should he find any difficulty in obtaining bills on
Berlin, for remittance, owing either to a short supply or increased
demand, to send him bills on several other places at specified rates
of exchange.

The difference between the value of the exports of any country
and its imports, what is called tbe " Balance of Trade," would of itself
be very misleading and deceptive, because there are other and impor-
tant elements in the problem, which have to be considered. If
you compare the exports of Great Britain for any year as given in the
"Statistical Abstract" with the imports, you will find a "Balance of
Trade " amounting to many millions against this country. Were there
no other factors in the problem it would follow that these millions
would have to be paid by this country in gold, a physical impossibiUty.
We should "require either tremendously to increase our exports or
make a corresponding reduction in the amount of our imports. If
you turn to the exports and imports of bullion, instead of explaining
the mystery, it rather aggravates it.

This enormous difference is to be accounted for in a variety of ways.
The Custom House returns of imports and the merchant's valuation
of his exports do not exactly represent the amounts to be received
and paid. This will be evident if you add all the exports and the
imports of the various countries together ; they ought very nearly to
agree, but they do not. In most cases you have to add freight and
insurance, merchants' profit, and bankers' and brokers' commissions.
Again, England is the chief ocean carrier for the world's products,
and the bulk of the freights and insurance premiums of the trade
between other countries are remitted to shipowners and underwriters
in England.

By far the largest [lortion of this difference consists of interest
on foreign j;ovcrnment securities and dividends on oiher investments
abroad, periodically remitted to the fortunate possessors in England.
Every Enghsh banker is familiar with the enormous amount of
coupons on foreign government bonds and dividends on railway and
other securities abroad payable during e\ery month of the year, and
held either by the banks themselves or collected for their customers.
The amount of these has been estimated by Mr. Giffen, several years
ago, at ^^400,000,000 of capital, and it is being annually increased
When th« foreign government debts and other investments abroad

The Commercial Relaticnis of Gold and Silvei'. 345

were contracted or purchased, and the money or the goods they
represented were exported, these transactions tended to make the
exchanges unfavourable to England and may have caused the export
of bullion, for paper securities only were received in exchange at the
time ; but at stated intervals ever since, until the debt is repaid,
the interest or the dividends form a heavy item in the exchanges in
our favour tending to the importation of bullion.

A small item comparatively may here be mentioned, although the
total must be something considerable, which tells on the other side.
English travellers and summer tourists all over the continent spend
a great deal of money which affects the exchanges. The winter
residents in the Riviera and on the sunny shores of the Mediterranean
all carry away gold or circular notes from England, or, what comes
to the same thing, draw cheques on a London or an English banker.
America and especially Russia are said to suffer very materially in
the same way. Not only are visitors from these countries very
numerous, but many of them reside in Paris for considerable periods,
and are notorious for lavish and extravagant display. As a con-
siderable set off to this, so far as England and Scotland are concerned,
many merchants who have spent the best part of their lives on the
continent of Euroj^e, in India, China, both Americas and Australasia,
when they have made their fortune or acquired a competency, as
age begins to tell upon them, and home sickness sets in — wishing
"to husband out life's taper to the close" — often transfer their
entire capital, or at all events the interest thereon, to the old country,
where they desire to end their days and be buried with their
fathers.

All these matters more or less affect the exchanges and the trans-
mission of bullion. Anything that disturbs the balance or the equation
of international trade affects the traffic in gold and silver. The ex-
tension of machinery in manufactures and every new invention help
to reduce the cost of production of English goods, and the newest
ocean steamers have immensely quickened communication. Our
cheapened commodities create an increased demand abroad, and
unless and until the importing country has proportionately increased
its exports to England, if no other element intervene, the balance
must be paid to us in gold.

The imposition or the removal of taxation, either here in England
or abroad, on any article in which we trade, whether of export or
import, affects the supply or demand for it, and accordingly disturbs
the balance of indebtedness which has to be remitted or recr
in gold or silver. These are only temporary fluctuatioor

346

The Genlieman's Magazine.

\

equation of inleraationd demand has been adjusted to the atlcf
situation.

With our uncertain climate a common factor in disturbing ll
international demand for commodities is a bad harvest, and i
consequent increased importation of wheat If the misforlui
occurred early in the season and the deficiency in the har%tst t
been foreseen, there may be time lo help the adjustment of the d
turbed balance either by an addition to our exports, especially t
those countries from which the supply is expected, or a correspondi
reduction in our other imports, as the purchasing power (
agricultural population and those dependent upon them will be g
reduced. The misfortune is greatly aggravated when ii uncKpecic^
occurs, in the case of a good crop spoiled just before the in-jjathcring.
It would then be nearly impossible to prevent ihe outflow of bullion,
unless by sending foreign securities to be sold abroad in order 4
assist in settling the difference. A good harvest well secured p
duces precisely opposite effects.

It may seem on the surface that when a foreign ^
loan is largely applied for in this country, there must be an iru
export of bullion. But this does not follow. Foreign {
loans are of two kinds — the first, an addition to I
National Debt, money already spent and owing to foreign banlce
as floating loans. As a rule the public will accept lower terms ft
permanent investment than is paid for a temporary advance &
bankers, so that the transaction is merely a conversion in whid) d
private lenders will probably take up large portions of the new pufat
loan. Even when this is not so, the money if necessary does i
go to the borrowing country — they have had their cake — but ti
private lenders, some of whom are doubtless English firmsL
second and more creditable system of national borrowing, b
remunerative, is for the purpose of helping to develop the doi
resources of a poor country, by the making of railways, the e
of factories, and thcworking of mines. In this case the bulk c
nioniy is spent in plant and machinery probably provided 1
England, insured in London, and exported in English ships.

Many other private investments abroad, held by English owi
arc of a similar character, and very slightly, if at all, affect the ti
port of bullion. There is an indirect way in which botli hon
foreign investments affect the international exchanges an
movement of bullion. The sudden transfer in any eounliyo
amounts of floating capital into permanent investments, txf m
ftctohes, mines and ships, reduces in a very material way tbe^a

wTAe Cammercial Relations of Gold and Silver 347

in the hands of bankers available for loan purposes, what is incorrectly
called the " Money Market." Unless the change is slow and gradual,
there will be a scarcity of loanable capital at the very time thai,
owing to the circumstances indicated, the demand for it has increased.
The result will be thai the rate of interest will rise in proportion to
the pressure, until a sufficient amount of gold is ailracted from abroad
in order to earn the higher rate, and thus ihe gap is filled.

When gold leaves the mines, whatever may be its temporary
destination, it eventually finds its way, like any other commodity, to
the place that wants it most, and is willing to pay the best price for
it. The quantity of gold required in any country depends u[Kin a
variety of considerations. In Scotland the use of gold is economised
to a minimum. But for the stray sovereigns brought by tourists and
sportsmen, gold would never be seen outside the stock, amounting to
several millions, kept by the banks at their head offices, as statutory
provision for their note circulalion and other liabilities. With the
exception of silver and bronze tokens, the monetary circulalion
consists entirely of bank notes, of which 66 per cent, are for £,\.
Were these small notes abolished, and Scotland placed upon the
English level, ;£?, 000,000 more gold would be necessary to conduct
its present business, and two out of every three of its numerous
branch banks would have to shut up.

Unlike the banks in Scotland, London and provincial banks
do not keep more gold than is actually necessary for till-money.
Country banks keep their reserves with their London agents, and
London bankers in turn keep their surplus cash at the Bank of
England. The result is, what many deprecate, that with the exception
of the gold in the pocket.s of the public, amounting to several
millions, but at present quite unavailable for banking or internation:.
purposes, the slock of gold at the Bank of England is subs^nnally
the only bullion reserve held against the entire note circulation of
the countr)-, as well as the immense total of our banking and com-
mercial liabilities.

When the Bank of England directors find Iheir stock of gold
from whatever cause being reduced, the only effective remedy by
which to restrict advances and discounts, to check the export
of gold, as well as to induce its return from abroad, is to raise
the rale of interest. By raising the rate the higher price of credit
and the greater difficulty in obtaining it will restrain imports. By
this means, if an adverse balance of trade has been the origin of the
trouble, Ihe equilibrium is gradually restored. When the r"**
is low, holders of English bdls abroad oflen send them lo '

The Gentlcmatis Magazine.

to be discounted long before ihey are due, taking the price in
goid. In order to avoid the advanced rate they keep those bills, in
hope of its being lowered, until maturity, and thus postpone ship-
ments of gold, possibly for months, giving time for other causes
to inicr\'enc.

Great superstition exists as to the power of the Bank of England
to fix the rate of interest and its alleged responsibility for the frequent
(luciuaiions. This power simply consists in the IJank being the
leading and the largest dealer in credit or loanable capital. If liie
Bank was foolish enough to pitch its rate loo high, the penalty would
soon follow of its loan and discount business leaving it for ilie
cheaper market outside. On the other hand, if the Bank rate was
fixed too low, its stock for loans would soon be exhausted, after
which the other banks would be able to command iheir own price
The real basis upon which the guiding influence of the Bank rate
rests, and makes it a power felt all round the world, is the extent of
its resources, and a purely voluntary tribute to the accuracy of its
information, its reputation for general wisdom and careful manage-
ment during several centuries.

When the commercial pressure sets in that usually precedes panic,
whatever may be the origin, there is great strain upon the resources of
all the banks. Foreigners having money in London get frightened, and
withdraw it in gold. Timid depositors hoard ihecash they fear to lose.
Borrowers, desiring to avoid the expected higher rate of discount, ask
for loans long before they want them, and help to create and to aggra-
vate the very crisis they dread Country banks feel the pressure most,
probably because they deal with a more credulous and easily -frightened
portion of the community. .\ll banks, in order to be prepared for such
an emergency, keep a larger stock of cash, and lessen or withdmr
their balances at the Bank of England. For the same reason,
provincial banks withdraw their deposits with bill brokers and finance
companies, and the bulk of their balances with their London agentSf
all of which comes eventually from the Bank of England.

The result of all this, as well as of the numerous securities sold lo
obtain cash, is that the next Bank of England return shows a largely
diminished available balance, which, read by the ignorant and the
timid, adds fresh fuel to the flame, although a single sovereign may
have not left the country. The countrj- as a wholemaylie financially
as sound and as strong as ever, but llie accustomed proof is entirely
wanting. The Bank return has ceased to be a guide, and is, on the
contrary, quite misleading. The country's cash reserves, instead of
being accumulated as at ordinary times in one spot, are none thelcat

COIT
80VI

fulle

T'/if Commerciai Relations of Gold and Silver. 349

lable for all banking and comniorcial purposes because now
ributed at various points where pressure is expected-
To make this dear, we hai'e only lo suppose, what has often
n strongly recommended, that roimirs- banks should keep all their
at thcirhead-tiuarlers, and the London bankers cease to keep
cash balances at the Bank of England. The next return after the
■lion would show a large reduction in the Bank's reserve of gold,
corresponding decrease in the amount of its private deposits
would not be a single coin less in the country quite as available
every operation of iniernal or Jniernaiional exchange. The Bank
England reserve would cease to be worth publishing, as it would
e than no guide to the state of credit or the stock of
lid throughout the country.

There is a curious movement of gold, more provincial than
Iternational, twice a year lo Scotland. Deposit banking is very
widespread in Scotland, but owing to the iin familiarity in certain
parts of the country with the use of cheques, at the half-yearly
when rents and other periodical payments are made there is a
Jarge expansion of the bank-note circulation. In order to comply
ith Peel's Act of 1845, large amounts of gold are sent in boxes from
le Bank of England to Edinburgh and Glasgow, where they remain
unopened for a few weeks until the surplus notes return, when tliey
are sent back to London — of no more use than if they contained not
bullion but bricks, The extra circulation of notes is no real addition
to the liabilities of the Scottish banks, for there is a corresponding
reduction in the amount of their deposits. The only cases where
coin might possibly be rec]uired are those of absentee landlords resi-
leni in England or abroad, for whom the money would be wanted
in Scotland but in London.

When jewellers melt sovereigns for trade purposes, they are
ireful lo select new and heavy ones. Similarly, as the value of the
sovereign abroad is simply its weight as bullion, exporters secure the
fullest weighted ones, proving the truth of Sir Thomas Gresham's
that "good money is displaced by bad." It does seem
iurd that this country should at great expense manufacture money
of charge, lo be melted or circulated abroad. An export duty
sovereigns over a certain amount, as distinguished from bullion,
sufficient to coverthe cost of minting, would efTectually stop this con-
tinuous waste. This would not of course apply to our own Colonies,
many of whose sovereigns largely circulate among ourselves.

The quarterly pressure on the Bank slock of gold in payment of
le Govemmenl dividends scarcely affects international movements,

The Geniieman's

as very little, Jf any, of our National Debt is held by foreigners, and
is of too normal a character to require more than mentioning.
is called the " Autumnal pressure " is mostly internal and ovring l»
causes not difScuIt to distinguish, especially the considerable sums s)
in annual holiday makingat home and abroad. The agricultural popU'
lation having realised the bulk of [heir harvest, and sold numbers a
their sheep and cattle, pay their rents and the local tradesmen whos
accounts have been running during the year. Trade generally, harin
languished during the end of the summer, when so many are abscr
on pleasure, begins to revive with a bound, and thus makes moi
show than if it grew more gradually. All these causes, along with
others less important, acting concurrently, create a consider%bl
demand for money, as well as assisting in its circulation.

There ought to be some great moral and political i
gained by AVar, because, from an economic point of view, it is nothin)
but loss. Loss of the life and treasure expended in its prosecutior^
so much wasted of the labour and skill and wealth of a country, or,
what comes to the same thing, so much added to its National Debt,
Doctors flourish in times of epidemic, and lawyers prosper nhea
litigation abounds ; so there are a few degiartments of trade, such a,
transport and armaments, and those who furnish the equipment of a
army in the field, that receive a temporary and artificial stimulus whe
War breaks out, which the unthinking superficially mistake fa
commercial prosperity.

Take the case of our War with Russia in 1S54, which addo
so many millions to our National Debt, heavy enough already t
all conscience. How was the cost of this War provided ? What
ever be the method of settlement, the money has always '
paid at once. There are four channels through which the mone
may come: — isl. from the sum annually set aside to extend, t
repEiir, or to replace permanent capital invested in buildings an
machinery; and, from the wages fund by which our artisans, &c
are paid, which means the abandonment of projected undertakings)
or the curtailment of those in hand by reducing the staff, or workin
short time ; 3rd, a very possible but doubtful share from the sale <
foreign securities which yield a high rate of interest abroad, by EnglisI
holders, the proceeds being invested in the low-rated new British loon
4th, there must be a large reduction in the loanable capital of lb
country which forms the banker's stock-in-trade. Previous to the Wi
the rate of interest had been so unusually low as 2 per cent., but ll
mere mmour of War was quite suflicient to raise it rapidly to S^ p
cent. This must have attracted a large quantity of gold frDtn abrMJ

The Commercial Relations of Gold and Silver. 351

With regard lu uiher countries at War, a rise in llie rale does not
■Iways secure the importation of gold. There is the risk in transit,
of blockade, inierrupted communications, and of capture. A cam-
paign may end in disaster, and there is always the possibility of
financial failure following upon miUiary defeat. When two countries
having large trade with each other are foolish enough [o go to \V3r,
all these evils are aggravated ; supplies can only be got by indirect
methods and roundabout routes, and the financial operations are
conducted at great cost through third parlies, who take heavy toll for
their share of the risk.

During the Franco- German War large amounts of money were
transmitted to London, not so much for investment as for safe
keeping, but no sooner was the \Var over than the money was
recalled. Money of this kind may prove to be a treacherous
■trap to venturesome bankers, who use it even for temporary invest-
ment, because at any moment the scare may cease and the deposits
■are immediately withdrawn.

Another important commercial result of War is that the tem-
porary closing of one market is often the means of permanently
opening many. Previous to the Crimean War the bulk of our ini.
ported breadstuffs came from the ports on the Black Sea and the
Bahic. The effective blockade by our fleet slopped that source of
supply. Wheat, which, previous to the war, sold as low as 36*., rose
rapidly to 8oj. This high price induced America and Australia,
India and Egypt, to increase their supplies, so that we are no longer
dependent for the staff of life on a single market or country.
Similarly, the Civil War in America caused a cotton famine in
Lancashire, and the closing of most of the mills. The immensely
enhanced price of cotton enabled the experiment of its growth to be
favourably tried in Epypt and India, with such conspicuous and per-
'inanent success. These and other sudden and unexpected changes in
the course of trade, until the equilibrium of exports and imports had
time to become adjusted, caused large balances of indebtedness in
favour of these countries, which must have been paid in silver or gold.

When War has been prolonged in any country, and the resources
of the National Exchequer arc exhausted, and bankers are becoming
chary of lending any more on such slippery security, few countries
have been able to resist the temptation at one time or another of that
easy but most mischievous and costly of all methods of borrowing, the
unlimited issue of an inconvertible paper currency. Take the recent
and well-known case of the Civil War in America- "^ ' — ti»*
blockade of the Southern ports by the Nortbcra (

352 The Gentleman s Magazine.

were rotting for want of a market — and the damage done by thi;
"Alabama" and other Confederate cruisers on the Northern ships,
international trade with America could only be carried on under
great difficulties. Iniemal industries, owing to the disturbed con-
dition of the country, and the withdrawal from their ordinary employ-
ment of so many thousands of men, were practically at a standstill.
And yet those immense armies had to be fed, and clothed, and
equipped with armamentn. How was all this expense to be paid for ?
All gold had already left the country to pay the foreign creditors,
who would not look at the greenbacks. With every fresh issue the
paper prices of commodities rose. The high premium on gold
exactly represented the depreciation of the inconvertible paper
currency. Even in those cases where the premium on gold, as well as
its exportation, has been forbidden, the hard fact remains the same.
If the gold has not already left the country, it is withdrawn from
circulation and hoarded until happier times return.

Among the blessings of peace comes the resumption of specie
payments, when all the evil results we have indicated are reversed.
There is an accumulated flood of commodities wailing and ready for
exportation, and the imports are at first limited by caution, leaving
a credit balance to be taken in gold. As gold gradually returns
the discredited greenbacks are withdrawn, the inflated paper prices
drop to their normal level, and the premium on gold disappears.

A great deal of unprofitable controversy has been carried on both
here in England and abroad, for some years now, on what is called
the " Silver Question." Whether we assign the result to the action
of natural causes or to political or national movements, it has vcr>'
seriously affected the commercial movements of gold and silver.
The key to the position lies in the folloiving figures, taken from the
report of the recent Currency Commission, which show the enor-
mous rise in the production of silver from the mines for two periods,
with the value in sterling :
Annual average 1851-5 886,115 kilogrammes = ;£8,oi9,350
„ 1881-5 2,861,709 „ = 21,438,000

This tremendous increase both in quantity and in value, notwith-
standing the depreciation, could hardly happen without seriously
affecting the price of commodities in those countries where silver was
the standard of value. Gold and silver as commodities are liable to
fluctuation according to the supply and demand in the metal market.
But as money, being the standard of lalue by which the prices of all
other articles are measured, every variation in the value of gold or
■ilver is popularly known as a general rise or fall in prices. Many

f TV/r Commercial Rc/a/ious oj Gold and Silver. 3

affirm the mischief really began in 1S73, when the German Govern-
ment demonetised silver to the value of ^28,000,000 ai prices
varying from S9i\'^- t" 5°^^- ''" ounce. Very little has been sold
since 1875, owing probably to the increasing fall.

Up lo 1873 both gold and silver were freely coined in America
as legal tender at the ratio of sixteen to one. At that dale gold
became legal tender for all sums over five dollars. From 1878 to
188S the Bland or Alison Act restored silver as legal tender, unless
contracts otherwise specified, and coining at the rate of two million
dollars a month.

From 1865 lo 1873 the Slates composing the Latin Union —
France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, and Greece— coined silver with-
out limit, which became legal tender; but in 1874 silver coinage was
limited, and in 1878 suspended.

In 18S1-83 a foreign loan of ^16,000,000, mostly gold, enabled
Jtaly to resume specie payments.

In 1875 ^^'^ Netherlands adopted ihe gold standard, and in 1876
Korway, Sweden, and Denmark followed suit.

This is a very bare and bald statement of most of the facts of ihe

At the very time the production of silver from the mines had

0 enormously increased, owing to the action of the above Slates,

phe demand was thus seriously diminished. And conversely, when

; demand for gold had grown in order to take the place of silver,

^lie rate of its production was diminished.

Now, if it be political or national action, as so many think, that
has created the evil of depredation of silver, let those same nations
retrace their steps and undo it. We in England had no hand in bring.
ing the mischief about; why should our standard be tampered withto
provide a fanciful and delusive cure ? On the other hand, if these
results, as can be proved, are the inevitable action of natural forces,
the sooner all concerned accept the situation, the better ; fighting
against nature is a very hopeless lask.

In 1S47, when the Californian mines, and in 1851, when the
Australian mines, added immensely lo the world's stock of gold, no
one doubted but that the value of gold as measured by the price of
commodities was considerably depreciated. But it was very ditficuh,
if not impossible, among so many conflicting causes, to tell how far the
■ -depreciation had gone. It was one of those problems in which every
(factor was variable, every principle elastic, and every rule had many
inceptions. There was ample scope for doubt and little room for dog-
paatism. Unfortunately this variation cannot be equally distributed
t Ihe eatiie community. The debtor in this case profited at his

354 T^^ Gentleman s Magazine.

creditor's expense. The loss was mainly borne by those classes who
live in leisure and luxury, "who toil not neither do ihey spin,"
enjoying the wealth they have inherited from their industrious or
rapacious ancestors. The gain was reaped by the energetic, enter-
prising, and skilful among the trading and commercial classes.

The present appreciation of gold, though as yet slight, is probably
growing, and will have exactly opposite effects. It is now the creditors'
turn to profit, and " the toilers and the spinners " will have to pay for
the benefit of the wealthy and luxurious. No amount of forethought
or sagacity can avert cither depreciation or appreciation in the
standard of value, when they arise from natiiral and not artificial
causes. They are calaicities that must be borne with patience, like
bad weather and the east wind.

Our chief interest in the "Silver Question" is the manner and
degree in which it affects the commerce and the people of India-
There can be no doubt that when the silver depreciation began and was
in progress, substantial losses must have occurred from not knowing
how far it might go, aggravated in the case of many merchants and
Indian banks by the vain hope that their investments in rupee paper
would speedily recover. It must be remembered that loss by
exchange only affects trade when the fluctuations occur between the
making and the completion of a bargain. When the change from being
temporary assumes a more or less permanent form it can always be
adjusted and allowed for without loss, except by the blind and stupid.
Even when loss by exchange was unavoidable it was counterbalanced
by a corresponding profit by those merchants who exported as well
as imported.

When the price of silver began to fall, it was confidently expected
that the increased supply from the mmes, and the portion released by
demonetisation, would speedily find their way to India, where, strange
to tell, silver continues to maintain its previous purchasing power.
This would doubtless have happened but for the fact that othci com-
modities required in India had fallen quite as much, in some cases
more.

The lossto India by exchange is not commercial but political, Kol
as traders and producers but as tax-payers the people of India have to
bear the heavy burden. The Indian exports are always largely in excess
of the imports, and but for the large and growing Government drawings
upon the Indian Council to provide in gold the heavy home charges,
the interest on the Indian debt, and the dividends on the Government
railvrays, the present large shipments of bullion, chiefly silver, would
be larger still. According to Mr. O'Conot's official report oa the

The Comnurciat Relations of Gold and Silver. 355

Trade of India, just published, the annual average Govemmenl
drawings on India during the last ten years, which were sold in
London for gold and collected in India in silver, reached the
enormous sum of ^14,744,356.

Notwithstanding this sum which the Indian people have to pay
for the benefits of English Government, to which has to be added
nearly one-third for loss by exchange, according to the valuable
circulars of Messrs. Page & Gwylher, the annual average during the
last ten years, 1879-88, of gold and silver imported to the East,
including Chinaand Japan, amounted [0^13,212,703. This amount
included shipments from San Francisco, chiefly bar silver and Mexican
dollars, a favourite coin in the East. Mr. O'Conor estimates that
from 1S34-88, India alone has absorbed of the precious metals,
mostly stiver, the fabulous sum of ;^442,ooo,ooo.

It has long been a puzzle to economists what India, China, and
Japan can have done with such vast quantities of gold and silver,
which never by any accident return. Indian jewellery and oriental
magnificence of costume, and 'fondness for gaudy display, will
doubtless account for a considerable portion, but as no great quantity
is found in circulation as coin, the only remaining alternative is the
assumption, born of imagination rather than information, that it must
be hoarded.

It has previously been stated how much Indian commerce has
benefited by disturbance in the trade of other countries, and it is ample
evidence of the enterprise and skill, when well-directed, of the Indian
people, that each temporary advantage has been turned into a per-
manent gain. The Crimean War facilitated the growth of wheat,
and the American Civil War the introduction of cotton. Jute and
cotton factories are now carried on with conspicuous success, owing
to the cheapness and quality of native labour, and the nearness of
the Eastern markets, saving double carriage and delay. Coffee and
especially tea-planting are of comparatively recent growth, yet the
produce now forms an important item in Indian trade.

The jieace, security, and growing prosperity enjoyed by the Indian
people will, it is to be hoped, reconcile them to some of the un-
questionable drawbacks of the Government of India. The heavy
debt so largely incurred with no remunerative return, without their
knowledge or consent, and paid for in the expensive coinage of a
foreign country, must be gaUing to the large and mcreasing number of
Indians now educated in the cherished principles of English liberty
■■and self-government. By a cautious development of self-government,
iKgtnning from below and powing gradually upwards; by the

356

The Gentlemans Afagazi

increased employment of their own people in eveiy government p
for which their talents entitle them, men who will not leave the coun
with a handsome pension after a few years' service, but will live and <
among their own people, not merely will great economy and less grin
ing taxation result, but a feeling of justice and contentment will sprea
wide among that submissive people, leaving them proof against ll
wiles of secret conspiracy and open sedition ; binding them lo ^
English people, not by the brittle bonds of conquest and coercic
but knit together by the gentler, sweeter and more durable tics
enlightened self-interest and mutual respect.

\Ve have now briefly considered all the most important caiu
that affect the international transport of gold and silver. We ha
seen that the basis of trade between nations, though expressed
various forms of money, is in substance Barter, commodities fi
commodities, and that the balance of indebtedness only is paid
bullion or coin. That the costly shipment of gold and silver isofi
avoided by the introduction of the debts of a third or of several oth
countries, into a single circuitous settlement. That owing lo i
immense resources and the long estabhshed reputation of Londoi^
has become a centre for settlement, or a kind of Clearing-hou
capita! for jnternalional transactions, quite apart from those ditec
related to itself. We are daily familiar with the fact thai our intcn
trade is carried on by credit documents of various sorts, and that coin
only used for the small change and retail business of evet^-day li
Similarly, the transport of bullion in international commerce sett
simply occasional and accidental differences, and supplies tempota
deficiencies in the Loan markets of the world, until other and C
permanent causes have time to telL Money, after all, is but the
in the commercial machinery, which enables it to go smood
without jar or creaking, furnishing the maximum of freedom V
the minimum of friction.

The increased demand for gold which followed the partia] «
munctisation of silver would have been more severely felt but for t
greater banking facilities and other economic arrangements both
England and abroad ; in ihc increased use of chei[uts, posLil orde
and other credit documents, bankers and telegraphic tran&fets ; t
extension of banking and the Clearing-house system on the contiiu
of Europe. The daily average at the London Clearing-house for i8
amounted to ^22,250,000. If these transactions for a single d
were settled in coin, it would reiiuire 175 tons of gold or 2,^&^ u
of silver ; whilst probably the documents aciually used did not wd
more than a hundredweight.

The Commercial Relations of Gold and Silver. 357

Much of Ihe gold and silver that comes to London has no direct
conneclion with the Balance of Trade, and only an accidental and
temporary influence on the Loan market. They come here simply to
be kept like goods warehoused at ihe London and Liverpool docks
waiting a market, as the most suitable centre from which they may be
readily sent to any part of the world where they may be most wanted,
and will fetch the highest price. The Bank of England is bound by
its Charter to buy gold at ^3. 1 71. g</. per oz., however large its
Stock on hand may be, and is obliged to sell at ^^3. 17J, \o\d., how-
ever ill it may be able to spare it.

All Foreign and Colonial banks of any pretension have their offices,
or agents, or correspondents in London, on whom they constantly
draw. In times of National disturbance or political discontent, Wars
or rumours of War, foreign money flocks to London for safe-keeping,
and while it earns some temporary interest it can always be got back
at any time, as in London gold is the only legal tender. Elsewhere
this is not so. In France, Germany, and the United States, where
the double standard [jtevails, as they have the option of paying in
silver, you can never be sure of getting gold. Pressure is put on
bankers in Germany to prevent the export of gold, and advances are
made at special rates on condition that the loans are repaid by
remittances of gold from abroad. For the same purpose a charge is
made on bar-gold in France when required for export.

This accumulation of capital in London, gathered from all
quarters of the globe to provide for international aflairs, has the ad-
vantage of credit and loans being usually cheaper there than elsewhere,
but what is erroneously called the " Money Market " is at the same
time liable to greater and more frequent fluctuations owing to sudden
withdrawals. When any country has a sufficient supply of gold for
currency purposes and an ample reserve against banking liabilities, so
that credit is cheap, any further imports of bullion are not an advantage,
but rather the reverse. It lowers the rate of interest, and prices of
commodities tend to fall ; exports are accordingly encouraged and
reckless over-trading and speculation stimulated ; all the seeds are
then sown that blossom out into that dreaded period when com-
mercial pressure developes into blind panic, when good and bad go
down together.

This acknowledged prestige and profit of London banking brin^
along with them increased responsibility. The narrower the margin
of actual gold upon which the enormous structure of National ciedK
and banking liabilities rests, the wider the scope for s
distrust the greater the danger of disturbance, and lb*-

VpU CCUUX. NO. I9>?>

358 The Gentleman's Magazine.

call to bankers and merchants to exercise the utmost pradence and
sagacity. The delicate and sensitive mechanism called " Credit "
should have all its parts firmly knit together, not a single screw loose ;
it should be worked and watched by all hands with increasing care ;
every precaution being taken that experience and wisdom can suggest
to prevent ovei-piessure and needless strain.

London occupies a position in the commercial world similar to
the function of the heart in the physical frame ; any disorder or un-
soundness there works speedy and world-wide mischief.

B. D. HACEEHZIE.

359

BIRDS, BEASTS, FISHES, INSECTS,

REPTILES,

AND A WOMAN'S THOUGHTS ABOUT THEM,

FIRSTLY, birds. Apropos of birds, roughly speaking, it seems to
me that there have been throughout this nineteenth century
two schools of poetry in England — that of Wordsworth and that of
Sbelley; that all poets now living among us are followers of the one
or of Uie other; and that what is the style of each poet may be seen
by comparing the poems of both on a bird^ " The Skylark."

Hail to thee, blithe spirit !

So Shelley sings.

Ethereal minstrel, pilgrim of the sky !

So Wordsworth — ^pens.

The differ o' t!

Birds ! Poets ! I have a theory about them, and it is this : that
every bird is one part poet, and that every poet is one part bird.
The one part bird in Shelley was lark, and the one part bird in
Wordsworth was owl ; and in Cowper the one part bird was dove.
" O, had I the wings of a dove ! " he sang ; and the wings of a dove
God gave him.

The one part bird in Milton was eagle. The one part bird in
Pope was cock-sparrow.

This becomes catalogue style. I pass from birds to beasts.

I don't know why people talk* of dumb beasts. There are two
sorts of animal creatures which indeed are dumb, or have voices so
very low-pitched that we cannot hear them. They are fishes and
worms. But all others have voices audible enough. Take only cats.
Talking of cats, have you noticed that people always love or hate
them? There is no medium. Folks may " like " dogs, may
"respect" them (the latter is my case, and is combined — a not
uncommon circumstance, I believe, in the case of this feeling — with
intense dislike) ; folks may have aU sorts of feelings, and shades of

360 The Gentleman's Magazine.

feelings, towards dogs ; but, as regards cats, humanity may really be
divided into those that love them and those that hate them. /
love them; the odds are that you hate them, that youi next-door
neighbour loves them; his next-door neighbour loves them ; the man
next door to him hates them, and so on. Anyone doubting this
need <»ily send a card the round of his ne^hbourhood, havbg on it,
" Kindly state your feelings regarding cats." If he do not receive
it back filled up with "love them;" "hate them;" "love them;"
"hate them;" "hate them," I, as persons regardless of gnunmai
say, shall be vtry surprised.

In the case of dogs, the card would be quite differently filled up.
The answers would vary hopelessly: "lite them;" "rather like
them;" "like them very much;" "so fear hydrophobia;" "love
them;" "can't endure them;" "adore King Charleys;" "like a
mastiff;" "can't stand terriers;" "like greyhounds;" "like fox-
hounds;" "doat on spaniels;" "want a pup;" "love those little
silky things with ears in their eyes." So on, on, abusive, laudatory>
and incoherent answers, ad infinitum.

To return to cats. I read the other day a poem which struck me
as exquisitely dainty, and which told of the love of a boy for a kitten.
The writer of it was a young girl. I translate it from the German :
Voung Rolun for his pastime kept

A little SDow -white kitten ;
To see how duntiljr it slept,
You could not but be smitteo.

Its flashing eyes, all folks agreeil.

You loved on merely leeing ;
The boy and kitten were indet'd

One heart, one soul, one being.
Once on his heart the dear thing lay,

tie bent 10 ki&s it sleeping ;
Alack, a claw him j.ierced straightway.

And left him torn and weeping.
Poor Robin sobs aloud, " Oh, me !

The little soft deceiver \
Her sparkling eyes how conid I see

And love not and believe her ? "

AVhi>il, foolish lad ! 'lis very cteir

That kittenii must have pastime.
You're scralch'd indeed— bend low yout eat—

Tlw first lime be tht last limt.

Though not ver}- creditable to Puss, that is the very prettiest poem
I ever read about her. Poets have a prejudice against oats, just »s

Birdi. Beasts, Fishes, insects. Reptiles

361

1 Irish -

llhey have a prejudice against pigs ; though, as I once heard ai
man say, " They make much of a baste called Pigasus. " Never mind,
unters ; the proverb -makers —and they are older than the poets
have not overlooked you, as is shown by many a time-o!d saying,
ch as " to buy a pig in a poke," " to have a wrong sow by the eai,"
make^or rather irj- to make^" a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
The Frcnrh have a proverb — " Qiiund iin jwrc rtvc c'esl du dreche."
That is libellous. We have no knowledge at all on the subject

I of pigs' dreams. Had we the slightest knowledge of pigs' characters
,*fe should not use— and misuse— the word " piggish " as we do.
A mean act is frequently described as piggish, whereas no pig was
jCver guilty of meanness. A dog sometimes is ; but then — as dog-
pwners say — dogs are so human.
There must be something radically wrong in the way zoology is
fBught. A London child some time ago WTOte the following as
embodying all that she knew on the subject of rabbits : " These are
little hares, used for curry and stew, and cheaper." A friend of the
I child in flippant language declares that the account is not " half bad,"
^^that a London child cannot be supposed to know what a living
^Brabbit is like, that it has two lovely black eyes and would be graceful
Vif it could a longer tail unfold.

Poor little Londoners ! Well, they have always dogs among
them ; see them, hear them, read about them. Literature, like life,
is only too full of them. What other lower animal figures as hero in
fiction ? Place an chien I " J?ai — and his Friends." A man once
said to me that in nothing did woman's lack of accuracy show itself
more than in her mode of using, when speaking of animals, terms
generic rather than distinctive ; that whereas a man would speak of
a mastifl', a greyhound, a terrier, a spaniel, a woman invariably spoke
of a dog. Men always run away with notions. Do not they do
precisely the same thing in speaking of— well, clothes ? Where a
woman, in allusion to her head-gear, speaks of her toque, her tam o*
shanter, her felt, her chip, her straw, her crinoline, her Rembrandt,
her Gainsborough, her Wagner, her sailor, her coal-scuttle, her
chocolate, her crushed-strawberry, her cardinal, her velvet, her silk,
her pongee, her waterproof, her flap, her cap, her turban, her turn-
down, her turn-up, her morning, her afternoon, her marketing, her
visiting, her church, her country, her seaside, her travelling, her
tiding, her boating, her tennis — here are some forty different kinds,
and there are some forty more — a man, though married -and- a' for
years, makes use of but two generic terms. They are " bonnet " and
hat," and the odds are that he does not even use these rightly, ta is

J

362 The Genttemaris Magazine.

afraid of using them wrongly, and seeks lefiige in the pidful and
insulting phrase, " whatever you call the thing."

This is a digres^on. A still small voice reminds me that the
subject I started with was dogs. To dogs, then, I will return. Dora
Greenwcll, in a noble poem, makes a dog tell of a doctor :
He saw me slowly die

In sgonies acute ;
For he was man, and I
Wm nothing but » brute.

" He was man." What a blow is there given !

I think it is Addison who tells of a bitch that was opened for
science sake, antl, as she lay writhing in exquisite torture, the analyst
(what are analysts made of 7) ofTered her one of her young ones, and
it she straightway " fell a-licking," The old, old wonderful story !
What is like motherhood, world without end ?

I wish I knew more about horses. I know one cab-horse well.
He belongs to a stand that belongs to my street; and such a cab-
horse, I am convinced, was never before. He is always glossy and
sleek, and carries his head as if money were bid for him, and stamps
and champs (like a "steed" !), and cocks his ears, and switches his
tail, and has the prettiest steps imaginable. When I look at him I
feel quite sure that body and soul of him are full of oats and sugar ;
which explains why he holds up his head and his haunches, why his
Uil grows thick and his mane grows long, and you say to yoursdf
that if Disraeli had seen him he would have called him a "barb," and
if Dan Chaucer had seen him he would have called him " an horsely
horse to ben a prize-horse able." For Dan Chaucer has that adjective
" horsely," and we want it, indeed, quite as much as we want manly.
What should we do without the horses in literature 7 ^Vhat would
Don Quixote be without Rosinante? what the Vicar of Wakeiield
without the colt and Blackberry? Who would not miss the French-
man's horse from Shakespeare's play of "Henry V." ?

A beast for Perseus.
How dared we ever to bridle and rein this big, beautiful creature ?
What has it done to merit leading the life we make it lead, yoked to
our carts andour carriages? Neigh — oh! Heigho !

Poet Heine tells what brought the mischief about flie first
horse ate forbidden oats, he says.

Enough about " beasts." " Fishes " come next on my list
I once heard a little boy say that he would like to be s fish
because it could ahta,ys keep dean, and bad never to be washed. He

I

I

Birds^ Beasts. Fishes, Insects, Reptiles.

^as thinking, no doubt, of the soaping process, which seems to con-
stitute to little boys the terrible feature of washing. As a wee bit
lassie I was greatly interested in fishes. In my opinion they were by
no means " stupid " ; for^to the smallest among them — they could
keep their eyes open in water. I now know that, despite this
circumstance, they must be inordinately stupid, for I learn that
whereas the proportion of the brain of man to the rest of his body is
about I to 60, the proportion in fishes is about i to 3,000, Let any-
one picture to himself the 3,ooolh part of a minnow, and he will
conceive how minute may be the brain of a fish. Most of us know,
perhaps, less about fishes than about any other animals ; witness the
case of the British islander who paused in amaiemcnt before a basin
of large gold-fishes as " live red herrings."

" Mute, inglorious " — fishes have no friends. There is among us a
Society for the PreventionofCrueltyloAnimals, but it has not yet taken
up the cause of the dwellers among the waves that Britannia rules. A
mere woman, with mere woman's brain, I ask of men, the good, the
kind, and clever, can no way be devised for catching fish other than
by spitting them alive ? I was talking on this subject with a woman
not long ago. She quaintly ended the conversation as she bent down
,and patted a dog at her feet, by admonishing it to gratitude in the
words:

Ves, compare your lot with theirs, old fellow. No one ever
;pat5 Ihtm on the back but a fishmonger."

There, in a nutshell, is the case of the fishes.
A word upon "Insects."

There is a cobweb in my room, the sight of which makes me
believe, in Skeat's despite, that cobweb means cobbled web. It has
been torn and patched again and again. Poor spider 1 Indeed,
poor spiders ! I have all an Irishwoman's love for spiders. It
saddens the Keltic heart in me to see whole families of them
cvicted^hushand, and wife, and children — turned out of house and
home, it may be in mid-winter, simply because they can't pay rent.
Who ever shows kindness to them ? Even Goldsmith once broke a
Spider's web twice for experiment, and (for experiment) plucked off
a spider's leg. Ah, dear Goldie ! U'hat harm do spiders do us that
we should maltreat them ? They do not make free with us, like flies ;
or sting us, like wasps ; or buzz about us, like blueboHles ; or get
under our feet, like black-beetles j or make havoc with our ward-
robes, like moths. Moths indeed are odious — " mouths " Chancer
ightly calls them. But spiders ! — quiet, work-a-day things are they,
ing harmless lives in their castles in the air. '

364 T^^ GentlematCs Magazine.

they heartened a Scottish king ; to-day they may hearten an Irish
beggar. I once wrote a poem about a spider, but I have lost it I
was giving much thought to insect life at the time, and I also wrote
a poem about a ladybird. And that I have not lost, and I like iL
One always does like one's own poems. This is it.

THE LADYBIRD AND THE SUNDEW.

A flowei grew in « garden fair,

A ladybird's delight,
With criDinln leaves and crimion hair.

And blossom all or while.
Each slender hair was jewel-tipp'd.

The flower Etartike beamed ;
My lad; bird delighted lipp'd

The sweeU that fiom il streamed :
Till, cloyed, her little wings she itirr'd

To Hy a]oft once more ;
But captive is the pretty bird.

She never more will soar.
Caught, caught t the little lady-fly

Lies panting oo the leaf.
There must she lie until she die ;
Oh, ladies, joy is brier.

My say about " Reptiles," and I have done.

" They that creep and they that fly " — the words are used by Gray
of — the race of man ; and yet another poet tells us, " Thou and
the worm are brother-kind." We take anything said by poets in good
part In serious prose it would be unsafe for any man to compare
his brother to a worm. Worms are not liked, though they do a heap
of good. No garden could exist without them ; yet all men, and
especially all gardeners, hate them. Everythingis done to make their
lives miserable. Even the kindest among us are always treading upon
them ; we can't help it We have also invented a phrase " to worm "
as a synonym for " to push " in the most contemptuous sense of that
word. In Germany, where the high wisdom which we call simplicity
still lives, the word " worm " is used in many parts of the country as
a term of endearment, and mothers say of their little ones, " die
siissen Wiirmchen " — " the sweet wormkins." Just fancy anyone's
calling an English child a "wormkin" !

Not alone do wonns among reptiles suffer from man's scorn.
Look at the slug, " Sluggish " and " lary " we use as having the same
signification, though, as every naturalist knows, the common garden
slug does as much work any day as the common garden spade ; and

Birds, Beasts, Fishes, InsectSy Reptiles. 365

it works moreover week-days, and Sundays, and saint-days, and
spring and summer, and autumn and winter, and from dawn-break
to dark. Nor is it slow. The amount of work one slug gets through
in an hour is quite astounding. It certainly does not bustle about like
an ant ; but greatly mistaken are they who think that all that bustling
about of ants means work. I have known an ant to run to and fro,
to and fro, on a blade of grass in the sun, for the mere excitement of
the thing, till quite exhausted. I have seen it race another ant round
and round a pebble, till the two of them had not a leg to stand on,
for mere sport At this very moment, sitting as I am in a cool spot in
my garden, there is one scampering like a maniac up and down inside
my sleeve, wasting his time and mine, and doing it only to annoy,
because he knows it teases. Ants are distinctly overrated If in-
deed they do a heap of work, they make the heap very apparent,
and lack the modesty which charms one (or, at least, charms me) in
the ethically-interesting slug.

Toads ! Here again are estimable creatures unappreciated. '* To
toady," forsooth, is a verb we have coined for our special use in
Britain. They have no verb like it in France ; they have no verb
like it in Germany. They have toads and toadies (by toadies I
mean little toads) in both of these countries, but they do not saddle
on them society vices. What would the fairy-tale writers do without
toads ? Listen to Andersen : ''The toad thought the butterfly was
a flower that had broken loose."

Did man ever have a prettier thought than that ? I feel sure
that when Andersen was a reptile he was a toad with a jewel in its
bead, and — since one day to be Andersen — a jewel in its heart.

ELBA D^ESTERRF.-KEELINC.

366 The Gentleman's Magaaine.

BALQUHIDDER.

FOR the wandering artist in search of a happy huntiog-ground—
a quiet spot far from the haunts of busy men, where, watching
and noting, he may put upon canvas the varying aspects of sky and
mountain, woodland and strath, or where, inspired by tragic associa-
tions, he may summon back to form and colour the romantic figures
of the past, there is assuredly charm and attraction in the little High-
land valley which holds Loch VoiL The Oban railway, it is true,
crosses the foot of the strath at Kingshouse, only two miles away;
but the trains which pass there are few, and the tourists of summer
and autumn, hastening to the well-known places of resort on the
West Coast, do not think of invading the quiet glens by the way.
He who comes here, therefore, with easel and palette, may hope to
see atmospheric visions and dream fair colour-dreams for days and
even weeks on end without other interruption than the infrequent
passing of some shepherd or forester, or of shy crofter children
coming home from school

Let him stand on the little bridge here under the wood, with the
river below his feet flowing out between the sedgy islets of the lake,
and let him ask himself whether the scene be not fair.

The sun has just set, and the rugged edge of the Argyleshire
mountains in the west rises dark against the clear pale primrose of
the sky. Higher there in the heavens great bars of cloud are on fire
with rosy flame, and a glory from them flushes the brown and purple
sides of the far-ranged Braes of Balquhidder, while Loch Voit in the
valley below gleams blue as a long Damascus blade cast among the
shadows of the woods. Of human interest, too, if that be wanted,
there are suggestions enough. A blue trail of smoke rising softly
above the trees tells here and there of a cot where the evening meal
is being prepared ; and a heap of yellow and fr^rant pine chips by
the wayside betrays the spot where some forester has been at work.
The woodland paths, with their rich depths of shadow, seem made to
be trod by the loitering feet of lovers ; and the gentle Muse, Erato
herself, might almost be discovered lingering in some nook by the
6tiU margin of the lake.

Baiquhidder.

367

At all hours and seasons ihe landscape is full of rich and fair
felour. The hills here flame golden with the yellow gorse in spring,
ind in autumn, like a nether cloudland. heave their purple bloom
against the blue. Even at night, when the gathering shadows have
begun to darken in the strath, and the virgin moon has drawn a soft
mist-veil about her shy beauty on Ben Vorlich, the warmth of an
afterglow lingers long on the brown shingles of t!ie few hamlet roofs,
and tender and mysterious greys come out upon the mountain sides,
Happy indeed is he, painter or other, who may tarry here for a time,
the hill air shedding its freshness on his heart, while the mountain
walls shut out the unrest of the world, and every night there is set

Ifoi him in the west some new and gorgeous pageantry of colour and
Bght
Should one desire, too, to call to life again upon his canvas the
scenes and persons of bygone days, Baiquhidder can furnish him from
Its o»Ti wild and picturesque history with memories and suggestions
enough.
The roofless ruin of the ancient kitk of Baiquhidder stands on a
little\knoll close by the hamlet at the foot of the mountains. With
the glow of sunset falling upon its ivied gable and upon its modest
enclosiire of grass-grown graves, it appears lo-day a fair and tranquil

fspot. Amid a silence scarcely broken even by the murmur of the
mountaih rivulet at hand, it seems strange to picture aught but scenes
of peace. And peaceful and saintly enough is at least one of the
place's memories ; for here, under a quaintly-carved and time-worn
stone, the Clacli Atnais, test the remains of Angus, a disciple of
Columba, who, doubtless, in his own day brought to the strath the

> message and the arts of gentleness. But the fiery cross was wont
too often in limes gone by to speed along this quiet valley. Too
often the little graveyard has been the gathering- place of men on
desperate thoughts intent. And the altar of the ruined kirk itself
once saw a deed which darkens with tragic horror the story of the
spot.

The dwellers of the glen in bygone days were a warrior race —

a fact betokened by the significant emblem of a broadsword carved

upon the stones of many of the graves about the ruined kirk. Here

the clan Maclaurin had their home. Tradition points out, a mile to

the east of the modern manse, the spot where they defended the

strath in battle against the invading Buchanans from the Pass of

^^^ Leny. And a memorial-stone in the kirkyard tells how their hamlet

^^Lwas harried, and its aged chief with the women and children slain,

^^■in absence of the fighting men, by a band of marauders from the

368 The Gentleman's Magazine.

Dochart. But best Icnown of all the place's memories is the &ct
that it saw the burial of Rob Roy. Though his clan bad ever been
at feud with the Maclaurins, his grave lies here among thcii
graves. Close outside the doorway of the ruined kirk, under a nide
coffin-shaped stone, rests the dust of that Highland IshmaeL
For many a long year in these glens, as Wordswonh says,

Picturesque his whole life had been, and for painter and writer ahke
it remains to the present day a mine of romantic situationsi Among
these, most striking of all, perhaps, is the final scene. Surviving
outlawry, forfeiture, and proscription, at last in his own house of
Inverlochlarig, at the head of Ix>ch Voil, the hot-hearted old chief
lay dying. The members of his family were gathered about his bed,
and to their eyes it seemed that the end had all but arrived, when
suddenly it was announced that a foeman stood at the door desiring
an interview. At this intelligence the flush of life came back to the
cheek of the sinking man, his eye flashed, and he strove to raise
himself on his couch. "Throw my plaid over me," he said, "and
bring me my claymore, dirk, and pistols ; that it may never be said
an enemy saw Macgregor unarmed." A haughty interview it was
which ensued, as belitted the relations of the parties — a colloquy
worthy the last moments of " the bold Rob Roy." When it was
over, and the visitor had been dismissed, the old Highlander sank
back satisfied, exclaiming, " Now let the piper play ' Ha til mi tulidh ' "
["We return no more"] ; and while the lament was yet wailing down
the loch he breathed his last.

A scene somewhat similar to this in circumstance, it will be
remembered, has been painted by Mr. Val Prinsep, in his " Death of
Siwaid the Strong." The Highland subject, however, presents cir-
cumstances which are absent in the latter case.

Little good it boded, in the old days, when these pipes of the
Macgregors were heard coming down the loch. Too often the
strains proved the prelude to some wild spectacle of strife and flight ;
for the sons of Alpin were ever more ready with the sword than
with the sickle, and when aggrieved, as in truth they often had reason
to deem themselves, their vengeance was apt to be both sharp and
swift. To this characteristic it is that Balquhidder owes its most
startling and dramatic memories. Descendants, as they believed
themselves, of the Scots king Atpin, the Ma<^regors found their once
wide domains narrowed as the years went on hj the encroacbments

Balqukidder. 369

of other races ; and again and again some frantic outburst maiked
their endeavour to regain lost ground.

Of these attempts, perhaps the most desperate were made in the
latter half of the sixteenth century.

On a winter night of 1558 one wild and terrible scene was
enacted in the strath. Goaded by [heir wrongs, and driven, it may
be, like the wolves, by hunger, the Macgregors poured out then from
their western fastnesses and swept the little valley. Imagination can
picture yet the horror of the night, when the shouts of the plaided
mountaineers broke upon the stillness, and the dark hillsides were lit
up by the flames of clachan and homestead. But more awfu! and tragic
still was the drama enacted here on a winter Sunday thirty years later.
I-'rom far and near the members of the clan had gathered at the
summons of their chief. A dark and significant transaction had
taken place, and the sign-manual of the tribe was to be appended to
it. In the dim-lit little kirk man after man of the assembly went
forward to the altar, laid his hand upon the severed head of the
king's forester, Drummond-Ernoch, and swore himself a partner in
ihe deed that had placed it there.
L This was the climax of the Macgregors' desperate efforts to hold
Btfaeir own by the ancient (oir a glaive, or Right of the Sword, against
Inie encroachments of neighbours provided with less hazardous titles.
By it, like Canute of old, they bade defiance to an advancing tide
which was destined to prove too strong for them, The weird and
dreadful ceremony, known as Clan Alpin's Vow, has formed the
subject of more than one vivid poem and romance ; but it has yet to
be arranged in its native awe and gloom upon the canvas of the
painter.

Among the wild deeds of the succeeding years many an episode
of thrilling interest might be found. The dark oath sworn in the
little kirk brought retribution swift and terrible upon the Macgregors.
Their lands were forfeited, and their nameilself was in time proscribed.
Again and again these passes were swept with fire and sword ; com-
missions of vengeance were granted to their neighbours on every
side ; and the clansmen were hunted like wild deer among the hills.
Amid such hardships and distresses the marvel is that any of the
name escaped. Nevertheless, the " sons of Alpin " managed to sur-
nve, active and powerful ; and more than one encroaching tribe had
son to remember their cncounici. The clan mustered strength
I, in the midst of its proscription, to defeat the Colquhouns of
.5 and all their supporters in Glenfruin ; it cost Stewart of Appin
laiderable effort at a later day to oust the clansmen from Invei-

370 The Geutlematis Magazine.

nenty on the lochside here ; and Rob Roy himself, in his nepheVi
name, led no mean following to support the Jacobite cause when
Mar raised his standard in 1715.

No longer now, however, does the wild " Macgr^prs' Gathering "
strike terror through valley and strath. No longer do fire and foray
sweep ruthless down the silence of these midnight glens. And in
the roofless ruin of the little kirk itself the rains of heaven have long
since washed away the dark blood-traces of Clan Alpin's Vow.
Healed are the scar and the sorrow
Of the feud* of * barbaroni lime ;
F<n the spade and the plough and the harrow
Have banished the sword from our dime.

For painter and poet alike to-day there could be found no fitter
spot to transcribe for a picture of Peace.

And as the light grows dim upon the western hills, and night,
still and solemn, descends upon the quiet scene, the stranger, step-
ping over the dust of the foemen of long ago, sees only the candle
shining in the window of some peasant's cottage here and there
among the shadows of the woods — a study in ckiaroscuro.

GEORGE EYRE-TODD

COCOA AND CHOCOLATE.

THE January number of the Gentleman's Magazine contained an
article on " Costa Rica and its Resources," in which I dealt
at some length with cocoa, giving as much information as I could
respecting its history and culture. To avoid repetition, therefore, I
keep clear of much which wouid otherwise be in place in the present
article. A few weeks ago I had an opportunity of visiting one of
the largest cocoa factories in the world, that of Messrs. Cadbury
Brothers, at Bimiingham, and what I saw and heard made a deep
impression on my mind. Under the supervision, and in great
measure at the expense of these gentlemen, quite a town has sprung
up in the neighbourhood of the workshops. Some of the cottages
axe little mansions, and the surrounding country is singularly beauti-
ful and fertile ; while as for the factories it was positively delightful
to find myself in vast ranges of buildings fitted up with the most
perfect scientific appliances, and to observe that the proprietors had,
while doing all In their power to manufacture the purest and best
cocoa, not spared any expense in providing dining- and reading-rooms
for their workpeople, and promoting in many other ways their com-
fort and happiness. Were masters more often alive to the claims of
their servants, we should heat of fewer strikes and disagreements,
and both classes would gain, while the country at large would be
benefited to a degree not easy to calculate. Just now, when the
country is being convulsed by strikes and mutinies, and rumours of
strikes, this is no trifling matter, and every employer whose amicable
relations with his workpeople show that he has successfully grappled
with the problem, deser^'cs unqualified praise.

The literature of cocoa is not without curious features: it is so
extensive that it would astonish the uninitiated. A singular and
sufficiently quaint treatise, entitled " Chocolata Inda ; opusculum de
qualiiate el natura Chocolata; ; authore Antonio Colmenero dc
Lcdesma," seems to have been originally written in Spanish, and
then done into Latin by Marcus Aurehus Severlnus, and to have
been printed at Neuenberg in 1644. Another little work, by Philip

372 The Gentle9nans Magazine.

Sylvester Dufour, called ''A New and Curious Treatise on Coiee,
on Tea, and on Chocolate," was printed at Lyons by John Baptkte
Deville in 1688. The latter is one of those quaint, pedantic, ind
oppressively tedious books in which our ancestors thought they wr
infinite learning and wit, but which we find so insufferably duU and
heavy that only a few irrepressible bookworms can summon padence
to go through them. For instance, part of the book purports to be
a dialogue between a physician, an Indian, and a bouigeois ; the
physician commences thus learnedly and pleasantly : "There is a
beverage called chocolate, of which great quantities are used in the
Indies and in Spain, which they reckon medicinal and of which it is
our present intention to discuss the virtues." Hereupon the Indian
continues : " It is made of the fruit of certain trees, whidi are found
in New Spain " — the Spanish Main that is. " Their leaves are like
those of orange trees, but slightly larger ; their fruit resembles t
large streaked cucumber, or one furrowed and rough ; it is full of
seeds which are called cacao, or small almonds, of which some are
smaller than others, and, according to their size, they are divided in
the country of their growth into four sorts. They plant the smallest
cacao trees under the shadow of other trees to prevent the extreme
ardour of the sun from burning and drying them up. The cacao
seeds are at present in very great demand above all other articles of
merchandise, because they ser\'e as money, and because they arc
used as a beverage so famous that it is called chocolate." And so
on for many pages, more quaint than interesting ; but at a time when
foreign travel was very rare, more instructive than it is to us. Our
modern literary style is vastly easier and more graceful, and we have
to count on our readers being well posted up in almost every subject,
so that mediaeval treatises strike us as a strange medley of diffuse-
ness, pedantry, and childish simplicity ; but written as those books
were, for an audience less well informed than any which modern
^Titers address, they received more respectful attention than our ^
would extend to them.

Another curious little book, scarcely more instructive ^^
valuable than those already mentioned, was entitled, "The Nattl^
History of Chocolate, being a distinct and particular account of <^ **
cocoa tree, its growth and culture, and the preparation, excell^^
properties, and medicinal value of its fruit ; wherein the errors ^
those who have wrote upon this subject are discovcr'd, the best w^
of making chocolate is explained, and several uncommon medicin ^
drawn from it are communicated." Translated from the last editi(^
of the French by R. Brookes, M.D. The preface is couched in th^

Cocoa and Chocolate. 373

pretentious and ponderous fashion in favour in 1730. It commences
as foUovs:

" If the merit of a natural history depends upon the truth of the
facts which ate brought to support it, then an unprejudiced eye-
witness is more proper to write it than any other persoti, and I dare
even flatter myself that this will not he disagreeable to the public,
notwithstanding its resemblance to the particular treatises of Col-
menero, Dufour, and several others, who have wrote upon the same
subject. UiMn examination so great a difference will appear that no
one can justly accuse me of having borrowed anything from these
writers," and so to the end. These little books used to waste a con-
siderable part of their limited space in the headings of chapters,
tables of contents, introductions, and much more ; and yet they con-
trived to give so little useful information, that a brilliant modern
magazine article would outweigh in interest and value a cartload of
them.

Mr. D, Morris, M.A., the director of the Public Gardens of
Jamaica, in an excellent pamphlet, " Cocoa ; how to grow and how
to cure it," gives some valuable information relating to the culture
of this plant in that island, where great attention is being paid to it.
The quantity exported from Jamaica increased from 311 cwt, in
1875, of the value of ^£873, to 3,304 cwt in 1880, value ^£10,918.

Chocolate, as every schoolboy knows, especially if he is a worthy
descendant of Macaulay's youthful prodigy, was one of the favourite
beverages of the ancient Mexicans, and in constant use at the time of
the Spanish Conquest ; and Cortez, among the most notable products
of the New World, which he sent Charles V. as proofs of the wealth
of the Indies, included cacao. The physicians of Europe speedily
began to appreciate it, and Hoffmann wrote a treatise entitled
" Potus Chocolati," in which he recommended it in many diseases, and
instanced the case of Cardinal Richelieu who, according to him, was
cured of general atrophy by its use. But it took more than a century
after its introduction into Europe before our countrj-men became
acquainted with it. The earliest mention of it in our literature
occurs in Needham's " Mercurius Politicus," dated June 16, 1659.
For many years the cocoa imported into England continued to be in
the manufactured stale ; but at the beginning of last century the
preparation was commenced in this country, and there isslrong pre-
sumption that the knowledge of the proper methods of manufacture
was brought into England by Sir Hans Sloane, This eminent author,
Patrick Browne, l.ong, Bryan, Edwards, and other writers on Jamaica
notice it favourably.

vol. CCLXIX. NO. IQlS.

374 ^^ Gentleman's Magazine.

Ten years ago the consumption of cocoa in Europe was becoming
so large that it absorbed a considerable part of the total production ;
it was then estimated to reach no million pounds ; 28 millions were
produced in Ecuador, 11 in Trinidad, 7 in Brazil, and 4 in Grenada.
To Great Britain the impK)rts had risen from 12 million pounds in
1867 to 20,250,000 in 1876, while the actual consumption in the
United Kingdom had also grown enormously. In 1820 the con-
sumption of cacao seeds was only 276,321 pounds, in i860 it had
increased to 4,583,124, while in 1873 it was over 6,000,000 pounds.
The average annual consumption per head in Great Britain is still,
however, only estimated at five ounces, a much smaller quantity than
one would expect There is obviously room for a vast increase, for
were every one to use only two pounds, it would mean a total con-
sumption of 76,000,000 pounds.

Dr. Carter Wigg suggests that among the articles which might
often with conspicuous advantage be given to young children, cocoa
should take a high place, as it is exceptionally rich in nutritious
properties. Cocoa nibs and rock cocoa should not b« used for this
purpose, however, because of the large quantity of cocoa butter which
they contain, and unfortunately the fat is of a very indigestible kind.
In selecting cocoa, choice should be made of brands containing the
smallest percentage of fat, and to which starch has not been added.
The last is easily ascertained, for absolutely pure cocoa will not
thicken on being boiled Among the preparations which can be
procured everywhere, and from which nearly all the fat has been
expressed, and to which starch has not been added, Cadbury's Cocoa
Essence is at the head of the list. Cocoa prepared for children should
be weak, with abundance of milk, or it should be added to other
food. Dr. William Faussett, of Dublin, clearly pointed out, in a
p;il)er before the Surgical Society of Ireland in 1877, the supreme
value of cocoa as a food for infants.

The " Chemistry of Common Life *' has a most interesting chapter
on cocoa, and I cannot do better than reproduce it, or rather the
most important passages, with a slight alteration here and there.

The cocoas are more properly soups or gruels than simple infusions ; they arc
prepared from certain oily sectls, which arc first ground to pulp by passing them
between hot rollers, and arc then diffused through boiling water for immediate
use. Mexican cocoa is the seed of the 'J'hcobroma cacao, a small but beautiful
tree with bright dark -green leaves, which occurs both wild and cultivated in the
northern parts of South America, and in Central America as far north as Mexica
If left to itself, it attains a height of forty feet, but Von Bibra says that cultiva-
tors never let it grow beyond fifteen or twenty — partly to facilitate gathering the
fruity partly to shield it from the influence of high winds. It if grown chiefly

Cocoa and Chocolate.

375

EGoiaiia, TrinMul, nnd oa Ihe cons! of Caracus, and (ills vhole forests in
; it U also cullivaled in tbe Maimtius and in the French island of
Bourbon. When tbe Spaniaids iiisl established themselves in Mexico, they
found a beveiage ptepared from this seed in common use among the natives. It
was known by the nanie ofChoeollMl. and was said to have been in use from time
iinmcmoriaL ll was brought to Euro]>c by the Spaniards in 1530, and has since
been inorc ot Jess extensively inlroduced as a lievetoge into every civilised
connti;. Liiuitcus was so fond of it that he gave the tree the generic name of
Tkestroma—iooA of the fiods. The ftult of the tree, which, lilte the fig, grows
directly from the stem and principal branches, is of the furm and size of a smull
oblong melon or a thick cucumber. When lipe the fruit is plucked, opened,
-and allowed to ferment slightly. The seeds are cleaned from the marrowy sub-
stance, and dried in the sun. In the West Indies Ihcy are often immediately
packed for market, but in Caracas they are gathered into heaps every evening and
coveted over, or sometimes buried in the earth till they undergo slight fcrmeota-
tion, before they are iinally dried and packed for market. By this treatment
they lose a portion of their natural bitterness and acrimony of taste, which is
Bieater in the bean ei of the tnaialand than in those of the American islands. Tbe
cocoa of Central America is of superior quality, or, at least, is more generally
esteemed in the European market than that grown in Ihc West Indit-s; it still
Kltins a greater degree of bitterness, and this may he ode reason for the preference
givetl it. In the tow country of Tabusco the cocoa-tree bears flowers and fruit all
tile year round, but seldom more than Icn fruits on a single tree at a time, The
pnncipal harvests ate in March, April, and October, and the total yield of the
piovince is 300 Ions. In 1S67 neatly IX million pounds of cocoa were imported
into Great Brilaio ; it bad risen (o 2Ci'5 millions in 1S76. The total production
of cocoa has been estimated at too to no millions of pounds; iS millions of
these are raised in Ecuador, 1 1 in Trinidad, and 7 in Braiil. The consumption
of cocoa in the United Kingdom has nearly tripled during the last decade ; it
approaches Rve ounces per head annually. Ten mQlion pounds were retained for
borne consumption in 1876. The cocoa-bean of commerce is brittle, of dark-
brown colour internally, cats like a rich nut, and has a slightly astringent but
distinctly bitter tiiitc ; this bitlemeis is more decided in the South American or
mainland varieties. Id preparing it for use, it is gently roosted till the aroma is
folly developed, when it is allowed to cool. The bean is now more brittle, lighter
brawn in colour, and bolb the natural astriogency and tbe bitterness ate less per-
ceptible. It is manufactured for the market ittone or other of three principal
ways. First, the whole bean, after roasting, is licaten into a paste in a hoi mortar,
ur is ground between hot rollers adjusted for the purpose ; Ibis paste, mixed with
starch, sugar, and other similar ingredients in various proportions, forms the
L puitilaled, flake, rock, and soluble cocoas of the shops; these arc often gritty
n the admixture of earthy and other matters which adhere to the husk of

e beuis. Secondly, the bean b deprived of its husk, which forms about

I pcT cent, of its weight, and is then crushed Into fragments ; these are the

■-nibs of the shops, and are the purest state io which cocua can usually be

jncd from the retail dealer. Thirdly, llie bean when shelled is gtounii

e into a paste by hot rulters, and is mixed with sugar and >ensuiU3l with

inilla and luttet almonds, sometimes with cinnamon Timl cli^ves; this puie
e familiar chocolate. When pre[»r'. i-i ilireeili&tait

qrs. First, the chocolate is made up ir,i'
1 in the toli'l tiate u a uuititloUB ^i

376 The Gentleman's Magasim.

caiDpiss much stiength-sustaining material. Secondly, the chocolate or cocm
is scraped into powder, and mixed wilb boiling water 01 milk, when it makes a
beverage, somewhat thick but agreeable to the palate, refreshing la (he tpiritt, and
highly nutritious. Thirdly, the nibs are boiled ia water, with which they form a
rcddisb-browD decoction, which, afiei the fat has been skimmed off, is poured
from the insoluble part of the bean ; with .sugar aod milk this forms an agreeable
diiak, better adapted for persons of weak digestion than the consumption of (he
entire beaiu Authcr variety of cocoa beverages, one which may be exiled cocoa-tea,
is prepared by boiling the husks of the bean in watet, with which they form a
brawn decoction. This husk is usually ground up with the ordinary cocoas, but it is
always separated in the manufacture of the purer chocolates; hence in the cho-
colate manufactories it accumulales in large quanlities, which are imported into
this country from Trieste and other Italian ports under (he name of miiereblt.
This has been used for cattle- feeding. Here the husk is partly ground up in the
inferior cocoas, so (hat the ordinary tiake-cocoas are really of (btee qualities:

\a\ Bean and busk ground and flakes together ; this quality is worth iww. per
cw(. (i) The contents of the second vessel from the winno wing-fan, consisting
of (he smaller pieces of (he nib and a good deal of the husk ; (his sells at S4J.
per cwt (0 The contents of the third vessel from the winno wing.fan, coo^sling
nf little else but husk, and selling at 561. per cwt. Unfortunately, (#) is often sold
as <«), and M as (*).

Besides the exhilarating and sustaining properties which it possesses in common
with tea and cofliee, cocoa in its more common forms is eminently nulritEous. lis
active ot useful ingredients are the following : Pirsi, the volatile oil, to which its
aroma is due, and which is produced during the roasting; (he proportion of this oil
in (he roasted bean has not been accurately determined, but it is very small ; its
action on (he system is probably similar (o (hat of (he odoriferous oils produced by
the same process in tea and coffee. Secondly, a peculiar principle, resembling (be
theine of lea and coffee, (hough not identical with it ; like tbeine, i( is a white
crystalline substance, which has a slightly bitter (as(e, and contains a large per-
cnlage of nitrogen; it is called tkeobromlne from the generic name of the cocoa-
tree, and its composition, compared with that of theine, is as follows -.
'f^cine Theolvcanine

Carbon . - . , 495 467

Ilydrt^cn ... 5'i 4-4

Nitrogen . , . iS'9 31'!

Oxygen ■ ■ ■ - ■ ^'5 ^T^

Theobromine is even richer in nitrogen than theine ; and as nearly all vegetable
piinclples rich in nitrogen, of which the Influence upon the system has been
examined, are found to he very active, the same is inferred in regard 10 theo-
bromine ; and further, Strecker has shown that caffeine may be made from
theobromine by a process called methytation, in which one atom of carbon and
two of hydrogen are added to the original substance ; its analogy in chemical
properties to tbeine leads to the belief that it exercises a simitar exhilarating and
soothing, hui^er- stilling, and waste -retarding effect to the latter substance. The
benefits experienced from the use of cocoa are due, in part at least, to (he theo-
bromine it contains. The proportion of this substance in the cocoa bean has been
cKimatedaloneandahalfto (wo per cent., the sane proportion in which theine
exilti io ihe tot-leaf ; it exists, also, in sensible quantity in the bulk of the be«ik

Cocoa and Chocolate.

377

ic decoclioQ oblaineJ Ly boiling llie husk in walct cannot be wholly devoid of
useful ingredicDts ax al good cfTecls. Thirdly, tlie predominating ingredient in
cocoa, and the one by which it is most reiDarkably distinguished from lea and
coHee, is ihc Ui^e proportion ol cocoa-bulter which il contains ; this somelimes

tamoonts to upwards of one-half the weight of the shelled or husked bean, Con-
Mtned in either of its mote useful foims cocoa is a veiy rich food, and for Ibis
|«asDn it not infrequently disagrees with delicate stomachs. It is in some measure
to lessen this richness or heaviness that sugar, starch, and fragrant seasonings
are generally ground op with ihc roasted bean in the manufacture of cocoa and
chocolate. Fourthly, it also contains a large proportion of starch and gluten,
Hibstnnces which form Ihc staple constituents of all our more valuable vaiicliei of
vegetable food. The average composition of the entiie bean, deprived of its husk

tMld gently roasted ready for use, is nearly as follows :
Water S
Starch, gum, lannin, colouring matter . . :S
Gluten, &c It
Oil (cocoa-butler) 4S
Theobromine z
Fibre 3
Ash or mineral matter 3
This eomposilioa reminds us of the richest and most nutritious forms of
vegetable food, and especially of the oily seeds aud nuts with which cattle are fed
and fatteoed. It is rich in all the important nulrilious principles which co-exist
in our most valued fonns of otdinncy food, but is somewhat poor in gluten or
nitrogenous /iesh- formers, though excessively rich in heat-givers, especially fat.
Mixed with water, as it is usually drunk, il is more properly compared with milk
than with infusions of little direct nutritive value, like Ibose of lea or coffee, beef-
tea, and other beverages, in that it contains theobromine and the volatile em-
pyreBmalic oil. Thus il unites the exhilarating properties of tea with the
itiengthening and body-supporting properties of milk. As cocoa is rich in fnt,
and milk in casein, the practice of making milk-cocoa, in which the constituents
of (he one dovetail into and assuage the inlluejice of those in the other, is judicious.
The large proportion of oil il contains JustiRes also, as Hlting it better for most
Etomachs, mixing or grinding up the cocoa with sugar, flour, or slarch in the
preparation of cocoa-paste or chocolate. Both pmctices are skilful adjustments,
nude without chemical knowledge, as the result of long and wide experience.
But excellent powder-cocoas arc now prepared in which starch has not been
introduced, but merely some of the excess of Ihe butler pressed out ; for it must
not be forgotten that no cocoas are really soluble, though often ao-called. Such
cocoas mixed with boiling water form starch paste in which the particles remain
sospended. And lastly, the general composilion of the beans shows that, in
chocolate cakes and comfits, when faithfully prepared, there should reside, as
eiperiencd has shown to be the case, much nutritive virtue, and the means, reduced
into comparatively small compass, of supporting bodily strength and sustaining
nervous ene^.

The manufacture of cocoa requires exceptional delicacy of
I TDanipulalion, highly trained skill, and very costly and elaborate
iplant. Unfortunately, the large amount of cocoa-butter, which until

378 The Gentleman s Magazine.

recently could not be expressed or removed, necessitated, to speak
plainly, the addition of starch and sugar to suspend it, but the in-
troduction of excellent machinery and better methods of preparation
have enabled marvellous improvements to be effected, and nearly all
the butter can be removed without injury to the cocoa, indeed with
distinct benefit to it and greater digestibility. The attempt to pre-
pare cocoa in a soluble form has tempted some great foreign finns to
add alkaline salts freely : now these salts cannot be recommended
to healthy subjects as regular articles of food ; the reason for adding
them is that they give an appearance of fictitious strength to the
resulting soup or decoction. These foreign firms have been ascer-
tained to do a vast business, and to command considerably higher
prices than their English rivals ; strange to say, these firms not only
send out pamphlets in which their adulterations are openly admitted,
but they positively justify them, and the precise secret of the
adulteration is claimed as their own property. Some time ago copies
of a pamphlet were actually sent to every medical practitioner in the
kingdom, and it bore on its title-page the names of two distinguished
chemists of national, shall I not rather say European, reputation?
Wliy should eminent men bolster up flagrant adulterations ? Surely
their great aim should be to supply the public with pure, wholesome
food ; but when such means are used to push an adulterated article,
and to impose upon the public as well as to injure our own manufac-
turing industries, our indignation is aroused. It is no question of
degree ; it may be true that the adulteration is not very flagrant, and
that it is not distinctly injurious ; I will not pause to discuss these
matters ; still the addition of these salts is an adulteration, and it
enables one great firm to command a much larger price than its
English rivals, besides taking a good deal of trade away from us, for
the adulterated cocoa is in great favour with the credulous public, on
account of its being apparently, though not really, richer and more
soluble than that prepared from perfectly pure brands.

I strongly advocate perfect freedom of trade, and I believe all
trade protection and differential duties to be vicious in principle,
and, in the long run, injurious to all except a small body of interested
persons. Good wine, says the old proverb, needs no bush, but surely
in our love of free trade we should not countenance deception and
fraud ; the public should be distinctly informed as to the composition
of the goods in which it invests its money, and if it still prefers to
be defrauded we suppose there is no help ; but at any rate it should
not be deceived by misstatements. Cocoa has always afforded only
too favourable a field to the fraudulent, and a great deal more sugar

Cocoa ana Chocolate 379

Ind starch has been added than the exigencies of the arts required.
Fortunately, at present several great firms manufacture and send out
preparations of cocoa which are absolutely pure, not containing the
smallest trace of any addition, harmless or injurious ; such brands as
Cadbur>''s Cocoa Essence and Schweitzer's Cocoalina can, therefore,
be honestly recommended on account of their absolute purity ; they
are actually much cheaper than preparations, which, apparently less
costly, because charged much less per pound, contain a large per-
centage of sugar or starch, articles considerably cheaper than cocoa,
but in no way essential to the preparation of a good cup of this
nutritious beverage.

My denunciations of adulterations do not of course bear upon
chocolate, because the latter is necessarily a manufactured or com-
pounded article : its flavour may be, and in my opinion is, improved
by the additions to which it owes its attractions for the young ; but
of course even in chocolate, to be justifiable, all flavours and additions
should be harmless. Chocolate sweetmeats, more particularly crimes,
are universal favourites, and in immense demand. Their contents
consist of sugar prepared in a peculiar way, and flavoured with
vanilla, raspberry, or ginger. The consumption of cocoa in this form
is enormous and rapidly increasing, but I venture to prophesy that
in a few years it will be still larger ; for, after all, the amount eaten per
head is trifling, and cannot exceed one or two ounces a year.

As I am going somewhat fully into the whole question of cocoa,
may I be pardoned for giving the following passage, which eminent
manufacturers regard as thoroughly trustworthy? Sefior F. G,
Guimaraes, of Brazil, gives the following directions for preparing or
curing good cocoa;

Cocoi muEil not be galhered tinlil it is quite ripe ; Ihe way of Irenling it is as
folluws : After opening llie shells and exltjcaling the seeds, the lalter must be
pul in heaps of 100 lo 500 kilos. ; Ihey should nlw»y5 be well covered up, and
left from seven lo eight days, when termenlalion takes place. The nuts swell,
and lake o somewhat rounded shape 1 great care should be titken lo prevent exces-
sive fertnenlntian. When cocoa has rermentcil suHicieaity the planlei should dry
it ; this takes two or Ihiee days when Ihe wvnlher is dry and favounible. The
first day, the cocoa should be exposed, well spreid out on wood or on pieces oi
canvas, to the momiag sun, foe live hours ; if on canvas, care should be taken to
place it on well-dried ground ; in both cases the cocoa should now and then
be winnowed and turned over. After it has been exposed lo the sua Four or live
hours, it should he put in heaps or cases, again covering ihem dudi^the nighl, to
prevent its fermenting. The fallowing day the same operation should be gone
through, and should lie repeated one or two more days till the null are well dried.
This will be known by lh« eye of the nul lurning iniooth and neat, or by the
hutk wacking and coming off easily on pressing the nul between ihe finger*.

380 The Gentleman's Magazine.

During the dry season this process is easy, but in laioy weather it will be iband
difficult : in the latter case it is necessary to winnow, shake, and turn it ova
frequently, to take advantage of the sunshine, and during the night always to pot
t in heaps or cases, which should be covered up, so as to prevent it absorbiog
damp. It is specially advised never to dry the cocoa close to the ground, for it
absorbs damp from the earth, however dry it appears, and damp is the prindpil
cause of cocoa becoming mouldy, rotten, and grubby. It should also be recom-
mended not to expose cocoa to the intense sunshine of mid-day, or longer thin
already stated, viz. four or five hours a day. The mode of drying natural, tltat
is, non-fermented cocoa, is the same as for the fermented. Before bagging cue
should be taken that it is quite dry and cool, ^\llen it is wanted to give the
cocoa husk a clayish colour and granulated appearance, as they do in VenetneU
o fine cocoa, the way is this. Immediately after fermentation, when the cocoa
s still wet and exuding, spread on it a small quantity of finely-sifted dust. The
oocoa will then take the clayish colour as above ; but it does not improve the
quality. When it is wanted to separate the different sizes of nuts, they should be
passed, when dry, through graduated sieves. In Venezuela and in Trinidad,
which are the countries more advanced in the culture and preparation of cocoa,
the above are the usual methods. In these countries well-to*do planters have
warehouses where they ferment and keep the cocoa, and have boards for the
drying process ; these are mounted on wheels, and moved on iron rails, for the
convenience of taking them out of the warehouses and bringing them in with
rapidity ; they are elevated to about the height of a man, allowing him to move
underneath to push them on. The dimensions of these wheel boards are 7 x
8 feet. The other kinds of boards, moved by hand, are of suitable size when
loaded for two men to carry them. The planters who are not so well to do dry
their cocoa on pieces of canvas measuring 8 x 10 feet, which they lay on dry
ground. When it is impossible to use boards or canvas on the ground, by
treating the cocoa according to the above precepts it will improve in quality and
rise considerably in value.

The following important letter, addressed, a few weeks ago, by
Messrs. Cadbury to Mr. Ernest Hart, the Editor of the British
Medical Journal^ is valuable as showing what our leading manufac-
turers arc obliged lo contend with in the shape of unfair foreign
competition :

On July 27, 1867, very soon after we commenced the manufacture of Cocoa
EiKnce, you gave us a short paragraph in small type. At that time the articles
with which we had to compete were mostly cocoa mixed with farinaceous matter
and sugar. This is now largely gone out of use, and articles genuine, or almost
oenuine, have taken its place. We think it a pity that the door should be again
opened for adulteration by selling as pure, cocoa mixed with alkalies and other
^jiqnif l«j although the proportions added may only be 3 or 4 per cent., as is the
^fith almost all the so-called pure Dutch cocoas. That the addition is not
is proved by the satisfaction given by our Cocoa Essence, which is abso-

In an article on "Cocoa," in Nature^ October 20, 1870, by Mr.

1. B. Jackson, Curator of the Museum of Economic Botany at the

■d Oafdeo' "' interesting comparison was instituted between

Cocoa and Chocolate.

tbe so-called " soluble cocoas " and genuine cocoas, especially the
3 well-known "cocoa essence."

Few aiticles are
and 10 many Kataa i
per lb., thai U is no
be of Ihc (

I

more liable la adulletafion llian cocoa (says Mr. Jackson),
( qualities are known in the tnule, varying from bd. to 41.
sucpiisiag that io the cheapest forms the adulterants shouid
St desciiplion. If people would only Icoablc In
think that cocoa-nibi, which ate simply the roasted &eeds withoul any prepara-
tion, aie retailed at 11. 41/, per lb., they would haidly cipect to obtain an equally
Ecouine article, in a finely pulverised state, and packed in tin-foil and a showy
cover, at the same price. Expensive machinery, and the constant wear and tear
of the same, Ihe consutnption of fuel in the steam apparatus, and packing, have
■11 to be paid for by Ihe consumer, not by charging a higher money price, but by
increasing the bulk or weight of the article by adding foreign substances of a
much cheaper description ; and, frequently, in the commoner kinds of cocoa,
bod or damaged seeds. One thing can Ix: said in favour of our principal cocoa
nanuraciuters — they seldom advertise powdered cocoas as genuine ; they either
le«ve out that important word, or call Ihem " prepared " cocoas, and Ibis should
be borne in mind by those who wish to obtain Ihe real article, and are ready lo
pajr a fair price for it. If it is impossible to procure genuine powdered cocoa at
IX, 41/. per lb., still more imposjibl: is it at fid., the price paid by the poorer
clasiei for an article called "soluble cocoa," sold in quorter-pound packets at
three-halfpence each, and largely consumed by them. Its low price ought to tell
us pretty plainly that a very small quantity of cocoa, and that of an inferior
description, is Tound in lucb a packet. It contains a large amount of common
fat, the presence of which can be delected by smearing a little on a piece of glass,
and it can be still more clearly seen on a gloss slide under a microscope. The
addition of fat adds lo the weight, while, lo increase Ihe bulk, a very large quan-
tity of starch is added, which is the cause of the thickening of the beverage in the
cup. If a lillleof thii so-called cocoa be placed on Ihe I ongue and rubbed against
Ihe roof of the mouth, it will grale against the palate, and it has a decidedly chalky
or earthy flavour. The spoon also grates against the !^ediment at the hoLtoni ri
the cup. showing the prwence of minerol matter. Until within the last few
years, all powdered cocoas were more or less prepared, so that pure cocoa could
not be obtained in this convenient form. An article called cocoa essence,
recently introduced, has, however, dispelled this notion. The cocoa seed
ntturolty contains a large quantity of butler or fat (about 50 per cent.), which
mikes it too rich for many persons, mote especially when we consider thai two other
dements of nutrition, such as albumen, are also present. To deprive it entirely
of iu butter would be lo lake away one of its most valuable principles ; but it is
possible lo have too much of n good thing ; therefore, by taking away about two-
thirds of the butler, the cocoa is not only improved in a dietetic point of view, but
Ibe addition of sugar and arrowroot is rendered unnecessary to like up or balance
Ibe fatty portion. Those who wish for pure cocoa in a convenient (orm should
therefore obtain cocoa essence. As no sugar is used in the manufacture of this
article, it requires the addition of a larger quantity than of the so-called prepared
cocoas, and as no starch enters into its composition, the beverage is as clear as a
cup of well-straiued coHec. It is quite as palatable as any of the packet cocoas,
and as eaiily mixed. lis extra cost is fully compensated by its purity, and by tbe
Bmalter quantity required for each cup. To such an exlenl has tbe public
pilalc been led lo preler ilic flavour of adallented it1iel» '" •*■• "^ >be

\

382 The Gentlematis Magazine.

genuine, that a great proportion of those who take cocoa really piefer the thick-
ened, soup-like preparation made from the highly-flavoured and doctored sorts
to an infusion of the pure seeds. If such people would think why and for what
purpose they take this or that food, and what are the properties and effects on
the system of the articles they are supposed to consume, and what those of the
articles they do consume, a much better state of things migkt be brought about ;
for, pending the appointment of a public analyst, the head of every household
might make himself analyst to his family, and see that he does not get cheated in
pocket or health.

A blue-book does not, generally speaking, attract the lay reader,
and the tedious and prolix evidence of which it is chiefly made up is
promptly cast on one side, though that evidence when actually
listened to at the time of delivery may be full of interest Accord-
ingly, when the ponderous blue-book on the Adulteration of Food
Act of 1872 was put in my hands, it did not look particularly lively;
but whether it was the importance of the subject or the intrinsic
value and frankness of the evidence that riveted my attention I
can hardly tell. Certainly the i^assages dealing with cocoa were
well worth reading. Mr. Joseph Fry's evidence was valuable and
pleasant reading; while that of Mr. George Cadbury was still more
instructive and suggestive. Both experts drew a marked distinction,
as they were fully justified in doing, between what may be called
wholesome additions and injurious adulterations; the former, Mr.
Fry argued, the public preferred, the latter are indefensible. To
make my meaning clear— additions of sugar and sago-starch to cocoa
are harmless, and as long as the public give the preference to mixed
or prepared cocoas containing a large percentage of them no objec-
tion can be taken, always providing that the brands are sold as
mixtures, and the suggestion of Mr. George Cadbury before the
Royal Commission is carried out — that the exact percentage of the
different ingredients is distinctly stated on the wrappers. But
fraudulent additions, such as alkaline salts and other chemicals,
designed to deceive the unsuspecting purchaser, or to give an appear-
ance of fictitious strength, are wholly indefensible; indeed, they
should be sternly prohibited, because they actually put a premium
on fraud, and have a tendency to discourage all makers, except the
most conscientious and distinguished, from improving the preparation
of cocoa. As long as the short-sighted public actua^.ly prefer medi-
cated compounds, and are prepared to give a very much higher price
^ thenii the temptation to [the maker is great to depart from the
iftdi; and Mn Gladstone's noble words — that the law should
t haid to do wrong and easy to do right— come into the mind.
•Bd honesty generally prevail in the long run, if from no

Cocoa and Chocolate.

383

Other reason than that the dishonest get so bold that at last they
venture too recklessly, and then outraged public opinion demands
the imposition of severe repressive measures. As long as competition
is fair and above board, the nation cannot complain, although indi-
viduals may, as in the long run all are gainers ; but fraud does not
benefit any class long, and the competition of medicated foreign
brands cannot continue to make way indefinitely. A reaction against
them is certain.

ALFRED J. H. CRESPI.

384 The Gentlentan's Me^azine.

UNACCREDITED HEROES.

STANDS Scotland where it did ? Yesj in spite of all hindrances
it stands forward in its happy union of loyalty and inde-
pendence, its strong and aggressive intellect, its love of genial mirth
and inspiriting song, and in cultivating enlightened devotion to the
poetry, the literature, and the heroes, lofty and lowly, of Fatherland.
Take no pessimistic or gloomy view of the " living present" This
grand race of thinkers and singers is not extinct There ring in our
ears the joyous strain of James Ballantine : "There are mair folk
than him bigging castles in the air ; " or that immortal line : " Ilka
blade o' grass keps its ain drap o' dew." The gifted author of that
exquisite picture of homely lowland life, " Johnny Gibb of Gushet-
neuk," is with us ; John Mackintosh still tends his little book-shop
in Aberdeen, and, as the author of the latest and not least valuable
" History of Scotland," modestly wears his university honours as
Doctor of Laws; and the G.O.M. of the North, Mr. John Sluart
Blackie, lives to keep its patriotism pure and its memories greeiL
A modem essayist and poet— one of my most gifted Edinburgh
compatriots, Alexander Smith— asks with Macduff, "Stands Scotland
where it did ? " And his reply is this : " No ; if you seek Scotland,
you must go to London. The old frontier line has been effaced by
the railway and the post-office The Tweed no longer divides
peoples with different interests. Scotland and England have melted
into each other and become Britain, just as red and blue melt into
each other and become purple ; and in the general intellectual
activity of the empire, it would be as difficult to separate that con-
tributed by the north and south as to separate the waters of the
I'Orth and Humber in the German Ocean, or the ta:(es gathered on
either side of the Tweed in the imperial exchequer. John Bull and
Patrick serve in the ranks of the Black Watch and the Greys, and
Sandy is a sentry at the Horse Guards. An English professor was
the most distinguished disdple of the Scottish Sir William Hamilton ;
and the late representative of a Melropoliun constituency — a Scot
at least by extraction — was the intellectual descendant of the

Unaccredited Heroes. 385

English Bentham. It is from this interconnection of the two peoples
that for the last quarter of a century or more there has been so little
distinctive Scottish intellectual life. Scotland has overflowed its
boundaries, and it has no longer a separate existence in thought or
geography."

It is true a vital change has taken place ; everywhere it can be
traced J in most respects it must be welcomed. UuC it is not true in
the sense implied here ; and there is another side to the picture.
The distinctive line has been in some respects well nigh obliterated ;
and not more remarkable is this change than is the transformation
among the Scottish people in their habits and modes of thought and
life. The popular ignorance, the unconscious humour, the notion
that an oath was a "great set-off" to conversation, the excessive
drinking, even in high life, are not now characteristics of the Scotch,
at least, in the former shape of universahty. Education, with its

Ped and refining influences, has accomplished a work which we
only understand in the hght of the past ; and if, in the process,
;inality and individuality have been affected, there is in the in-
sctual and social advancement an adequate and enduring com-
isation.
In one sense the Scottish people, wherever found, have assuredly
jiui changed or been absorbed. They have not lost their indi-
vidualised interest in the literature, the music, the heroes, and the
heroic struggles of the nation from which they sprang. Nay, more ;
the very changes and assimilations constantly going on have deepened
and brightened their interest and kindled a keener desire to cultivate
all that tends to maintain a broad, strong, and generous nationality.
They forget not those who have given Scotland her songs, or those
who have portrayed the land and its people by pen or pencil, or
the brave men who declared and won its hberties. We think most
and hear most of the leaders— the heroes in the strife— and not
unnaturally. They, some of them, stand on the mountain -tops,
and cannot be hidden from view. Nor can be forgotten the low-
lier workers — as Carlyle has it, the " unaccredited heroes " — the
peasants and artizans who m story and song have made the nation
better, and added to the sum of human happiness. Into some of
these by-paths let us now turn for a httle.

Life in the stern and somewhat sombre north has its genial and

r side ; and perhaps in its intellectual activity is found its truest

lolace. Under a rude exterior, within an oftUmcs gloomy and stolid

Bsurrounding, there is a keen sense of refinement and a lively apf

tension of tlic higher sourcoe of enjoyment. It is to be sees in

386 The Genileman's Magaztiu.

grades, and notably in the humblest, moving in all directions — into
the fields of science, the speculations of philosophy and historic
research ; in political discussion and polemical contentions, and most
frequently assuming poetical form, story and song; the expression of
hopes and fears, of joys and sorrows and aspirations, in simple yet
sweet and harmonious numbers.

With one or two names— heroes in the strife — the world is familiar :
but it is when we look beneath the surface or into the by-paths of
literaiy life and efTort that we are amazed to find how many have
risen from the humblest places and under the most adverse con-
ditions to undisputed eminence; and how many more, seemingly,
ffi^^/ have risen. Hugh Miller, stonemason, journalist, and geologist,
has, by his creative mind and massive genius, taken foremost rank;
Robert Burns, who at thirteen years of age threshed in the bam, and
at fifteen was the chief labourer on a farm, has arrested the interest
and touched the heart of humanity with his matchless lays ; and the
Ettrick Shepherd, tending his flocks and breathing his poetic fire, has,
in his sublimated pastoral life and sparkling associations, appealed to
the imagination of mankind. But there are different grades. It is
not always remembered that John Philip, artist — well-named Philip
of Spain — the inimitable delineator of Spanish as well as Scottish life,
was a herd-boy on an Aberdeenshire farm ; that Allan Cunningham,
" honest Allan," poet, litterattur, and journalist, was a stonemason in
Dumfriesshire; that Thomas Telford served his apprenticeship to
the same time- honoured trade in the same famous county, writing
poetry, and afterwards embodying it in imperishable monuments of
engineering skill ; that George Meikle Kemp, the architect of Waller
Scott's marvellous Edinburgh monument, was the son of a shepherd
who tended his fiocks on the Fentland Hills ; that many others, dis-
tinguished in science or literature or statesmanship, whose names are
familiar in every household, sprang from the bosom of a poor, un-
cultured, and far from favourably conditioned people.

There is another grade, more numerous though less known ; a
host scattered up and down throughout the land; ploughmen and
shoemakers, masons and carpenters, weavers and tailors and non-
descripts, who, from choice or necessity, continue to prosecute their
too often laborious and ill-re(|uited calling, and cultivate literature
with ardent enthusiasm, producing results which have benefited the
race, and brought brightness and consolation into many a humble
dwelling.

Here is Alexander Wilson, poet, pedlar, and ornithologist typical
in many ways. Bom in Paisley — then as famous for its verse-nuUung

Unaccredited Heroes. 387

md its fiery Radicalism as it has long been for its shawls— his poor

parents, like so many of their class in Scotland, aspired to " mak'

e o' the bairns a minister," and the choice fell upon Alexander.

But he had other tastes, and the limes were bad ; and the wayward
jrouth was sent to be a weaver. As he has finely put it t

KiMn, too soon, the fonil illusioni fled ;

In vain they pointed oul Ihe pioui height :

By Natute's sUoog, rcsisllcu influence led,

Tbc dull, dry doctrines ever would he slight ;

Wild fancy formed him for fnti^nsiic flight,

He loved the steep's high Eummit to explore,

To watch the splendour of the orient bright.

The dark, deep forest, and the sea-beat shore.

Where, through lesounding rocks, the liquid mountain! pour.

A hard master is Necessity ; it drove Alexander Wilson past the
pulpit, which was well, and drove him into the factory, which was far
from well. The duU monotony of the shuttle accorded ill with his
quick sensibiUties and restless nature. Discontent had begun to per-
meate the ranks of the oppressed and poorly |>aid weavers; and
Wilson became the laureate of the loom, pouring forth its " groans "
and issuing his bitter lampoons, so as to rouse against him the relent-
less animosity of employers, and bring down upon him the strong
arm 0/ the law. His independent soul, bursting with poetic fire,
rebelled against the hard tyranny that prevailed ; and, determined to
be free from an intolerable yoke, he, with a miscellaneous pack on
his back, well supplied with that most excellent commodity peculiar
to the Scotch, "honest pride though lowly," betook himself to the
■country to sell his wares, and prepare, all unconsciously, for his great
'Kfe-work, with a mind, as he himself tells us, which had received an
Mirly bias " towards relishing the paths of Uterature and the charms
and magnificence of nature." He wrote " Watty and Meg," wliich
is still recited amidst joyous gatherings in Scotland, and in its broad
r and graphic delineation of real life, it is not unworthy of
Burns, to whom indeed, being pubUshed anonymously, it wjis at first
ailributed. He became the poet of birds, and ultimately, when
driven by relentless fatc--as Burns was well nigh driven^to a foreign
land, produced that marvellous monument of industry, the "American
Ornithology." Yes, that so-called and expatriated spendthrift was
splendidly industrious when he found his true mission. That work,
the first of its kind, gathered by personal travel, mostiy on foot, from
ill quarters of a vast and unexplored country, for over sixty years a
rtandard, both to England and America, in this ever-widening domain

388 The Gentleman's Magazine.

of science, is a monument of industry and a triumph of genius oi
which his country and his people need not be ashamed.

Typical of a yet larger class are the brothers Bethune, whose
life-histoiy has been told with simplicity and true sympathetic interest
by William M'Combre, who himself as farmer, journalist, and
author, it has been said with fine discernment, is to " be remembered
as one of the most remarkable men that Scotland has produced
during the present generation, and as, among her self-taught men,
certainly the most remarkable after Hugh Miller." ' These brothers
Bethune — whose very name may be forgotten, though their work lives
— were bom to all the privations of a farm -servant's lot, scarcely ever
at school, inured to the roughest forms of labour from their early
boyhood, yet sang at their toil in strains which have moved the heart,
described with pathos and discriminative power the picturesque life
they saw around them, and with far-seeing penetration first taught
their poorer countrymen the fundamental principles of political
economy. Their aim ever was to interest, to instruct and elevate the
class to which they belonged ; to work for their bread whether by the
spade or the pen— the object of their deepest earthly reverence
" a poor but honest man." They succeeded, if success means giving
and getting good, exemplifying in harmony the combination of hard
manual toil and the contented prosecution of intellectual and refining
pursuits, and not solely the attainment of great and belauded results
for their own sake. It is not surely so much in what one accom-
plishes as before the world as in what one is or seeks by worthy
means to attain, that true honour and distinction lie. With all their
industry and care, hke so many of their class— the class scarcely a
century ago finally redeemed from legal serfdom,^ and not socially
emancipated even now — they had ever to struggle with poverty and
privation, hardly able to maintain themselves and the poor friends
dependent upon their unrecompenscd exertions. It is difiicuh for
us to realise the struggle in which these men were engaged ; how it
must rack the frame and deaden the sensibilities ; and still more
difficult to understand how poetical impulse and literary aspirations
could live and rise into activity in a sphere so uncongenial. Not

' Tht Sfiecta/nr. London, 1871.

• Mr. John Erskinc, in hh /iii/i/it/ti, 1754, declares Ihat "there appears
nothing repugnnnl, cither to reason or lo Ihc peculiar doctrines of Christianitjr, in
a contract by which one binds himsolf 10 perpetual service under a masiet." The
testrainis 00 personal Treed om were not Itgall/ removed lill 1775; and Robett
Chambers, as ihoning the " recentnei's or slavery in Scotland," lelU a itory of ■
household servaitt living in the year iSso, who hod been nifftrtd, or (ivoi !n
exchange, Iiy his matlei Cor a pony I

Unaccredtted Heroes.

nnlike Bums in this respect, at "raw fourteen," Alexander lells us,
he was set to dig a ditcii of " extraordinary depth, rcciuiring the
utmost stretch of muscular exertion lo throw what was dug out of
it from the bottom to the top." They hved, this pair of noble
brothers, for the most part on oaten meal and vegetables, and seldom
had a hovel which protected them from wind and rain. Such was
the condition of the workers then, and of too many of such still.
It was so, with occasional variations, all down through the lives of
these high-souled and gifted men, truly characteristic of a race fast
passing away. There is dignity in labour when the conditions are
right ; honest and fairly paid work can never in itself be degrading ;
but the tnind must be attuned to It, and the tastes in concord, else
the faculties may be blunted and it will inevitably degenerate into
blighting and altogether unprofitable drudgery. Neither cheerless
toil nor seeming failure daunted the brave brothers. " Chambers's
Journal " and the " Tales of the Border," works which in their origin
and service have done honour lo Scotland, were both tiien in the hey-
day of their jKipularily, and here the Bethunes found a medium of
publicity ; the products of their brain grew and multiplied, till they
had no fewer ihan^wr hundrtd pagts oj print in hand\ It is easily
summed up in these words : we are apt to look at and admire the
attainment, forgetting what it cost— all the thought and labour to
produce that result. There it is, however, in tangible shape ; and
one day in the year 1836 Alexander laid aside his spade and set out
for Edinburgh in search of a publisher. Imagine if you can a rough
labourer, somewhat deformed by a series of accidents, attired in a
hodden suit which had done service for years, plodding along the
streets of "Modern Athens"— still proud of her splendid associations
in poetry, in literature, and philosophy— trudging along, a friendless
wanderer, with a huge bundle of " blackened sheets " in his pocket,
eagerly seeking someone who will make them into a book ! There
was faith and fearless courage ! And it was not unrewarded. Soon
after this, " Tales and Sketches of the Scottish Peasantry," to be
found still on many a book-shelf, was publish ed^a handsome volume
— and its truthful and touching pictures of homely life captivated
readers, and won for its author some measure of fame and recom-
pense. Like Hugh Miller, he wasasked, after due consideration and
inquiry byan orthodox committee, to become editor of a non-intrusion
or Free Church newspaper. But it was too late to change ; his
physical frame had at last given way. At the early age of thirty-
eight he fell a victim to exhaustive toil. It was perhaps as well to
die thus as to have spirit and intellect wormed out of him by clerical
VOL. CCLXIX, NO. igiS, O p

390 Tlu GetUkmads Magazine.

intermeddling and eccledastical strife, as was to some extent the bte
«f Miller, his more distinguished, if not in this respect less hapless
prototype. It is in the highest degree significant — let me say in
passing — that denominational, and, in the narrowest sense, mere
sectarian papers, have almost disappeared in Scotland. Years ago
there were several intensely partisan organs, each shriekii^ its
shibboleth and seeking to devour its neighbour, but, like the historic
cats, they tore each otherinto shivers or glided into something broader
and better. The Press in Scotland, from the leading dailies to the
still robust weeklies, is marked by a massive liberality and a thought-
ful spirit of freedom in discussing social and ecclesiastical questions
alike admird^le and wholesome. For the most part it is under the
vigorous guidance of self-taught men, who have in a large measure
broken from the narrow creeds and conditions, and surmounted the
repressing formalism of the country, and whose strongly progresuve
intellects are exerting a powerful influence on the minds of the
people. The daily newspaper is the reformer of the nineteenth
century.

Take another, representative too in his way, William Thom, of
Inveniry, ill-starred poet and weaver. Dropping his first poetic
effort, half-afraid, half-amazed at his own presumption, into the letter-
box of an Aberdeen newspaper, drudging at the loom in a hive of
human beings, where, as he tells us, folly, sin, and shame were
nourished, " virtue perished within its walls, utterly perished and
was dreamed of no more, or, if remembered at all, only in a deep
and woful sense of self-abasement, a struggling to forget where it was
hopeless to obtain " ; out of work and trudging through the country
with his Jean and their bairns ; now in a helpless, bashful way,
showing his small wares to any kindly purchaser, or charming a
village audience by the witching strain of his lute, consoling himself
with the thought that " Homer sung his epics for a morsel of bread,
and Goldsmith had piped his way over half the continent " ; work-
ing, piping, drinking, or pouring forth his pathetic lays, he was the
same struggling and sympathetic, hapless yet hopeful being — his
poetic soul drinking deep draughts from every source, and finding
some good in all around htm. The wail of the " Mitherless Bairn"
came from the depths of his own nature and his sad experience, and
has touched a responsive chord in the heart of many a lonely one.
In the Scottish dialect, rich in lyric beauty, is there aught more
beautiful, or a finer embodiment of the pathos of humble life than
this almost peerless classic song }

Unaccredited Heroes.

I

The mllherleu bairn ganes till hU Innc bed ;
Nane corers his eauld back, or haps hij bete head ;
His wee backit bcclics arc hard ^ the aim,
An' lithelcss the lair o' the mitherless bairn !

Ah ! that phrase, " litheless the lair," which might be lamely
terpreted "comfortless the dwelling-place," in its fulness of meaning
d delicacy of expression, has nothing finer in any language. Or

Her spirit, that parsed in yan hour □' his birth.
Still watches his wearisome wand'rings on earth.
Recording in he.iven the blessings they earn,
\Vh> coutkUit deal with ihc mithcrless bairn,

Couthilie," in its wealth of kindly interest and emotion, has no
substitute ; it cannot be rendered in English, nor verily do I believe
that the gifted and patriotic Scotchman, John Stuart Blackie, could
or would try to express its fulness even in Greek. There are many
such expressive words and phrases. " Kythe in his ain dowie
colours," is one of them, al! comprehensive in its meaning ; " He'll
appear without his disguise in due lime ; he'll be known for the man
he is," are lame and impotent explanations, which give but a faint
glimmer of its full import. And in Skinner's famous song there is
an apt use of another, "blyth," which is more than "gladness," imply-
with other shades of meaning, " to make glad."

O, Tullochgomm's my delight,

II gars us a' in ane unite.

And ony sumph tiint keeps n spile,

lo conscience I ablioi him ;
For itjtX and clieerie we'll be a'.
BIyih and cheerie, blyth and cheerie,
Blyth and cheerie we'll be a'

And mak' a happy quonim ;
For (tlylh .and clieerie we'll be a',
As lang as we hae breath lo draw.
And dance till we be like to fa'

The Reel o' Tullochgorum.

Words and phrases and verses these showing, lo those who can
get under the surface, the marvellous fertility and richness of a dialect
which John Ruskin says is richer and more musical than any other,
and which, as it ceases to be spoken, seems to become more intensely
classic in its recognition and use, and to be increasingly attractive even
to English ears.

Take another from the homely songs of the Rev, John Skinner,

! more tender and deeply touchitu

39^ The GtntUmatis Magazine.

Horn " ; the Story of the ^ Lost Sheep," which Landseer graphically
pictured in another form, with its strangely poetic, as well as realistic,

Yet, list oak, for a' my keeping,
(Wha can speak it without greeting?)
A villain cam' when I was sleeping,
Sta' my Ewie, horn and a' ;

I sought her sair upo' the mom.
And, doon aneath a boss o' thorn,
I got my Ewie's Crookit Horn ;
But my Ewie was awa'.

Ah ! if you had heard Blackie or old Robert Cuming, the grandson
of Skinner, lilt that ballad or sing it at our ain fireside, it would have
come home to the heart with new and deeper tenderness. It was
no mere echo or imitation, this song ; it was real in its tale of woe,
and far-reaching in its symbolic import Take the lines, oh ! reader,
in their plain and obvious import, and thank God, if you are a parent,
that you have no cause to recognise amidst their pathos your own
dear " Ewie." Or it may be that you can bring home the picture,
though you cannot recognise the " crookit horn," for the distinguish-
ing mark of your ewe lamb may have been a blue eye, or a golden
ringlet, or a voice gentle and low, " an excellent thing in woman," as
Lear says.

William Thorn's " Recollections of the Handloom Weaver,"
though in prose, are only less plaintive and characteristic. You see
there the man and his times, and can estimate the overwhelming
difficulties with which he and many others had to contend Hand
labour was at that time giving greater or less place to machinery, and
the handloom was hopelessly doomed. " Hitherto," Thom exclaims,
with a grim joyfulness of spirit which never deserted him, "it has
been to me the ship on which I voyaged o'er life— happiness and
hardship alternate steersmen — the lyre and a light heart my fellow
passengers." The loom and its attendants were supplanted, and
those who had been enriched by the poverty of others cared no
more for the fate of the one than that of the other ; they had ceased to
pay ; a new era of manufacturing development had dawned, and no
sympathetic word of counsel was uttered, no helping hand was
stretched forth to the starving and bewildered multitude. Thus, too
often it has been indifference leading to revolution. Need we wonder
that feelings of despair and bitter resentment were enkindled, and
that the cry of danger and social discord was heard once more
throughout the land ? It is ever so in the badly-assorted and mis-
understood relations of capital and labour. Each side lodes at its

Unaccredited Heroes. 393

immediaEe interest, which, of necessity, presents antagonistic
elements ; the broad principles of justice and the ultimate good of
all are ignored ; and it is forgotten that there is common interest and
a mutual obligation. In his heaviest sorrows and sulTerings William
Thom was only one of a numerous and gifted band, differing in this,
that his story has been told in language that lives, words which
quiver with emotion and burn with indignation. Doubtless, he added
to the dismal list ; but hisown terrible thoughts, formed while his poor
wife and dying child lay shivering in damp and darkness by the road-
side, refused even the shelter of a bam, have a double meaning in
the light of his after-life. " Here," he exclaims in agony of soul,
" let me speak out, and be heard, too, while I tell it, that the world
does not at all times know how unsafely it rests ; when despair has
lost honour's last hold upon the heart, when transcendent wretched-
ness lays weeping reason in the dust, when every unsympathising on-
looker is deemed an enemy, who then can limit the consequences ? "
The hapless poet has ceased to suffer or to sin ; many of the wrongs
he deplored have long since been redressed ; but memorable are these
words for all time and all of us, a voice which should not be lightly
esteemed.

There is yet another grade ; the many who write and think and
sing without regard to publicity, without thought of fame or reward,

What makes Ihc poet?— noihing but to feel
Moie tetnly ihan ihe common sense of feeling ;
To bive Ihe soul alluned to the appeal
Of dim music thiough all nature stealing.

^P Of a truth, poetry is to such singers " its own avenger," and
literature its own reward. They sing or they write because they
cannot help it ; the music is in the soul, and it will find harmonious
utterance. At most, they care only to please or amuse a home-
circle, or scarcely different circle bounded by familiar association or
intimate acquaintanceship.

The Songs of Scotland have found many enthusiastic collectors,
and the lives and loves of the songsters have been often and admir-
ingly told ; but there is still a rich harvest to be reaped and many a
gem to be gleaned. Treasured up in the memories of young and
old, or buried in some forgotten "poet's comer," the spontaneous
and too often nameless effusions are to be found, a rich recompense
to the honest seeker. Here is one, a plaintive wail to " The Auld
iah Tree," which I first surreptitiously abstracted from the note-book
if an ardent and brilliant youth, crushed all too eailv in a bootless

394 ^^ GtntUmmis Magmzime.

batde whh bigotiy and had heibli, trnfy an ffl-matdied paic Coidd
anjthing be more sweedy or graphically desaipchre dum dus?-—

Tiicre {luws an adi by my bow door^
And a* its bows are bosket bow
In fiuiset weeds o* sunmer green.
And buds sit singin* in tbcm a* ;
Bat cease joor sangs ye Ujthsooie bods^
And o' your liltin* lat me be.
Yon bring deed simmeR fine their grares
To weaiy me, to weary me.

There grows an ash by my bower door.
And a' its bows are deed in snaw.
The ice-drap hings fitac ilka twig.
And sad the nor* wind soughs thro' a' ;
But cease thy maen thoo norian' wind.
And o' thy wailin' lat me be.
They bring deed winten firae their grares
To weary me, to weary me.

For I would fun forget them a'.
Remembered gnid bat deepens ill,
As gleeds o' licht hx seen by nicht,
Mak' the near mirk bot mirker still ;
Then silent be thoa dear aaki tree,
O* a* thy voices lat me be,
They bring the deed jrears fine their glares
To weary me, to weary me.

Every district has its group of " Bards," some of whom are known
only within their own parish, others to a more extended circuit, here
one and there another getting a national, or it may be in time, a
wider audience, all unsought or unforeseen.

I have spoken of Dumfriesshire, and also of Paisley. Another
Paisley lad was ill-starred Robert Tannahill, whose '* Jessie the
Flower o' Dumblane * and " Gloomy Winter's noo Awa' " will keep
his memory fresh. Poor Robert Nicoll, hailing from Perthshire, at
one time editing the Leeds Times^ — still a flourishing newspaper, — and
then issuing " Poems and Lyrics," — a volume which was received
with rapturous applause ; Robert Ferguson's poetry struck a key-note
over his neglected grave in Canongate Churchyard, and Robert
Bums erected at his own expense a simple monument over his
hapless brother.

Take another locality, the north-east of Aberdeenshire. Thomas
Daniel, whose line, ''Till Age and Want, that ill-matched pair,"
is inseparably interwoven with our common conversation ; Peter
Still, fiUher and son; and Peter Buchan, a man of laie gifi|»

Utiaecrcdited Heroes.

595

treasured collection of Scottish ballads commanded ihe praise
of Sir Waller Scotl. He wrote his books, often printing and illus-
trating them with his own hand, and produced sufficient in poetiy
and prose lo store a small librarj-. His memory and his work are
cherished. But I must have done.

Most memorable of all, this bleak yet fertile eastmost neuk of
Scotland was the birthplace of the Rev. John Skinner, non-juring
clergyman and lyric poet, whose hard lot, brightened by his sweet
self-created genial surroundings, presents a beautiful contrast to the
generally gloomy aspect of his time. " Tullochgorum," in its strong
and sprightly sentiments ; the " Ewie wi' the Crookit Horn," brimful
of quaint pathos and genuine human tenderness ; his learned and
exhaustive " Ecclesiastical History of Scotland," are scarcely more
remarkable than the life of which they were the oiitcomc, or than the
accurate and artistic manuscripts which I possess of a minute and
critical treatise, never published, on the Hebrew prophecy — "The
sceptre shall not depart from Judah ; " his melodious elegies on de-
parted friends — worthy farmers, for the most part— and his satirical
Spurts," scathing in their reprobation of cant in all its forms, whether
igious, literary, or political.

It is ofien asserted, with some truth, that the host of rustic
songsters are mere echoes of Robert Bums ; but many of them have
a clearly distinguishable individuality, and a welcome and well-
defined note of their own. Here is one such — John Skinner — who
sang before the inspired ploughman had arisen, one whom he rever-
enced and was proud to follow and claim as a brother-bard, and one
who had imitators and admirers innumerable. Leigh Hunt expressed
a warm love for the lyrical patriarch, and a fine appreciation of his
noble spirit, and his illuminating influence on a sombre age. It was
my good fortune in early life to collect the scattered songs and poems
of Skinner; with youthful ardour to prepare my first book, collecting
from many sources the gems that had been lost or mutilated in
transmission, and rescuing from unmerited oblivion poetic treasures
which had been deliberately hidden away by narrow-souled and
unappreciative descendants. At that time I was corresponding with
Leigh Hunt— then nearing the close of a brilliant and checkered
career ; and thus did he sum up and preserve, with singular vividness
certain side-lights of Scottish life. " In some respects," wrote Hunt,
"and those of the highest importance, the comparative poverty of
Scotland had given it advantages ovt;r England. Schoolmasters and
ilher tutors had been willing to teach at cheaper rales ; intellect
[uired a popular value for its own sake, apart &om the jiossession

396 The Gentlematts Magazine.

of money ; temperance — in quarters where the gloomy creed of John
Knox, carried to a pitch of fanaticism, had not saddened even that
source of enjoyment — sharpened the animal spirits, and helped to
give rise to a stalwart race of men. The Songs of Scotland, many of
them the productions of persons in the humblest walks of life, are
the liveliest of the three kingdoms ; the real man was, in a very great
degree, * the man for a' that,' before Burns rose to glorify him ; nor
did there, perhaps, exist a person to whom all descriptions of people
took off their hats and caps with a more zealous respect than to the
Rev. Mr. Skinner, master of ' the but and the ben ' with no floor to
it, but with wit at will in his brain, and wisdom in his heart."

These sympathetic and burning words came right from the heart,
and out of a common and bitter experience — for Hunt had been im-
prisoned for freedom of the Press, as Skinner had suffered for freedom
of the Pulpit. " And," added this kindly and penetrating critic twenty-
five years ago, " had all Scottish pastors resembled John Skinner in
good sense and ungloomy piety, and had Bums' patrons not seduced
him into a false position, the nation would not have been put in a
place on the list of statistics where neither its poetry, nor its bravery,
nor its scholarship, nor its philosophy, nor anything great and good
belonging to it, ought to have found it Scotland," he exclaimed,
" will surely, and at no great distance of time, outlive the eclipse of
its animal spirits, as the bigotry which produced it is dying out, and
a more * jocund day' standing, in consequence, upon its * misty
mountain tops.' " Yes, towards the realisation of this bright ideal
mighty steps have been taken. The sower has been scattering his
seed broadcast ; it has taken sure root in good soil, and in due time
a rich harvest will be reaped. It cannot be completed in a day, but
the subtle growth goes on, and the full fruition may come suddenly,
as all vital transformations seem to come in this stern but not un-
productive soil, when mere artificial restraints on thought and action
will give place to a freer, brighter, and broader life. The Reaper
waits and watches ; there may be a struggle, a wrestling with uncon-
genial elements and the encrustation of ages ; but the harvest-day
approaches, the work has to be done, and ultimate triumph over
every resistive force is assured.

H. GILZEAN REID.

AFTER "TATOU."

s called by the
He lives

I

•* T IM THE HUNTER," as he calls himself and i:
J Estate hands, is a character, and a privileged o
in one of the huts which old and faithful servants have from time to
time been permitted to build in a corner of the property bordering
on the bush. How the privilege came to be extended to him it is
impossible to say, for nobody knows, least of all the owners of the
place. The oldest inhabitant, or rather the second oldest — for the
very oldest is probably Jim himself— does not remember his ever
doing a day's work on the Estate towards earning the reward of a
free location. But there is no thought of inquiring into the old
fellow's title, which indeed must, in the natural order of things, lapse
very soon ; for, though as lough as a supplejack, and, apparently,
never suffering from any ailment which he cannot cure by some
cunning decoction of herbs known only to himself, he is as old as
the century, if not as the British occupation of the island— yet he
has scarcely a white hair in his woolly head.

He knows all about Ihe three generations of the family owning
the Estate, which have had their day at Litiie Marli since a certain
roving young Englishman took unto himself a Creole wife and
acquired its possession eighty-five years ago. He fairly puzzles one
sometimes with snap inquiries after some scion of the race whose
very name and existence has been forgotten by his own kin. It is
very seldom that he can be got to talk; but the belief is that he was
a sergeant in the West India Regiment, in which a soldier member of
the tribe served at New Orleans, and was rewarded for some yeoman
service by permission to settle, rent free, on the outskirts of the
property. He leads an absolutely solitary life, on the proceeds of his
" hunting," in the cabin, which looks much more like a picturesque
dung-heap overgrown with pumpkin-vines than a human habitation,
nto the cavernous and uninviting depths whereof no human being
besides himself has been known ever to have penetrated. \Vhen
Jim is not m the woods he is either cooking or smoking or sleeping ;
you never find him gossiping with Ihe other black folk. Taciturn
and mysterious, but never morose or gloomy, one cannot but respect

398 The Gentleman's Magazine.

the independent old boy, and he is regarded with some awe by hts
inferiors and equals, especially by the small shiny boys and girls of
his own rich colour. One thing is certain : a day or night in the
woods were futile discomfort without Jim to officiate as "guide,
philosopher, and friend," and what he doesn't know of the local
huntsman's craft yoa may be very sure is not worth knowing. He
has his rivals, or pretenders at rivalry — what great man has not? — and,
drolly enough, the most formidable is a woman, a certain Aunt
Katherine, whose habitat is five miles away from his, fortunatdy :
fortunately — for otherwise the neighbourhood would soon be quite
bereft of animal life. She is a scraggy old lady, who may occasionally
be met ranging the woods in scanty and high-kilted robes, like an
elderly Diana — a Diana who would not tempt into indiscretion the
most enterprising of Actions. She is reported to jeer at Jim's
superiority of knowledge, being just about as noisy an old thing as
he is a quiet one ; and, if she is mentioned before him, his face
assumes an expression of contemptuous disgust, such as human
countenance could hardly be supposed capable of wearing.

He came up this morning to say that he had espied a " tatou "
last night rooting about in the bush, and proposes to hunt the beast
to-night, as there will be full moonlight He wants to "borrow," as
he calls it, the two terriers, which are always wild with excitement
when they see the old man, whose appearance they have learned to
regard as prophetic of " larks " in the immediate future. His old
dog is feeble, blind, and toothless now ; quite unequal to sport ;
hardly able to drag himself after his master on the shortest, slowest
expedition. So the two little chaps up at " de big house " come in
for all such fun as this in these latter days. Now, a " tatou " is an
armadillo, one of the queerest beast forms of a wonder -bountiful
creation. He is understood to be about as foul a feeder of teiresttial
carrion as is your crustacean of marine nastiness. The " buccra"
folk, while they lick their lips over crabs, lobsters, and prawns, Jim
knows very well wil! not lighten his game-bag of such an animal,
if he kills ; but he wil! easily get two or three dollars for it from his
own countrymen, who are much less ridiculously squeamish, and
h)ve the meat exceedingly. He is always glad, in his undemon-
strative way, when the " young Bouges " will join him on such
an occasion ; and the communication of his purpose means, you may
be sure, that they should propose to do so. " Bouge " is Che title of
hia class for the white gentry, and is supposed to be a corruprion of
the French bourgeois. It has in great measure ousted the " Massa"
of slavery d^rs, which Jim, however, as a nigger of the old sdHid,

After " Taiou."

399

ine

occasionally uses also, and no doubt invariably did use to the old folk
whose memory he cherishes in his withered old heart, and for whose
sake he still feels so kindly tuwards the descendants whose ways are
not so. homely or congenial to him — who in these non-resident days
go home, small impish Creole children, to return, if they do return,
unsympathetic young Englishmen, forgetful of their child-lore and of
the old dependents of their father's house.

Afler dinner, when we have finished out cigars, when the moon
is well up and ihc frogs are in ful! chorus, we stir ourlazy limbs from the
rocking-chairs and, not reluctant to leave the house to the mosqm'toes,
equip ourselves for the chase. We Uike a gun — not for the " tatou,"
but because a deer may cross our path, and at all events we are
pretty sure to spot a " mannikou," a/i'as 'possum. Thick boots, old
clothes, stout leggings, and good cutlasses arc what we most require for
this expedition, however, with spade and pick -axe. Take a dark
lantern also, for we may want to explore a dark corner, if the glorious
moon has left any to-night. What an effect the moonbeams have
as they filler through the trees and tangle which we have to penetrate
on oiu" short cut to Jim's cabin! It is melancholy, rather; or would
be, without company, to any one susceptible to such external in-
fluences. Even the dogs feel it, who are ranging about so quietly,
while, were this sunlight, they would be barking themselves hoarse^
noisy little wretches. See how Ihey cock their youthful Irish ears as
queer noises issue from the hush around us and puzzle their still
inexperienced little intelligences. They never heard anything like
County Down. What extraordinary creatures can be pro-
icing the extraordinary sounds which float un the air ? But here
re are. There is the old man c/res iui, silling, waiting, on a log
before the hut, like the far-famed leather Slocking, with his dog,
Ramon, at his feet

The ancient "warrahoond " (which word is here spelt phonetic-
ally, and may or may not perhaps be a corruption of the words
"war hound ") is of proud Spanish descent, a very hidalgo of dogs,
descendant of those fierce brutes which were fit companions for the
conguiitadores of Ferdinand and Isabella. His ancestors have pro-
bably chased men in their bloodthirsty day ; most certainly have
followed much more lordly game than we are afler to-night. And
Ramon himself was a savage, treacherous beast in his prime to ail
save his master, and remains so in his impotence. He regards wiry,
cheeky, friendly, httle Andy and Pat with a jealous, bloodshot eye,
.knd evidently loves them none the belter that they are to share joys

ever lost to him. It is with a piteous whine of something very

400 The GentUmatis Magazine.

like despair that he sees us depart, realising his inability to accom-
pany the party, and lays his worn old bones down again by the low-
smouldering wood fire at the cabin door ; while a long melancholy
howl adds itself to the other voices of the night as we are about to
plunge into the woods. "Ole dog cryin' for ole Jim/' says our
guide, adding, '* He see Jumbi dese nights, massa." Jim wears a
heavy knife in his belt and carries a rusty shovel and pickaxe. He
is very silent as we tread a foot-track between the not very thickly
sprinkled trees — a second growth, containing no large timber, lying
in a belt around the tall forest wood. His sole defence for body,
limb, or foot, against the stiff and prickly undergrowth is a cotton shirt,
open in front down to the waist, and a very short pair of light canvas
trousers strapped with a veteran leather belt. He seems to chuckle
over the ignorance of West Indian venery exhibited by our remarks,
and explains some of the eerie cries coming from the ghostly forest
depths. That cry comes from the sloth, he says, and that other is the
voice of the wood-slave. The hoot is the note of some water-fowl.
And then, as a dismal roar predominates over the other gruntings,
groanings, boomings, drummings, buzzings, cacklings, squeakings, and
whistlings: " Bouge, know dat for true — dat howler monkey." Verily,
as many birds, beasts, reptiles, and insects seem to be awake as are
asleep in these moonlit hunting-grounds. Now Jim says he smells
'' cascabeV or some creature of which the name sounds like that It
is a particularly unpleasant kind of snake, he is careful to explain.
I can't see his face well, but I shrewdly suspect he is ''getting at"
our innocence.

We are to cross the " Devil's Woodyard," a locality of suflSciently
uncanny suggestion, which lies a little out of our way to-night, but
which Jim thinks we may as well visit, as it is yet early for an inter-
view with the " tatou," and we might pick up a deer there. Soon we
are at the somewhat unpleasantly christened spot — a round arena,
which might have been cleared for the gambols of " Mr. Merryman,"
and the sober, spotted horseflesh of some ''mammoth" travelling
circus. The place of the sawdust is occupied by a flooring of sandy-
grey mud. Where the audience would sit grows thick scrub of no
great height, and the black forest forms the wall of our tent, which
is ceiled by the lofty sky and lighted by the ghostly moon. The
arena is studded with Conical heaps of mud, which have formed
around and over the little blow-holes of the mud volcanoes, as they
are called, of which this is one of the locales. As you are surveying
the flat ground at your feet, there is a sort of a bubble and a squii^
and a tiny jet of mud rises a few inches into the airy to ftO bMs

After " Tatou." 401

nlng a sort of coil, such as sailors make with the ropes on a ship's
deck, round the little dimple from which the thick liquid flows. The
heaps are not very large, and many are devoid of activity. The rains
will quickly wash these down to the circumjacent level ; but new
ones are forming all over the area. The phenomenon is a queer
one ; but we have not to do with phenomena to-night. Two of us
are to collar those restless four-footed companions of ours, and we
are to hide ourselves where the slender little deer which stray across
the open space during the night may not see or suspect us ; one
holding the gun ready for the poor victim. We have not long to
wait. " Hey, Bouge," whispers watchful old Jim, pointing lo a spot
in the circumference of the "Woodyard," from which a graceful
shape presently emerges, with nose to the ground, stepping slowly
into tlie open. Pat gives a squeak of excitement, which is promptly
suppressed, but has startled the game, which breaks into a trot.
" Bang ! " goes the right barrel, and the little animal swerves in its
course. A very palpable hit ; but not a fatal one. So " bang ! "goes
the left barrel, and the quarry falls on the far margin of the clear-
ance. Jim ties its scraps of feet together, and slings it across his lean
and lanky back ; then, without a word, plunges again into the forest.
We are evidently now <« route to our special field of action, and ten
minutes' rather unpleasant stumbling over tree-roots brings us to it.

We are on the side of a gravelly hill, rather sparsely grown with
trees, but pretty thickly covered with pinguin and other undergrowth.
Jira has visited the spot during the day, and now points out what he
takes to be the mouth of the " latou's " burrow. Wearetomakeour-
selves as comfortable as possible on a convenient branch of previous
selection, and keep a sharp look-out for our armour-plated game.
He must be headed off from the burrow, and it is fortunate that this
will not be difficult, as if he once got into it we might have a few
hours' digging after him, A slow and clumsy beast, there is really
no hunting him, for if his retreat is cut off he simply rolls himself
up like a hedgehog, and trusts to his mail to protect him — which it
can't. There is something formidable in a small way about the
spikes of our little British familiar altogether wanting in the smooth
panoply of the armadillo. With the one liberties cannot be taken ;
but the other may be treated with as much contumely as a football.
Although often between two and three feet long, he is no fighter, and
the poor harmless scavenger thus affords no sport, while what pas-
time may be got out of his pursuit seems rather cruel. But here we
^ Are, and we will see it out ; so we squat like big monkeys upon a low
^Wtranch, with the dogs in our laps, and commence our watch.

402 The Gentleman's Magazine.

A weary wait it is and a deepy. We should nod off altogether
did Jim not kindly stretch a point and allow us to smoke. A most
welcome moment is it when, without a word, he stretches out his
long thin arm and points at a queer shape, showing white in the
moonlight, moving slowly towards the mouth of the burrow. The
dogs are dropped on to the ground, where, aldiough they haven't
sighted the beast, they, naturally, begin to leap and to bark in appre-
ciation of the resumption of activity. This gives pause to the home-
returning wanderer. " Something up," he says to himself^ no doubt,
with a tightening of the heart — poor chap ! " No getting in at the
front door. Now, shall I just roll myself up ? or have I any better
chance?" Fortunately he knows his ground, and a look round
decides him. He turns aside and disappears behind a big fallen tree-
trunk lying to his left As he turns the dogs see him and rush for
him. So do we ; but he has fairly vanished — Andy and Pat also.
We can hear those two noisy small creatures though, scuffling along
slowly somewhere and yelping with excitement. Why, the log is
hollow ! My gentleman has scuttled into it, as he might have into a
drain-pipe, with the dogs after him. A few blows of a cutlass send
the whole rotten thing to bits and discover the doggies struggling
through its spongy interior. But where is the " tatou" ? Jim dashes
ahead a few yards and grabs at a queer sharp-pointed white thing
issuing from the side of the hill. It is the beast's tail. He has run
through the log and is now burrowing into a fresh place, at a rate
which is simply astonishing. His body is already quite hidden ; but
he wasn't quite quick enough. 'Ware those heels. Master Andy !
they could give you a very nasty blow if you came too close. " Me
hole 'um tail, Bouge," grins Jim ; " bring shovel, bring pick-axe ! "
Soon we are digging the animal out, while the old man retards its
further progress into the bowels of the earth by a firm grip on the
gradually disappearing appendage. " No pull 'um tail, Bouge," says
he ; " tail come out " — a dismal eventuality to be avoided if possi-
ble. Our excavatory operations are vigorous and not very prolonged.
It is all up with the "tatou,"and thishe sadly realises, giving up strug-
gling, and curling himself up in despair. Jim cajmly places him in
a bag all alive, while we gather up the tools, rather than the weapons,
of the chase and start home after him. As we come to the cabin
there is a growl from the gaunt guardian extended on its threshold.
The fire has gone out, there is a breeze among the tree-tops, the air
is cooler, and the voices of the woodland night are silent. Even the
frogs seem to have gone to sleep. "Good night, Jim!" "Goo*
night, Bouge I " '' Bring the deer up and you shall have a couple of
dollars," " Tanky, Mass' Johnl " Stephen GRATt

^ SIXTEENTH -CENTURY
HERODOTUS.

EXACTLY two thousand years after the travels of Herodotus in
Egypt, another Greek traveller of far inferior fame was paying
S visit of curiosity to Northern Europe and the British Isles. This
IFas Nicander Nucius, of Corcyra, who accompanied an embassy from
the Emperor Charles V. to Henry VHI. in the spring of the year
1545. He has left an account of his travels in three books, of which
the second, relating to England, was published in a somewhat
^utibted slate by the Camden Society nearly fifty years ago, and
has hitherto scarcely attracted the attention that it deserves. The
- manuscript from which it is printed contains but two books, and
tbese are imperfect through the loss of several leaves ; but a complete
copy exists in the AmbrosJan Library at Milan. The English copy,
now in the Bodleian, belonged, as appears from the flyleaf, to Arch-
bishop L^ud ; and if it was not, as its editor supposes, left in
England unfinished by Nicander himself, it may possibly have come
into the hands of Laud in the course of his correspondence and
interchange of gifts with bishops of the Eastern church.

Nicander Nucius was not a genius, like the prince of gossiping
travellers to whom we have compared hira. Indeed, the likeness
between them consists chiefly in a kind of innocent, naive simplicity,
.which finds interest in all sorts of information, but quite fails to dis-
tinguish accurately between the true and the false. Like Herodotus,
Ificander has recorded much that is curious, and some things that are
too curious for belief; but we feel that he leaves out much which an
intelligent southern traveller must have noticed, and that either his
curiosity or his powers of observation must have been somewhat de-
ficient. In these respects he was far inferior to his great predecessor;
and as a writer he was of course immeasurably below hira. Nicander's
■tyle is dear and flowing, though his Greek is by no means pure ;
^d it is more by his incidental allusions than by his language that
he shows himself acquainted with Herodotus and the other ancient
rriters of his race. He has some of the faults of Herodotus— an

404 The Gentleman's Magasine.

indistinct idea of causes, a spirit of exaggeration in small things, and
carelessness as to matters of fact Some critics tell us that the
geography of Herodotus is " crudely digested" ; and whether in his
case such a criticism is fair or not, it is certainly applicable to
Nicander. To take but one instance— he is seldom in the right
about the points of the compass. He calls Scotland the western
portion of the island ; he places the " other island called Ireland ' to
the south ; and he imagines that Spain is to the west of England.
And although some of the ecclesiastical information which he gives is
fresh and interesting, he is very inaccurate not only in his notices of
Ei^lish history, but also in his account of contemporary events.
This may be due not so much to carelessness as to ignorance of our
language ; and though his credulous simplicity reminds us of
travellers of an earlier age, he writes in perfect good faith, and gives
us a welcome glimpse of the England of the Reformation as she
appeared to a visitor from Eastern Europe.

Of Nicander's personal history nothing is known beyond the scanty
information which may be gleaned from his book. He was of Coicyia
— that beautiful isle of the Adriatic, said to be the Homeric Phieada,
whose history begins three centuries before Herodotus, and whose
independent spirit was ibe spark that in the last days of the historian
kindled the conflagration of the Peloponnesian War. But in the sii-
teenth century heidays of glory were but a dim and distant memory.
After remaining for nearly a thousand years an obscure appendage
of the Eastern Empire, she had at that time, as Corfu, been for more
than three centuries, with one short interval, a valued possession of
Venice. But already the great republic was showing signs of decline;
and those who trusted in her for their defence were discovering that
her saving arm was shortened. About eight years before Nicander
started on his travels, the Turks, who were the jealous rivals of
Venice in the East, made a savage raid upon Corfu. The island was
mercilessly ravaged during ten days' occupation ; its villages were
burned, its fields were laid waste, and t5,ooo inhabitants were
carried into captivity. And to such depths had Venetian public
spirit sunk that no attempt seems to have been made for their
recovery or ransom ; the mere fact that the enemy had abandoned
the island was paraded as a triumph.

These terrible misfortunes of his country will perhaps explain a
touching passage at the close of Nicander's first book. He says plainly
that a deep affection for a lady had been the "cause of all ba
misfortimes," and of his seeking diversion from them in travd.
Speaking to the friend to whom he dedicates the book, he says : " Yont

A Sixteenth-Century Herodotus. 405

kindness will supply whatever defects may have been caused by
various circumstances . . . and by thai violent love, which more
especially rules and controls me — love, alas ! for thut Nucia, atwhose
recollection alone my heart is torn and inflamed." The lady's name
would seem to show that she was his wife ; and the expressions used
perhaps imply rather a hopeless ignorance of her fate than a lasting
sorrow for her death. This difficuhy will be explained if we suppose
that Nicailder was absent at the time of the Turkish attack, and that
he returned only to find his property destroyed and his home desolate.
The intervening years, before he joined the embassy, he probably
spent at Venice, endeavouring to restore the wreck of his fortunes ;
and it is curious to think with what refinements of commerce and
art and literature our simple-minded traveller may have been familiar.
Though the empire of Venice was now on the wane, the signs of her
decay were not visible to the outward eye. Sabellico, a writer of the
previous generation, describes her as the jewel-casket of the world.
Her Eastern trade had begun to pass into other hands ; but the
Piaua at the Rialto was still the well-ordered centre of European
commerce ; and its six hundred mouL-y -changers and goldsmiths
were still the bankers and the usurers of the West. The splendid
churches with their ancient cupolas, the palaces of the nobles, richly
decorated, with their inlaid marble facades, must have been the daily
admiration of the simple islander. He would watch the growth of
the stately buildings conceived by the genius of Sansovino and
Palladio ; he might gain a " private view " of the masterpieces of
Titian and Tintorel. In the squares or canals he might sometimes
meet the young sculptor Benvenuto, fresh from some plot of mischief
or revenge ; or listen against his will to the ribald jests and empty
boasting of the infamous Peter Aretin. Even in literature his
Oppiortunities would have been greater than at any other time in the
history of a state which was seldom the willing patron of letters. If
he journeyed through the Venetian territory, he would doubt!e;s be
welcomed by Bembo's lively circle in the gardens of the Villa Boz^a ;
or could easily gain an introduction to men of learning like Speroni
and Trissino. .\l home he might hear the veteran Cornaro discourse
on the secret of enjoying a hale old age ; or take a lesson in delicacy
and good manners from the author of the " Galaleo." If his taste
were for the drama, he might join the crowds that flocked to the
rustic farces of their favourite RuzKante, or listen with a graver
audience to the tragedies of Dolce. But if, as is more probable,
his lasie should lead him rather to classical than to modern
literature, he might study the latest productions of the Aldine PresiL

4o6 The Gentlematis Magazine.

One could hardly guess, however, from Nicandei's ampfe BUiashe
that such rare advantages had been within his reach. He shows litde
trace of the modem spirit ; and his acquaintance with the Empenx's
ambassador was probably due not so much to his own abilities as to
his Greek extraction. Gerard Veltwick, whom Charles V. sent as his
envoy to the Porte with terms of peace at the dose of 1544, was a
great master of Eastern languages. His work on the desert wander-
ings of the Israelites was published at Venice five years earlier, and
he may have been indebted during its preparation to Nicandefs
assistance. At any rate, when the embassy passed through Venice,
Nicandcr asked his friend's permission to join it, fancying perhaps,
that through Gerard's position at the Turkish caputal he might leara
some tidings of his lost love.

It seems that neither the envoy nor his friend were successful
in the object of their journey. The Sultan rejected the proffered
terms of peace, and Nicander returned to Italy with his heart still
torn by a cruel and hopeless suspense. Under these circumstances
he chose to accompany his patron to the Netherlands ; and he
dedicates the account of his journey in his first book to some Greek
friend, who was unfamiliar with Northern Europe.

At the outset we meet with a strange mistake. He says that
he |)asscd through Trent at a time when the famous Council was
sitting. But in order to find the Emperor at Brussels, as they sub-
sequently did, they must have passed through Trent in March or
April ; and although by that time the Cardinal legates and a few
Bishops had arrived, the sittings of the Council were not opened till
the following December. From Trent they journeyed to Augsburg,
where Nicander had his first personal experience of the practices of
the Reformers. His description of them is by no means friendly,
and seems to imply that, if not himself a member of the Roman
Church, he was quick in adopting the prejudices of his friends. He
tells us that the Protestants *' work during all the days of the week,
though they hold the l-ord*s Day in the greatest respect," and says
that they have " ostracised " the whole order of monks and nuns.

After travelling through the principal cities of the Rhine country,
at which point Nicander digresses to relate the extravagances of the
Anabaptists, the embassy arrived at Brussels ; and our traveller was
presented by his friend to the Emperor and to the chief personages
of his court. Soon after their arrival the Emperor proceed on a
short tour through the cities of Flanders and Holland, taking the
envoy and suite in his train. The prosperity of Antwerp struck
Nicander as superior to that of any other city of the time, and he

A Sixteenth-Century Herodolm.

does not fail to mention the recent insurrection in Ghent. He notes of
Rotterdam that it was the birthplace of Erasmus, ■' whose reputation is
great among the men of the west , , , for as to style and elegance and
clearness of ideas, he will be found inferior to none of the ancients."

But by far the most curious passage in Nicander's first boot is
the description of his visit to the coal mines of Li&ge. He had
apparently never heard of mineral coal before. This is startling
indeed when we remember that our antiquaries have discovered traces
of it in the fireplaces of the stations on the Roman Wall, and that
the town of Newcastle had already enjoyed a royal licence for mining
purposes for more than three centuries. It would of course have'
been a needless luxury in the sunny valleys of Corfu, but we wonder
that ships of the English " sea-coal " had not yet found their way to the
jetties of Venice. At Calais, four years before this, its price was only
" eight shillings a chaldron " ' — equal, according to our mode of
reckoning, to about 51. bd. a ton present value— a price which we
should gladly see restored to us in this enlightened age. The
following is Nicander's description of the marvels of the mine :
" In this city," he says, "they are accustomed to burn a certain
black substance, stony and shining, and producing hot embers with-
out smoke (1) ... These stones they dig out of the deepest
recesses of the earth, finding certain veins, from which they extract
them ; but a peculiar prodigy takes place when they are being dug
out. . . . They are not able to throw out the stones immediately,
for fire on a sudden bursts forth and encompasses the whole cavern.
When the miners wish to extract the coal, they put on a linen
garment which has neither been bleached nor dipped in water. This
covers them from head to foot, leaving only certain openings for the
eyes, that they may be able to sec through them ; they also take a
staff in their hands, which serves to guide and direct their steps in
the passage leading to the cave. The miner then draws near to Ihe
fire and frightens it with his staff. The fire then flies away and
contracts itself by degrees ; it then collects itself together in a
surprising way, and becoming very small, remains quite still in a
comer. But it behoves the man who wears the linen garment to
stand over the flame when at rest, always terrifying it with his staff.
While he peifbtm* this service the miners extract the stones; but as
soon as they have left the cave the dormant Are luddCDly bursts
forth and environs the whole cave. No one then ventures to enter
without the above-mentioned giument and staff, for he would incvit-

I be consomcd. And this we mirselves have beheld. For «c
■ CinKtfia if Cairii, Cundm SodelT. toL iut.

4o8 The GentlemarCs Magazine.

were desirous of ascertaining the fact by actual experience, being
admirers of the operations of nature. For we were unable to dis-
cover the cause of this— whether these things take place through a
spiritual agency ; and we were aware that linen possesses a certain
mysterious power tending in a remarkable degree to expel fire, since
fire will not touch it . . . whence also this ia accounted a prodigy
by the beholders. And they call these stones in the language of the
country oCAAdv (houilles?)."

It is perhaps hardly worth while to guess at an explanation of the
natural magic of the mine. But Nicander, if not the victim of an
imposition, is probably confusing some outbreak of an inJiammable
gas with the (ire kept burning for the ventilation of the mine. The
incombustible garment may possibly point to the use of a doth of
asbestos, which, though a mineral, is described by Pliny as being
made into a kind of linen. Anyhow we may see from this account
how prone in the sixteenth century even " an admirer of the opera-
tions of nature " would be to ascribe natural phenomena to a super-
natural agency.

On Nicander's return to Antwerp his patron Gerard was ordered to
proceed at once to England on some political mission, the details of
which we are not told. But, as the envoy started early in May, we may
be almost sure that his object was to fence with Henry's demand for
the aid of his ally in the French war. In r544 the Emperor had con-
cluded a separate peace with France at Cr^py in defiance of his
treaty engagements with England. His main object ever since had
been to find some pretext for disengaging himself from the English
alliance. He had now succeeded beyond hLs hopes. An English
merchant, who had been grievously wronged in the Spanish courts
through their insolent contempt of heretics, indemnified himself by
seizing as a reprisal the first Spanish ship that fell in his way. The
Emperor demanded that he should be surrendered to justice, and
proposed, probably through Gerard, that a conference should be held
in June at Gravelines to discuss the alleged infractions of the treaty.

Nicander's second book, which is dedicated to a Greek friend,
Cornelius Nicolaus, commences with their embarkation at Calais.
It may be roughly divided into two parts— a description of the
country and its people, and an account of the English Reformation
and of the war with France, near the close of which the narrative
breaks off abruptly.

The travellers had, as we should say, " a very bad crossing."
Indeed, although they started with a favourable wind, their first
Hti«mpt was a failure, and they were (Jrivep by stress of wftitb^

A SixUenth-Ceninry Herodotus.

into Nieoport, in Flanders, where they were detained three days.
" Having lost our sail, and not knowing whither we were carried, but
cleaving the waters of the ocean and being tossed by huge waves
rapidly succeeding each other, and undergoing every species of
danger, and being within a hair's breadth of sinking, we entertained
but smal! hope of being saved." From this and other statements
we may infer thai Nicander was a bad sailor ; indeed, his description
of the Channel sounds absurd even from a dweller on the smoother
Adriatic. "The sea, when the wind blows, raises a vast wave, and
■it swells to such a degree as to seem to reach the sky ; wherefore it
-strikes the greatest terror in beholders." But this does not include
!«// beholders, for " the waves are not broken, nor indeed produce
any sound, but move noiselessly and carry the ship along with them ;
;e also they are braved with indifference by such as have had
experience of them." At length they landed at Dover, which is
described as " full of inns " ; and next day they rode to ( ireenwich,
.where the King was residing, and laid before him the object of iheir
mission. Five days later they followed him to London, and were
lodged in apartments near the royal palace.

While there Nicander, " to avoid idling away bis time," resolved
to find out all he could about the island. It would be interesting
to know how he acquired his information. He probably tried to
learn English, and gained a general idea of the language without
being able to speak it. " They possess," he says, " a peculiar language,
' differing in some measure from all others, having received contribu-
^L tions from all the rest both in words and syllables, as I conjecture,
^t For although they speak somewhat barbarously, yet their language
^r has a certain charm and allurement, being sweeter than that of the
I German and Flemish." But just afterwards he says that "they
resemble the French more than others, and for the most part they

J use their language." As this statement is evidently a mistake, we

may perhaps suppose that Nicander, besides his Italian, possessed a
1 smattering of French, and that persons about the court conversed
Kith him in that language. His numerous errors would doubtless
I be due to a want of proficiency on both sides.

is own language would have been practically useless lo him.
I In the knowledge of Greek England was still a long way behind the
I nations of the continent. Erasmus, indeed, says, seventeen years
\ earlier, that English boys were wont to disport in Greek epigrams
|:But this would only be true at any time of a very few under excep-
l.tional masters like Udall and Nowetl ; and scarcely ten vih
I'theie had been a determined opposition *"

410 The Gentlematis Magazine.

Oxford. The opponents of the innovation styled themselves
''Trojans/' and raised such riots in the streets that the King's
authority had to be invoked But there were other and more serious
difficulties in the way of Greek learning. At this time only two
books had been printed in England in the Greek character ; and all
the texts, grammars, and lexicons had to be imported from abroad.
However, Nicander would find at court three eminent scholars, all
acting as tutors to Prince Edward — Sir John Cheke, Dr. Cox, Bishop
of Ely, and Sir Anthony Cooke ; perhaps also the witty and learned
Ascham had been already engaged as teacher in handwriting.
There had recently been a great dispute as to the proper pronuncia-
tion of Greek vowels ; and we can fancy that a modem Greek, with
hi$ vowel sounds uniformly thin, would be hailed with triumph by
the " Itacists " as a strong ally against the rounder and more dis-
tinctive system of Cheke and his " Etists." Among the courtiers
who could have conversed with the stranger, if they would, were
the virtuous and accomplished Surrey, and that lover of the classics,
Sir Thomas Elyot, who had recommended in his " Governor " that
boys should begin their Greek early.

Following some ancient writer, Nicander states that the island is
" the greatest in the world except Taprobane and Thule " — exceptions
which certainly need not have been made if they stand, as some
suppose, for Ceylon and the Shetlands. His idea of the size and
shape of Britain is fairly correct, except that he says that its southern
coast, "which is also called Kent," is 500 miles in length ; he also
makes Ireland 600 miles long, and places it too near the Welsh
coast Some of his names of places present a riddle hard enough
for the Sphinx herself For instance, "Among the coast cities
which are conspicuous and celebrated are Antonia and Bristol,
Danebium and Dartenicum, and London, which surpasses these."
If we suppose that these names were taken down from dictation, the
"mysterious three" may possibly stand for Southampton, Tenby,
and Dartmouth ; but I make the conjecture with much diffidence,
and would gladly welcome a correction.

The account of London is full and interesting. Nicander was
much struck by the tide in the Thames, and explains the
phenomenon at some length without naming the river. He specially
remarks on the number of merchant ships arriving from all countries,
and also on " the ferry boats and skiffs, which are rowed with speed,
plying in great numbers on the banks for the accommodation of the
city." He speaks more highly than we should expect from an
Ita^an of the royal palaces suid public buildings, with their "fliwpci|

paintings and luxurious furniture," and notices with admiration that
the whole city was paved with flint stones. This was a recent
improvement effected by an Act of Parliament about twelve years
before, in which the streets are described as " very foul and full of
pits and sloughs very perilous and noyous."

But nothing pleased him more than London Bridge and the
Tower. " A very large bridge is built, affording a passage to those
in the city to the opposite inhabited bank, supported by stone-
cemented arches, and having houses and turrets upon it. . . . And
a certain castle, like a citadel, very beautiful and strong, is built near
the river, having very many and large guns. Here the treasures and
valuable property are deposited ; for they arc said to exceed the
anciently famed wealth of Crtcsus and Midas, so vast a quantity of
gold and silver is stored up there. And near to Greenwich they
possessanarsenal, where they build ships. . . . Somewhere about the
middle of the city a spot is marked off where there is daily an
assemblage of merchants — the source of much bartering and traffic."
This spot was a part of the modern Lombard Street ; and among the
merchants Nicander might have seen a grave young man, afterwards
known as Sir Thomas Gresham, who twenty years later gained im-
mortal renown by building a noble Exchange to shelter his fellow-
merchants from the rain and the snow.

The stir of London life and commerce did not escape Nicander's
attention. He notes the imports from his own quarter of Europe, as
oil from the Peloponnese and malmsey wine from Crete ; and gives
as the chief exports tin, the wool of sheep, and "woollen garments
called seizes, of which every city and country takes a share." He
says that almost all except the courtiers and nobles pursue mercantile
concerns ; and he is especially astonished to find women of all ages
in the streets and shops, engaged in business and the arts. This
custom leads him to a remark on English manners which is curious,
and, as we learn from the letters of Erasmus, undoubtedly true.
"They display great simplicity and absence of jealousy in their
usages towards females. For not only do those of the same family
and household kiss them on the mouth with greetings and embraces,
but even those who have never seen them ; and to themselves this
appears by no means unseemly."

We find nothing in Nicander's book about Parliamenl, of which

he seems to have been ignorant. He tells us that the city is under

" prefects and administrators " appointed by the King, and that no

. penalty of death or loss of limbs ran be inflicted without the royai

inction. " To the King himself," he says, " they are wonderfully

412 The Gentleman s Magazine.

well affected ; nor would they in their loyalty endure hearing any*
thing disrespectful of him, so that their most binding oath is that
by which the King's life is pledged." We can fancy the innocent
stranger asking the meaning of the frequent exclamation, ** By our
liege ! " We are told that the King " always has his court about him
at his palace — the spearmen (yeomen of the guard), the retinue, the
grandees, and the chief of the council," but ''he changes these
daily, and receives others of like station for the administration of his
government ! "

Our traveller's sketch of the national character is favourable on
the whole, but discriminating. He says that the people are well-
disposed towards other nations except the French, *' for whom they
entertain not one feeling of goodwill, having an innate hostility to
them," so that scarcely any French merchants live in London. As a
race they are '' full of suspicion ; great flesh-eaters and unrestrained
in their appetites. . . . Their nobles are full of kindliness and good
order, and courteous to strangers ; but the rabble and the mob are
turbulent and barbarous in their manner, as I have observed from
experience and intercourse." Their personal appearance, however,
receives unstinted praise. " They are a fair-skinned race of men with
golden hair and beard ; their eyes are generally blue, and their
cheeks ruddy ; in their persons they are tall and erect, and in their
disposition martial and courageous.''

The sober scenery of England forms a great contrast to the rocky
heights and luxuriant vegetation of Nicander's native land. Lofty
mountain peaks, with constant glimpses of lake-like sea, and all tinged
for the most part with the rich, harmonious colouring of a southern
sun, delight the English visitor to Corfu. We can hardly wonder,
then, that our traveller's praise of England and her climate is ex-
pressed in moderate terms. ** All these islands are diversified with
fruitful hills and plains . . . and have mountains that are low, and
shaped like mounds ; they have also marshes and oak forests of fine
timber." These marshes, however, he supposes to form a broad band
round the coasts of the island, and attributes the ** prevailing misty
atmosphere " to iheir " dense exhalations." Such a description of the
weather, though generally accurate, was in his case rather ungrateful ;
for the summer of 1545 was exceptionally fine and warm. He
notices the greater length of the day in Scotland, but strangely
supposes, with the older geographers, that the long summer twilight
is due to the absence of the sun from the extreme north. He adds
that frost and snow are almost continuous, and with some
if we are to believe Holinshed the chronicler, who relates that

A Sixteenth-Century Herodotus.

one ajlh of ihis year hailstones fell in England as big as a
an's fist.
Among the wild beasts of the country Nicander includes, besides
Ihe fox and " the hog," the wolf and the bear. It is nearly certain,
fcowever, that neither of the latter animals could have been found in
England al this time. A century earlier Sir John Kortescuc says that
(here were neither wolves, bears, nor lions in England ; but wolves
Irere found in Scotland and Ireland till late in the seventeenth
^ntury. As to tame animals — horses of noble breed, oxen and
ibeep — our traveller tells us that " wonder arises in the beholders on
account of their multitude. Nor indeed is there any shepherd
l^oed over the sheep to tend them, neither a herdsman over the
oxen, but wherever the animals may be while feeding, on the second,
>erh3ps, or even the third day,^,they return to their owner's house.
Vet no one dares to steal any of them, since the extreme punishment
of death awaits the perpetrator. But, that each man may know his
own, they smear a mark on the skin with a sort of native pitch."
Nicander follows Herodotus in attributing the absence of horns on
the cattle and sheep to the colder climate — a natural mistake, jjer-
Jiaps, in those who had never seen the elk or the reindeer. In his
account of the mineral and vegetable productions he describes
England as " rich in metals, with very much silver and white lead,"
while " the stone used for fire, and black, is found in most places;" he
nys also that she is abundantly supplied with fruit-bearing trees,
except the olive, the fig, and the vine, which belong to warmer
climates. Yet there was probably still some remnant of the
incdiiEval vineyards; for Tusser, in his " Good Points of Husbandry,"
gives elaborate directions for their cultivation ; and in the reign of
Mary there was a large protective duty on French wines. But it
I was doubtless a decaying industry, and confined within a very
I email area.

Nicander's account of Scotland and Ireland is curious, though
t very insufficient for one who had visited at least the former country,
] He says that a certain river of no small size, called the Thames (I),
[ leparates England from Scotland, guarded by forts on its banks. He
[.informs us that England and Scotland each appoint a king from their
I own people, and that these kings, constantly fighting about their
I ■boundaries, "cruelly destroy each other in a kind of barbarous and
I savage warfare." Dut the efforts of the Scotch to rid themselves of
I their tributary position had been unsuccessful, and in their customs
[ they were more barbarous than the English.

From the description of Ireland it is clear thai history not only

i

414 '^^ Gentleman's Magazine.

repeats but anticipates itself. " There is also a certain other island
called Hibernia, and Ireland as well, large and populous, possessing
towns and cities. But the inhabitants reject political institutions, and
other importations, with whatever else pertains to them. ... In
none of its productions is it inferior to England and Scotland ; but
yet they do not pay so much heed to civil polity. Those indeed
that live in the cities and towns have some sort of human govern-
ment ; but such as live in forests and bogs are entirely wild and
savage, and there remains only the human form whereby they may
be known to be men. They are tall and fair, with much hair on
their heads and a shaggy beard. They go at all seasons without any
other clothing than that which covers their loins ; and neither heat
nor cold enfeebles them. They practise archery, and extraordinary
feats of running, so as often to contend in speed with horses and
hunting dogs. . . . They feed on everything, gorging themselves to
excess with flesh, and are always eating milk and butter.'' Although
the degraded condition of the Iriish wa^ a by-word in the sixteenth
century, and a disgrace to the sifter island, this picture is doubtless
over-coloured, perhaps by Nicander's informants. At least he abso-
lutely refuses credit to some of the stories which they told him.
" They fable that Hades and the gates of Hades are there, fancying
that they hear the groans of men undergoing punishment ; and they
add, too, that spectres and adverse powers are seen ; and tell,
besides, of perfumed springs, and milky water, and other things
equally absurd, which I have omitted as fabulous and trifling."
Nicander mentions the Orcades, " uninhabited save one, or p>erhaps
two " ; and an island called Prot^, with a city and harbour, which is
perhaps the Isle of Wight. He concludes his account with a piece
of positive ethnology, which is an amusing reversal of hitherto
accepted facts. " All these islands together they call with authority
Britannic, as having been subject to the men of Brittany in France,
who sent a colony and peopled them " !

He then proceeds in a somewhat inflated style to describe the
sea in which these islands lie. " Begin we, then, that they who are
fond of hearing may know the productions of the ocean, which to us
are strange and unusual. This which is in fact the greatest sea
and is also called the ocean, is of boundless extent and hardly
known ; therefore by the ancients it was termed unnavigable." He
explains, however, that ships now traverse it with indifference ; and
he gives a fairly accurate measurement of the distance by sea from
the " Pillars of Hercules " to London. His list of " monsters of
the deep" is long and rather puzzling. First we have "ht

A Sixteenlh-Centnry Herodotus. 415

"whales, monstrous in their shapes and savage, equal in length to the
largest ships and probably even galleys. These they term in the
language of (he country, balena;." Then he describes an animal seen
by himself, "having the head and cars of a hog, and four feet. It
had not, however, cloven hoofs, but broad and rounded at the ends ;
scaly, and with the tail of a fish . . . and long, perhaps two cubits,
and they call these swinefish." The description at once suggests the
notion of a seat ; but we wonder that a student of Homer, as
Nicander certainly was, should not have remembered Proteus and
his herd of Phocie, outwitted by Menelaus, Next he mentions a
smaller fish " which they catch alive and salt, and no one would
taste of them before he has hammered them on an anvil . . . and
the fish is called dart." This and the following prodigy I leave as an
enigma for the most ingenious of our naturalists. " I saw another
kind of fish, winged in the same way as birds, having feet like a
duck's, and a pointed beak, not longer than a dove's ... it has
no voice, but only croaks volubly. . . . And the animal being
killed in the water, the blood loses its crimson hue, and becomes the
colour of water. These things, indeed, the fishermen stated, but to
me they seemed incredible. . . . Those, however, know who have
seen them."

Nicander then proceeds to give an account of the relations
between the kings of England and the clergy, as an introduction to
his notice of the English Reformation. We are scarcely surprised to
find that his history is not more accurate or trustworthy than his
natural science ; indeed, it is difficult to imagine where he obtained
it He begins with informing us that from early times the kings of
England had regulated to a surprising extent (toi/ioi-iui) the
worship and government of the Church ; but he also says that the
wealth of the clergy was such that they sometimes treated their kings
with contempL He instances the case of a monarch who had tried
to restrain the power of theabboIs,and was murdered for his pains —
two monks slaying him with their arrows as he slept, wearied with
hunting, at the foot of a tree. This looks like a strangely garbled
verMOo of the death of William Rufus. He adopts, loo, without
question, the later and less authentic account of the death of John
— that he was poisoned when on a jiassing visit lo a monastery, and
that one of the monks did not shrink from acting as his taster, and
so sharing his fate. Nicander even attributes the violent deaths of
two subsequent kings — apparently Kdward II. and Richard II. — to

t treasonable practices of the monks — a heavy bill of indictment

4x6 The GentUmans Magazine,

which he moved dnring his stay was made op of bitter enenuesof
the clergT, and anbocmded admirers of thdr royal plonderer.

He dien goes oa to teil cs that Henrr VIIL ** bdng of an
coerge&c and spchted chaxacter, established the a&iis of the mon-
archy oo a better footing " : and, after recountmg the bare £u:ts of
the divorce and the nrst quarrel with the Pope, he gives us a kn^
speech of the King to his counsdilors, recommending that thebreadi
should be nnaL There can be no doubt that Nicander r^vded
this speech, and another later in the book on the dissolution of the
monasrrries as the highest flights of his pen. Following the example
of Thucydides, he tries to represent by this means the motives of
men and the causes of events, scarcely pretending that the woids
were actually spokeiu His metaphors are very omate» and he twice
makes the King quote Homer — a feat which was almost certainly
beyond him. The plan has the merit of being gra|diiCy but as
Nicander s mind was unphilosophical, and his knowledge of facts not
extensive, he Cdls prodigiously short of his great modeL In this
speech he wrongly supposes that Henry *s breach with the Pope was
due to the Bull of excommunication, which was not published till four
years later, and represents him as taking the title of ** Defender of
the Faith "as an act of de6ance ! The arguments, however, which
he puts into his mouth are not inappropriate. Henry vrill not agree
that England received Christianity in the first instance from Rome ;
he denies that the Pope '* holds the keys of faith," and can alone
open and close the door of salvation ; and he accuses him of measur-
ing out for money the grace of the Spirit ** I propose, therefore,
that we should free ourselves for the future from the tyrannical
oppression of this man. For generous spirits are wont to oppose with
obstinacy the rule of force. . . . Not that I would advise you to with-
draw wantonly from the Church of Christ ! Far from it ! Nay, indeed,
but from the violent and unreasonable authority of the Roman Pontiff."
The speaker ends with a solemn adjuration, which, in his mouth, is
the very acme of absurdity. *' I conjure and charge you that ye pay
no heed to the height of kingly power ; neither, indeed, to these my
words ; nor would I have you act in accordance with my opinion
from a wish to gratify me ; but do ye show forth what is expedient
both for yourselves and for me."

The assembly having agreed to this proposal, " except a certain
few,'* the King, we are told, ordered a large gold coin to be struck
with this inscription in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin: "Henry VIII.,
by the Grace of God King of England, France, and Irdand,
Defender of the Faith, and Supreme Head of the Church of England

A Sixteenlh-Century Herodotus.

and Ireland." A Lalin inscription of this kind is to be found on one
of Henry's seals, but the coin with the two other lanjituages appears
to be an invention.

We next find an account, which is incorrect in some of its particu-
lars, of the King's numerous wives, who may be easily distinguished,
though they are not mentioned by name. It is curious, as an instance,
probably, of the court scandal of the day, to find Anne Boleyn's
unfaithfulness spoken of as fully proved, and acknowledged even
by herself— both siatements being absolutely at variance with fact.
Nicander adds that " the King happened to be lovingly disposed
towards her, and so he condemned her to suffer no other mode of
death than by the sword ! " He gives the other wives in their order,
except that he places Catherine Howard before Anne of Cleves, and
mentions that the skulls of her paramours were still to be seen, more
than three years after their execution, fixed on the turrets of London
Bridge,

Nicander then devotes many pages to a relation of the impostures
of the monks and their recent exposure. He states that the principal
deceivers of the people were " the followers of Franciscus," but he is
quite wrong in supposing that their numbers exceeded the aggregate
of all the rest — the Benedictines being by far the largest Order in
England. He describes at great length the crucifi.x called "The
Rood of Grace," contrived for the Friars at Eoxley in Kent, with
secret springs, so that the eyes could be made to roll or the head to
nod, according to the value of the gifts which were brought to it. The
after hiding this crucifix themselves, pretended to dis-
iver it by special revelation ; and, according to Nicander, despatched
heralds " throughout England to publish abroad the discovery. He
adds that the deceit was exposed by the arrival of the image-maker
from Antwerp, who recognised his own handiwork and revealed the
whole mailer to the King. Soon afterwards a sermon was preached
at St. Paul's Cross by John Hilsey, Bishop of Rochester, in the course
of which he exposed the mechanism of the image, and ihen broke it
in pieces. Nicander's story is rather different. " And shortly after
the King hung the principalsin the business and beheaded the rest . . .
and the miraculous image, with the collected riches, he assigned to the
royal treasury, and the monastery he razed to its very foundations ! "
Nicander notices another imposture, by which he apparently means
that of the Maid of Kent, though he speaks of her as " an old woman,"
and says nothing of her frenzies, or of the political character of her
predictions. The end of it was that ihe King "consumed with fire
the old woman," and condemned hej atjettofs " tp terminate their life
by hanging."

41 8 The Gentlemaris Magazine.

He then describes, with all the exaggeration of a couitier, the
enormities committed by the monks, and gives another long speech
by the King in favour of their "banishment" Henry begins by
apologising for calling together his councillors in a keen frost, but
skilfully uses the weather as a sort of parable to express the political
emergency. " Indeed, sirs, no common storm has fallen upon w ;
nay, the severest of stormy seasons, ... for it knows no change
either of season or time ; but rather increases in winter and spring
and has no thought of intermission. . . . ^Vhat, then, is the
storm? And who is he that raises it? . . . Look, sirs, at the
tribe of those who are called monks," &c He proceeds to speak <rf
them in Homeric language as " a worthless incumbrance of the soil,
not honoured in war or in counsel," and decides that his predecessors
had " somewhat weakly, and through inclining to superstition, be-
stowed on them their possessions," Wherefore he proposes to expel
them from the country, making an abundant allowance to those
" who will live orderly," and adding their revenues to the public
funds, with a special proviso that hospitals should be built for the
sick and for the reception of strangers. Nicander innocently
imagines that these humane promises were actually carried out,
although, as a matter of fact, " forty shillings and a gown " were
considered an ample provision for the most blameless of those whose
property had been so ruthlessly confiscated. The tone in which
Nicander speaks of these transactions is throughout one of undis-
guised commendation.

But the most amusing passage in this part of his book is his
account of the desecration of the shrine of Thomas kBecket. "This
Thomas, commonly known by the surname 'of Canterbury,' having
gained the title of Bishop of London, was always contending with
the kings of England . . . and therefore the then ruling sovereign
beheaded him with the sword." We are then told how the Pope
conferred honours on Thomas, and the people reverenced him
greatly as a saint. " Henry, therefore, wishing to know why the
Pope had voted him a saint . . . appointed commissioners, and
commanded that they should neither seek by their decision to gratify
the King, nor Thomas, although the majority regarded him as a
saint. Hence, indeed, they devoted two years to the inquiiy, each
one giving his decision as he thought just. But at last the chosen
judges condemned Thomas as disloyal and rebellious, and passed a
vote of censure on him as an innovator. Wherefore Henry, because
he was successor to the earlier kings, condemned Thomas as a pest
of the countiy, and ordeted that the coffin with his i

A Sixteenth-Century Herodotus.

be burnt" This burning is asserted by some atithoriiies, and denied
by others j but Nicander adds further that " the ashes were put i
a cannon, and discharged into the air. " He seems, however, to have
had no suspicion that one motive for this rather puerile revenge was
to enrich the royal exchequer with all the cosUy treasures of the
Ehrine.

The narraiive of the wars with France, which is the most im-
perfect part of our manuscript, possesses few features of interest, and
is a strange jumble of fact and fiction. Nicander describes a battle
in Picardy, by which he probably intends the Battle of the Spurs,
but he wrongly places it in the reign of Francis I., and represents it
as indecisive. It began, he tells us, " by a fox leaping forth between
the armies," which was followed by the English up to the French
lines, and so drew their forces into an engagement. He makes no
mention of (he Fipld of the Cloth of Gold, but he relates another
curious interview between the raonarchs shortly after, at the castle of
Guines, which is vividly described in contemporary French memoirs.
Francis, to show his trust in his ally, paid him a visit just after dawn,
attended only by his two sons ; and on being informed that he was
asleep, knocked at the door of his room, and entered unannounced.
Henry was much astonished, but was dciighted at the chivalrous
confidence of his guest ; and, when they had interchanged some
valuable gifts, the French king assisted his good brother to rise, and
warmed his shirt for him at the fire.

This extreme cordiality, however, did not last long ; war soon
broke out again ; but our historian, passing over 23 years almost
without remark, proceeds at once to recount the siege and capture
of Boulogne. He alsodescribes shortly the French naval expedition
of 1545, and its complete failure, though it does not appear that he
was himself present Indeed, he is wrong as lo the commanders on
both sides, changing the English admiral Lord Lisle into the famous
diplomatist Sir William Paget, and substituting for the French
admiral D'Annebault the name of " Robert, Constable of France."
We learn from Du Bellay's memoirs that the largest French ship, the
" Grand Carragon," of 800 tons, caught fire as she was leaving the
harbour of Havre, and was burnt down to the waterline. Nicander
gives the following account of this catastrophe. " There was one
very large ship, such as no one had ever seen on the ocean . . .
furnished with cannon as large and as numerous as those of great
cities . . . And it had 1,500 men, both soldiers and sailors, and
; moved on the sea, no one would suppose it to be a ship.
Hit some island, running with a favourable wind, and havjoK mJIt.

420 The GentUftmn's Magazine.

. . . And in this immense ship those who were cooking the
victuals having neglected the fire, it caught some part of the ship
. . . whence the ship was consumed by the flames;. And that
part, indeed, which stood above the water was destroyed by lire, but
that which was undemeath sank down into the deep ! "

Towards the end of this summer (1545) Nicander joined the
English expedition under the Earl of Hertford, which was sent to
ravage the Scottish border. He tells us that, when his patron
Gerard was setting out to return to the Emperor, he asked his
permission to remain in England, desiring to learn more of the island.
" And he, having reluctantly yielded to my wishes, and furnished me
with a horse and arms and a maintenance, sent me away well pleased."
In this expedition a number of foreign mercenaries were employed,
and among them a body of Argives from the Peloponnesus under
Thomas of Argos, who were doubtless some of those light cavalry
then called Stradiots. To these Nicander naturally joined himself
as one of their own countrymen ; and it is amusing to find what
importance he attaches to their freebooting operations. " Our light
cavalry, daily making incursions, drove olT booty, laid waste the
country, and sacked some small towns. The Scotch, therefore,
having submitted, sent an embassy to Henry, surrendered some of
their provinces and cities, and obtained a truce." Yet Dr. Robertson
describes this as one of those inroads "which, as they did not pro*
duce any considerable effect, at this distance of time deserve no
remembrance ! " It certainly did not produce the effect described,
for peace was delayed for nine months ; and a SUte paper of the
time shows that it was a mere raid upon a defenceless country.
According to this document there were destroyed or burnt in the
space of a fortnight 16 castles, 7 monasteries and friaries, 5 market
towns, 243 villages, 13 mills and 3 hospitals!

How long Nicander remained in England afler this exploit we
have no means of knowing, as the last leaves of the Bodleian manu-
script are wanting ; but there are some indications that he did not
leave the country until he had completed the records of his English
travels.

EPWARD H. R. TATHAM,

421

THE TERRITORIAL SYSTEM.

SEVERAL years have elapsed since a large portion of the British
army underwent a startling transformation, in the course of which
it was, so to speak, melted down, and recast in a new form. From the
ashes of the old there emerged, Phcenixlike, a new system called
** the Territorial," an adaptation from the German military scheme.
Old soldiers, at the time, shook their heads and prophesied ruin and
collapse, but, in spite of their prognostications of evil, the new
system has worked fairly well, and may be said upon the whole to be,
as indeed are most reforms, an improvement upon the old order
of things. A similar fate not long since overtook our ancient courts
of law and equity, and in like manner a new institution arose at the
bidding of the reformer, more in accordance with the exigencies of
the times, and the spirit of an age which delights in reducing every-
thing to a scientific system, or perhaps we should say dead level.
As time goes on, we learn to acquiesce in these great reforms, and
as the systems which they have created get into working order and
are put to practical tests, we seek from time to time to remedy the
weak points and flaws which such tests disclose.

Under the new system, a regiment is theoretically attached to a
particular county or district, from which it draws, or hopes to draw,
recruits. With its regular battalions are associated the militia and
volunteers of the same county or district, forming additional battalions
of the regiment. All these component elements, regulars, militia,
volunteers, are in theory welded into a single corps, bearing a
territorial title, and animated by a spirit of pride and interest in its
constituent factors and locality of origin. Let us take an example :
Lincolnshire regiment, ist and 2nd battalions, Old loth North
Lincoln regiment. 3rd battalion. Royal North Lincoln Militia.
4th battalion, Royal South Lincoln Militia. Volunteer battalions,
ist, late ist Lincolnshire ; 2nd, late 2nd Lincolnshire. The volunteer
movement does not extend to Ireland, so that the Irish regiments
have no volunteer battalions attached to them* Bat th* -^f the

territorial regiment should be leal «m1 *

VOL. ccLxix. Ma 1918.

423 The Gentlema^s Magtanns.

proceed to mention some points in which, as it seems to me, a nearef
approach to practical unity may be made.

The names of officers serving in the volunteer battalions of the
regiment might be placed in the Anny List under the same heading
as those serving in the regular and militia battalions, and not rele-
gated to another part of the book, as they are at present The
heading "volunteer battalions" would prevent any possible con-
fusion which might otherwise arise.

The uniform and equipment of the component battalions should
be as far as possible assimilated. According to present regulations
regiments entitled to the distinction of " Royal " wear red tunics
with blue "facings," ».e., collars and cuffs, while other regiments have
white facings. In either case, the territorial name of the regiment,
t.g., " Lincoln," or an abbreviation of it, i.g., " R. F." (Rc^
Pusiliers), is worked in white letters on the red shoulder-strap, and a
small brass badge of difference, such as a grenade, or a sphinx, is
borne on the collar of the tunic. A spiked helmet, or, in the case of
Fusilier regiments, a sealskin cap (somewhat resembling the bear-
skin of the Guards, but smaller), dark-blue trousers with a narrow
red stripe, and white belts, complete the uniform of the typical
British territorial regiment.

The oft-recuning formula at the head of each regiment in the
Army List, " scarlet, fadngs while" would lead people to supposethat
the uniform of the militia battalions was the same as that of the line.
Such, however, is not the case. The " scarlet " is not a tunic, but
an undress kersey of red serge, to the shoulder straps of which are
affixed small brass figures (above the territorial name), which indicate
the number of the regimental battalion. The militia, moreover, are
not supplied with helmets during their annual training, but wear the
" (;iengarry " cap only, and their general equipment is of an inferior
description, anything being apparently considered " good enough for
the militia." It would certainly add to the attraction of service in the
militia if the men were supplied with the full dress uniform, at least
for occasional wear at inspections and Church parade. At a time
when the army is short of its proper strength by 10,000 men, and
the constant cry is heard that there are no recruits, everything should
be done, and nothing left undone, by the authorities, that can tend
to increase the popularity of the militia force, which, greatly to its
own detriment, furnishes annually large draughts of men to fill the
depleted ranks of the line battalions. Nothing can be more short-
sighted than to try and spare expense in keeping up an efficient
•nny, Oui amy is a very small one when compared to tboK of

^^en, the

sioi

The Territorial System. 423

ighbouring powers ; it is a very small one when viewed with regard
the vast extent of Empire which it is called upon to defend, and
the great commercial interests which it is its duty to safeguard.
Considering this, our army, regulars, militia, and volunteers, should
make up in quality for what it lacks in guantify, and should be made
as efficient, in the matter of arms, dress, and equipment, as money
can make it. If we cannot afford to clothe our small force of militia
decently, or to keep it sufficiently supplied with recruits when the
army is on a peace footing, how in the world can we afford to clothe
an increased army, and where are we to procure recruits for such
in the event of a war with a European power breaking out
? If our supply of voluntary recruits fails, we know the
itemative — conscription. Indeed, in the opinion of some military
icn, the time for applying that system of recruiting has already
arrived.

But it is of the uniform of the volunteer battalions that I wish
more particularly to speak. Everyone will agree that it is very
desirable that tlie volunteer battalions of a tenitorial regiment should
adopt the uniform of that regiment. Some have already done so,
notably the three volunteer battalions of the Royal Fusiliers, who
have all assumed the uniform of the " City of London Regiment,"
including the sealskin cap. But in most cases there is no such
uniformity in the dress of the constituent volunteer battalions, for
greys, greens, and scarlets, with facings of various hues, exist side by
aide in the same regiment

Commanding officers of volunteers have wisely refrained from
undue haste in making the change," and that for several reasons.
First, there is the question of expense, and of that I need say no
more.

Secondly, there was for some time a doubt whether the uniform
of the regular battalions themselves was not about to be reformed.
Indeed a change from red to grey was recommended by a Commis-
sion in 1883. Hut Englishmen have a sentimental regard, and even
Fection, for the traditional red coat of the British soldier, and there
no doubt that it will be retained in future, at least for home
service. It has the merit of being smart, and a smart uniform un-
doubtedly attracts recruits. The grey uniform, on the other hand,
with its plain leather belts and dull metal buttons, so dear to the
heart of the utilitarian, is not a thing of beauty, although suited to
the requirements of actual service in the field. But ser\-ice in the
field is about the very last thing that our volunteers are called upon
to imdertake. The volunteer force is not a body of troops whidi is

434 The Gentleman's Magazine.

immediately liable to active service in the field, but is ladiei a
school of arms, and a very valuable one too, for the training of
soldiers to act as an army of reserve.

Thirdly, it is frequently alleged that in the present day, when
rifles have become " arms of great precision," the red coats of the
line battalions are of too conspicuous a colour to reader their adop-
tion by volunteer battalions prudent. But troops no longer advance
in column to be mown down by shot, as tbey did at Fontenoy and
Dettingen, but are taught to take every advantage of cover. At skcrt
ranges I doubt whether a scarlet tunic offers suchaverymuch better
mark than a green or grey, while at long ranges — place one of these
vaunted " arms of precision " in the hands of the average soldia,
British or foreign, and which will he hit the more easily, the man in
scarlet or the man in grey? Neither ; he will probably miss both.
Good marksmen, alas ! are rare, and though weapons/ mprove apace,
the men who are called upon to handle them do not keep pace with
science. Finally, then, I strongly advocate the general adoption bj
volunteer battalions of the regimental uniform. As a successful
experiment in this direction, I would point to the change from green
to scarlet lately made by the 4th volunteer battalion of the East
Surrey regiment, whose smart appearance attracted general atten-
tion and admiration at the recent Easter manoeuvres.

Again, the volunteer force is at this moment being supplied with
greatcoats, valises, mess-tins, haversacks, water-bottles, ef hoc genui
omne, and much is lefl to the discretion of commanding ofl^cers; but
it is to be hoped that the opportunity will not be lost of furnishing
each volunteer battalion with marching equipment similar in pattern
to that served out to its regular battalions.

The volunteer of to-day is a much more soldier-like figure than
his prototype of a quarter of a century ago, who on wet days appeared
in a civilian's over-coat or mackintosh, and sometimes, it is said,
with an umbrella. But what else could he do P The wonder is
that volunteers have managed to get on so long without great-coats.
There is no limit to volunteer ambition, if it is only allowed room to
expand. Many volunteer battalions are very fully organised, and
possess pioneers, signallers, brass band, fifes, drums, and buglers,
ambulance section, and sometimes also mounted infantry and cyclist
sections, and I venture to prophesy that the more closely the militia
and volunteers are permitted to assimilate themselves in dress,
equipment, and general organisation, to the line battolions, the more
efficient will they become, and the greater will be the esfrit de evrft
that animates the territorial regiments.

The Territorial System. 425

There is one point in which uniformity is of vital importance,
and that is in the matter of weapons. We had recently attained
such uniformity when men of all branches of the service were armed
with Martini-Henry rifles or carbines, but no sooner was that accom-
pUshed than the Government, in order to keep pace with foreign
nations, decided to re-arm the troops with a new *' magazine " or
repeating-rifle. Unfortunately, this process is going to be a very
slow one. The Germans are effecting the change at a great rate, but
John Bull is proverbially slow in his movements.

The brigade of Guards and a few battalions of the line are
armed with the new rifle, a crude and rudimentary-looking weapon,
full of knobs and excrescences, thereby oflering a striking contrast
to the smooth and finished appearance of the Martini-Henry. The
magazine rifle is in its infancy. Since the French adopted the Lebel
variety of this weapon, several great improvements have been made
upon it, and it is possible that long before the re-armament of our
troops is completed, a third type may have superseded both the
Martini-Henry and the present magazine rifle.

To arm several battalions which may be called upon to act
together in the field with diflerent patterns of weapon, of diflerent
calibre, and requiring diflerent kinds of ammunition, is to court
that confusion which it is so diflicult to avoid in warfare.

On the mapping out of the country into territorial districts, the
City of London had a regiment allotted to it. Why choice was made
of the Royal Fusiliers for this purpose is not very obvious, as they
had not any historical connection with the metropolis. The old 3rd
(Bufis), on the contrary, had some such connection, having been
formed originally from the London train-bands ; the latter regiment,
however, is allocated to East Kent. Then, again, it would have
seemed natural to associate with the " City of London Regiment,"
the ist, 2nd, and 3rd "London" corps of volunteers, but three
Middlesex corps were preferred.

The populous county of Middlesex, with its numerous and strong
corps of volunteers, had a single regiment only assigned to it. That
absorbed two militia battalions, viz. the Royal Elthorne and Royal
East Middlesex, and three metropolitan corps of volunteers, viz.
the 3rd, 2nd, and 17th Middlesex. The remainder were crammed
pell mell into the two English Rifle Regiments—the King's Royal
Rifles (late 60th), and the Rifle Brigade — which already possessed
4 battalions each, and which are not strictly speaking territorial
regiments at all. To the former are assigned the Huntingdon, Royal
and Middlesex, Carlow, and North Cork Militia, and the 2nd, 4th,

426 Th£ Gentleman's Magazine.

5th, 9th, 6th, ist, i2th, asth, J3th, 21st, and »nd Middlesex, and ist,
and, and 3rd London volunteer coips. To the latter are assigned the
Royal Longford, King's Own Royal Tower Hamlets and Westmeath
Militia, and the 7th, 14th, 26th, igtH, i6th, tSth, 19th, 20th, and 24th
Middlesex, and the ist and and Tower Hamlets volunteer corps 1
How can esprit de corps exist in such a congeries of atoms as this?

The South Metropolitan corps are most admirably distributed
between the two Surrey Regiments, which have four volunteer
battalions apiece — a sufficiently large proportion.

The counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire, whidi are very strong
in militia and' volunteers, have been especially favoured In the
number of regiments allotted to them. Their tides are somewhat
confusing. Thus we have the Lancashire Fusiliers, the East Lanca-
shire, the Loyal North Lancashire, the South Lancashire, the Royal
Lancaster, the York and Lancaster, the Yorkshire Light Infantry, the
Yorkshire, the East Yorkshire, and the West Yorkshire Regiments.

The table at the end of this paper will show at a glance the
elements of which the new regiments are composed. The first twenty-
five line regiments had two battalions each, but the remainder {with
the exception of the rifle regiments of four battalions each) had but
one, and hence the necessity for amalgamation. It is curious to
observe how the titles of two old regiments are sometimes combined
in order to form that of the new. Other titles, such as the Munster
Fusiliers, South Wales Borderers, and the Lancashire Fusiliers, are
entirely new.

Much that was picturesque and peculiar, especially in the matter
of facings, has been sacrificed under the new system. Purple, sky-
blue, black, and scarlet facings have disappeared altogether, and, as
has been already remarked, facings are now, as a rule, either blue or
white. Highland regiments which are not " Royal " retain their
yellow facings, and one red-coated Irish regiment, the Connaught
Rangers, wears facings of the national green. The two old rifle
regiments, and the two new ones, viz. the Cameronians and the
Royal Irish Rifles, wear uniforms of a dark-green, which is practically
indistinguishable from black. It is a pity that the Army List does
not supply further details of the uniform, and other particulars
relating to the various regiments. Such additional information would
lend increased interest to the pages of a work which is phenomenally
dry even for an official publication. I would go a step further, and
suf^est that the actual strength of the various corps should be stated
in that publication- It has always been the policy of those in
authority to keep the public very much in the dark as to this, and •!!

The Territorial System. 427

other matters connected with military affairs. Indeed, the ignorance
of the British public about their army is so great that it is sometimes
said, and not without truth, that the Germans know the strength and
details of the British army better than do the English themselves. If
it were not so this paper would be superfluous. But is it wise thus
to keep the public in the dark ? It is the public who are interested
in keeping up an effective army, it is the public who supply the
sinews of war, and it is the public who should be informed in what
lies the strength or weakness of the military system.

The cavalry, artillery, engineers, and Guards were not included
in the territorial scheme. The " Royal Regiment of Artillery " consists
of horse, field, mountain, and garrison artillery. To the latter
branch, with its numerous afhli^ted batteries of militia and volunteers,
the new system does not seem to be inapplicable. An experimental
application, however, seems not to have been successful, for the
garrison artillery has since been separated into three great divisions,
termed respectively the eastern, southern, and western, but why in
the name of all that is wonderful does the southem division include
the Highlands and Orkney, and the western division, Northumber-
land and Yorkshire ? One would be inclined to suspect that it was
a grim joke but for the fact that the compilers of the Army List (from
lack of imagination or some other cause), have never been known to
make a joke. It is not improbable that the immediate future may
see a reorganisation of the Royal Artillery.

The remarks contained in the foregoing pages are not by any
means exhaustive of the subject. It is a very wide field, and every
reader may be able to supplement, if not to combat those remarks.
I have merely endeavoured to call attention to some few points in
which, in my very humble opinion, the territorial system may be
improved. We have adopted that system neither rashly nor hurriedly,
but after mature deliberation. It is not perfect. We never reach
absolute perfection, and, unless we are enthusiasts, we never hope
to do so. But we may approximate to it. I am by no means an
advocate of violent and radical change, but we are all aware that,
in the affairs of the world, change is not only perpetual but inevitable
— tempora mutaniur nos et mutainur in illis— and nothing is more
dangerous, or tends more to violent revolution, than a cr)Stallised
attitude of mind, and a too close adherence to the routine of red
tape. A study of Nature teaches us that those constitutions and
organisms are most successful which lend themselves most readily to
the change of surrounding circumstances, or to use the conventional
phiasCi '' it is the fittest that survive/'

438

The Gentleman's Magazine.

TcrriEOiwI Ullei

Royal Scots LotbUn .

Qu«n's Royal Wcsl Surrey.
The Buffs, East Kent ,
King's Own Royal Lancaster
North umbeiland Fusiliers .
Royal Wanrick . . . .
Rofal Fusitieis (City of London) .

Norfollt

LincolDEhire ....
DevoQsbire. '. . . .

Suffolk

Prince Albert*! (Somerset L. L) .
Prince of Wales's Own West York
EuiYoikibire . . . .
Bedrord

Royal Irish

Princess of Wales's Own Yotk- f

Lancashire Fasilieis
Royal Scots Fusiliers .
Cheshire ....
Rc^l Welsli Fusiliers.
.South Wales Borderers
King's Own Scottish Boideieis
Cameron ians (Scottish Rifles)
Royal Inniskilling Fnsiliers .

East Surrey

Duke of Cornwall'

fantry . .
Duke of Wellington

■ ■ {

Lighl I„.|
.W.Eai.E{

Bolder . .

• {

Royal Sussex .

■ {

Hampshire. .

■ i

South Sufforf .

■ i

Dorsetshire.

■ {

Okt Titles

{,

BUck Watch. RoyalIlighIaiidera||

. Royal Scots

gueen's Royal
, Kenl. ■' The Buffs "

. King's Own Royal

.. Notthumb'land Fusiliers

I. Royal 1st Warwick

. Royal Fusiliers .

. King's.

I. East Norfolk

I, North Uncoln

. North Devon

. East Suffolk.

. lttSomersetP.A.'tL.I.

. BucIting'm.P.<ifW.'sOwn

. York, East Riding

i. Bedford

. Leicester

>. Royal Irish .

.. ist York, N. Riding, T
P. ofW.'sOwn /

I. East Devonshire .

. Royal Scots Fusiliers .

. Cheshire

.. Roynl WcUh Fusiliers .

.. and Warwick

. King's Own Border

I. Cameroniati.

I. PcrthshircVolunteersL.I,

. InniskiUirg .

''. Madras Infantry

i. North Gloucester

. South Gloucester

I. Worcester .

.. Hereford .

I. Cambridge .

. 2nd Notts ,

. Huntingdon.

'. Cornwall Light Infantry

1. South Devon

,. Duke of Wellington's .

.. Cumberland.

„ Westmoreland

;, Royal Sussex

. Bengal Inlanlry .

. North Hants

■. South Hnnts

;. 1st Stafford .

I. Stafford Volunteers

I West Norfolk '.

;. P. of W.'s Volunteers .

. Welsh.

I, South Lincoln

:. R.HighUod Black Watch

;, Perthshire . ,

Blue

Blue

Yellow

Yellow

Lincoln green

Veliow

Blue

Bnff

Yellow

Yellow

White

Blue

Grass green

Yellow

Blue

Butf

Blue

Grass green

Blue

Veliow

Yellow

Buff

Yellow

Grass green

Yellow

White

Buff

Black

While

Yellow

Scarlet

Scarlet

Yellow

Lincoln green

Blue

White

Yellow

Yellow

Yellow

Yellow

Grass green

Grafs ereen

Buff

VeUow

White

Lincoln ptta

Bine

Dukpecn

Tlic Territorial System.

Terrilorkl Tiil«

Old Tide.

0\i FadnsK

Oxford Ughl Infantry.

(

43

5*'

Monmouth L. Infantry.
Oxford Light Infanlry .

While

Buff

ElKX

{

44

East Essex .

Yellow

56.

West Essex . . .

Purple

Sherwood Fotetlen Derby .

{

4S
9S

Notts Sherwood Foresters
Derby.

Lincoln green

YeUow

Loyal North Lancahire .

{

47-
81.

Lancashire .

Loyal Lincoln Volunteers

While
Buff

ffoclhAmptoil .

{

48
58

Norlbamplon
Rutland

Buff
Black

Princes* Charloiie of Wales

^{

49.

Herts P.Charlolle of W.'s

Lincoln green

Royal Betlis .

66

Berks ....

Grass green

Queen's Own, Uoyal West Kenl |

50.
9?

Queen's Own . .
EaH of Ulster's . .

Blue
Sky-blue

King'j Own Yo.kshire Ligh

{

5'

2ndYk.W.Rid'g.K.O.L.l

Blue

lalantiy ....

loS

Madras Light Infantry .

Buff

KinE'j Shropshire Lighl Infawry |

11.

Shropshire .
BuetsVo!unleersK.L.r.

Scarlet
Blue

DulteofCambridee'sOwn Mid

J

57-

West Middlesex .

Yellow

illcsex ....

I

77-

East Middlesex .

Yellow

King's Royal Rifle Corps .

{

60.

King's Royal Rifle 1
Corps . , /

Uniform green
Facings scarlet

61.

99-

Wilu ....
Duke of Edinburgh's .

Buff
Yellow

Muchester

{

63.
96.

West Suffolk . .

Lincoln green
Yellow

Prince of Wales's North Stafford |

64. 2nd Stafford

98. Prince of Wales's.

Black

White

Vork and Lancaster .

{

84.

and York North Riding
York and Lancaster

White
Yellow

Duiham Lighl Infantry

68.
106.

Durham Light Infantry.
Bombay Light Infantry.

W^hile^'""

Highland Light Infantry .

I

7'-
74-

Highland Lighl Infanlry
Highlanders

Buff
While

Seaforth Highlanders, Ross-shire (

71.

DukeofA.'s Own High.

Yellow

Buffs, The Duke of Albany's

\

78.

Highlanders, Ross. Buffs

Buff

{

75.
9»-

Stirling

Gordon Highlanders .

Yellow
Yellow

Queen'a Own Cameron High

-f

79. Queen'sOwnCameronl

Blue

Undeis ....

1

Highlanders . J

Royal Irish Rifles . .

{

li:

County of Dublin.
Royal County Down .

Yellow

Blue

Princess Vicloria-s Royal Irish/j 87.

Koyal Irish Fusileers .

Blue

Fusiliers.

li89-

Princess Victoria's .

Black

Connaught Rangers .

{!S:

Connaught Rangers

Yellow
Lincoln green

Princess Louise's Argyll and f [ 91.

P. Louise Arg)ll it. '.

Yellow

ll 93.

Yellow

Prinee of Wales's Uinsiet, Royal f ; 100.

I*, of W.'s R. Canadian

Blue

Canadians

L'109.

Bombay Infantry .

White

Ro)-iil Munsler Fusiliers

f ,101.
l 104-

Kuyjl Bcngai Kiisiliers .

Blue
Dark blue

Royal Dublin Fusiliers

I 103.

\\.

nine
Blue

The Rifle Brigade. The Prine

n

tr-ifbnnerecn

Consort's Own. . .

/

430 Tlie GentUmads Magazine.

SEA-SORROIV.

ABOVE our head the stoim rack drives,
As madly sky with ocean strives,
While the stern rocks look on ;
One ne'er would deem
That, save in dream,

Here sunlight ever shone.
As momently the tumult lulls,
AVe hear the cruel shrieking gulls

That seem to mock our pain ;
But shoreward borne
To us that mourn

The loved voice ne'er again.
As feathers shows the soft white sptay,
A bed where men tired limbs might lay —
Ah ! cruel as the grave
Its iron grasp ;
From that close grasp

No love haih might to save.
They go down to the sea in ships.
Our kisses warm upon their lips :
It bears them out afar,
When dawn is red
To fling our dead

Across the moaning bar.
Kind earth's dead blossoms bloom again ;
Her buried seed yields golden grain :

But, ah ! what help may be,
Save on a far-off tideless shore,
That day when sea shall be no more,
To ease the smart
Of one whose heart

Lies buried in the sea ?

ISABELLA /, POSTOATE.

431

TABLE TALK.

Chained Books in Wimborne Minster.

ONE of the pleasantest of holiday excursions is that from
Bournemouth to Wimborne. The road has all the beauties
of pastoral England, and the minster, with its grand old Norman
arches, is a monument rich in historical interest. A special feature
in it is its possession of a library of chained books. Though inferior
to that in Hereford Cathedral — an exceptionally fine specimen of a
monastic library, with about two thousand volumes, of which nearly
fifteen hundred are chained — the library in Wimborne Minster, with
its two hundred and forty volumes, stands second in its class in
England. Very pleasant is it to turn out of the burning sunshine
into the calm of the quaint old library, which is situated over the
vestry and was formerly the treasure-house of the building. Chains
of rod-iron bent into a figure of eight, and about three feet in
length, are attached at one end to the cover of the book and at the
other run on an iron ring along an iron rod. These particulars and
other information I transmit arc taken from the account of " Books
in Chains,'* which, as Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5 of the Bibliographical
Miscellanies of the late William Blades, are issued by Messrs. Blades,
East, & Blades. At my own recent visit to Wimborne, though I
inspected the library, I had neither time nor energy to acquire for
myself the particulars which that indefatigable and zealous antiquary
communicates. A curious and cumbrous device was this of chaining
books. It served to prevent any theft of a volume introduced for general
reference, and as a means of hindering larceny mightcommend itself to
the jealous collector, who finds and mourns over an occasional loss
for which he cannot account. At what a cost, however, was the pro-
tection afforded ! In moving the volume to the old desks, long since
disappeared, for the purpose of consulting the contents, a fearful
wrench was given the binding ; the leaves, too, underwent all but
inevitable mutilation, and the condition of the volumes is frequently
deplorable. It is pleasant to see, however, what a passion for the
acquisition of knowledge prevailed, and to recall that fierce love of
learning which is o»^ '•«ince times.

43^ '^he GentleiHaiis Magazine.

Books in Chains generally.

IT is but natural that the books preserved in chains in various
places in England, now rapidly diminishing in number, should
be disappointing to the antiquary. Very earnest and conscientious
in their labours were the early Reformers, and any books imbued
with the "pestilent errors of Rome" were naturally removed or
destroyed. Not until the reign of " Bloody Mary " was over could
the collection be made, and this most frequently dates from subse-
quent times — some donations of chained books coming even into
the eighteenth century. The most munificent donations to Wiro-
bome even belong to 1697. Most of them are naturally theolog)*.
In the Wimborne library, Mr. Blades notices more than one work not
to be found in the British Museum. Bibles in Hebrew, Latin, and
English, works of the Fathers, general and ecclesiastical historians,
the works of Cicero, Plato, and Pliny, lexicons, &c, are in the
catalogue of Wimborne, and there is one illuminated MS. of the
fourteenth century. Among so many theological works, one is
surprised to stumble on more profane literature, represented by
Baker's " Chronicles of the Kings of England," Sir Thomas Browne's
"Vulgar Errors" and "Religio Medici," Burton's "Anatomy of
Melancholy," Camden's "Annals," a translation of Philip de Com-
mines, Evelyn's " The French Gardiner," Greenlove's " History of
the Netherlands," with the autograph " Sir Walter Rawley " ; the
Works of Machiavelli, Raleigh's " History of pngland," and Win-
stanley's " Lives of the most famous English Poets." About eighty
places are mentioned by Mr. Blades as having contained one or
.more chained books within the last half-century, and a list of all
the books in the various libraries is with commendable industry
compiled. One of the most common books in churches was the
" Acts and Monuments " of Foxe — more generally known as Foxe's
" Book of Martyrs." The perusal of the atrocities, real and allied,
which were perpetrated upon the Protestants, was supposed to fortify
the readers in the " true faith." The whole question of the survival
of chained books is of interest, and if any have escaped the notice
of Mr. Blades and inquirers thirty years ago in " Notes and Queries,"
it is desirable that they should be brought to light.

SVLVANUS urban.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

November 1890.

HUNTED.

By Ella Edersheinl
Chapter III.

IN WHICH THE HUNT IS CONTINUED.

ALREADY happy May was gone : May that makes fragrant the
tributary's banks with its own sweet bloom, and fills the
meadows with fritillaries ; May that decks the barges with thousands
of gay visitors, and lines the college chapels with a hushed and
solemn throng. June had hurried May out, nor was she behindhand
with allurements and adornments. The grave old city was running
over with young life and show of happy faces. Mothers, cousins,
aunts and sisters were all there, helping their dear ones little with
college exactions, indeed, but contributing largely to the complete-
ness of that most joyous time of careless youth.

In St. Bede's, however, most studious of studious colleges, it was
not the received fashion to invite or make welcome undergraduates'
womankind. This select body had always held itself aloof from
those mixed " musical societies '' and other evil tendencies encouraged
by the degeneration of the day. Men who were earnestly striving
for lasting fame in the schools could not allow themselves the dis-
traction of pretty faces and unenduring flirtation. St Bede's worked
harder and was less frivolous than any other college in the U*"
and it was proud of this distinction. Neverthelem
noised abroad that the Warden's wife intended t**
during the last week of term, not a few hi»
vou ccLzix. Ma 1919.

434 "^^ Gentlematis Magazine.

those learned walls to smite their possessors with a most unreasonable
tumult Not only had the Warden's two daughters always been
extremely popular in the college, but had not now the Warden foi
Tisitor Miss Juanita Le Marchant, the most lovely creature that had
ever dawned on undergraduate horizon, and whom already half the
University fell down and worshipped 1

The Warden's Lodgings were favoured by the possession of a
small but well-shaded garden. It was from this soft and andent
lawn that the laburnums had glittered in the springtime against the
windows of Mrs, Hawthorn's drawing-room. On two other sides
the garden was )»unded by the chapel and sundry other of the
college buildings. So overlooked, indeed, was it that it had been a
standing rule of the Warden's wise wife that but scanty use should be
made of this pleasaunce by her daughters. Too cool and sunless a
place it was for flowers to flourish there ; but it possessed a magni-
ficent acacia tree in the centre of its lawn, and at the northern or
further end ran a short terrace, sheltered by a double line of low-
growing plane trees. Far down beneath this terrace ran the quiet
waters of an offshoot of the river, and the stream itself was reached
from above by a flight of moss-grown and crumbling steps. The
college walls rose again grim and black over the water for several
hundred yards on cither side the terrace.

It was a still and sultry evening. Alt day angry black clouds
on banks of smeared yellow-ochre had hung low down over the city.
Mrs. Hawthorn and her daughters had sallied forth one hour before
to attend a scientific conversazione, and Juanita, glad to escapve the
hybrid monster produced by this union of learning and frivolity, had
pleaded a headaclie and remained alone behind. Now she took her
guitar and wandered out into the cool of the forbidden garden, the
sweep of her garments making soft rustle on the grass, dry even here
from the exceeding drought of the season.

Under the great acacia tree she found a garden-chair, and sit-
ting down she played and sang, softly and dreamily, and, as she
thought, to herself alone. But there was something in the listening
silence which disturbed her, and after a while she glanced uneasily
round. Immediately she became aware that the windows on one side
the garden were peopled with dark forms : the college, indeed, at this
moment was represented at those windows by at least half its members.

Personally Juanita was not at all disturbed by her discovery,
nor embarrassed at her audience. She remembered, however,
Mrs. Hawthorn's strict and well-defined rule, and she dreaded future
trouble. Yet she was loth to go inside the hous^ which geemed to

tiunted.

4J5

her to retain an accumulalion of the heavy thunder- weather of th«
day. Accordingly, though she ceased her music, she followed a
broad path of moonlight up to the more sheltered terrace, slitl hold-
ing in her hand the guitar. The waters beneath her twinkled and
murmured and tickled the lichened walls, and Juanita hung over the
parapet watching their gentle play.

Presently at her feet there fell a bunch of pure white roses. She
stooped and picked them up, and buried her face in their pure frag-
rance, and in an ecstisy of mere childish delight caught ihem into
her gown and hair. Then it struck her to look up.

From a window above Charles Graeme was leaning. She made a
little motion with her fan, perhaps in greeting, perhaps in acknow-
ledgment. But he interpreted it differently. For a moment he
disappeared, and then she saw him again at a window below. With
one swift movement he had displaced an iron bar, and in another
second had leaped out and stood beside her on the terrace.

In the course of the month which Juanita had already spent at
St. Bede's she had become well acquainted with this general favourite.

I Now she laughed towards him and then pointed to her flowers,
Itsking, " Was it you ? "
He nodded assent, and turned to look down with her on the
Btream below. Suddenly he cried, " Come I "
Following his beckoning obediently, she stood outside on the
broken steps. Then she saw that down below a forgotten boat lay
moored. Guided by some swift impulse she moved quickly down
' the steps and entered it after her companion. He hastened to
unloose the roiies and let her swing round and float, without stroke
from him, smoothly and slowly down the nanow stream. He sat facing
Juanita, but more mindful of the boat's course just now than of his
companion. By-and-by, however, when they were beyond the
college walls and where long willows rose on each side of them from
the hayfields, he said softly, " Sing to me."

she answered, " I will sing to you, I will sing the
Ipanish song you have made for me into English,"

Then Charles Graeme had the rapture of hearing his adored lend
,Uie music of her voice and hand to make poetry of his own poor
-words. Softly and Itngcringly fell the words of Juaniia's song on
the hushed night air,

SOSG.
I d (tamed I hut I lay dying.
My head ujiuii Ihy hncc.
Above It" •«»>'■ "''"l liehine

43^ "^^ Gentletnan's Magazitu.

I knew not which was breeze or Ihj brealh.
Or which more cruel, such lo»e and such dealh,

Oi a life wilhoul thee, without thee.

The dusk}' walls of heaven

Hung low and lower down ;

Hie stars shone hard and uneven

Like the lamps of b tangled lown.
The dew of death and the dew of the skies
Lay on my hair and brow and eyes.

My soul was no more my own.

T^ou stoop'ilst to kiss my mouth.

Thinking that I was dead^

Then I drank the wind from the Sootb

And the wine of life ran red :
1 caught thee and held thee and crowned thee there.
The wind for thy breath, the night for thy hair.

And the moon for thy glorious head.

When she had finished he could not speak, because he was so
much moved. Juanila asked to be taken home.

He leaned forward gazing dumbly at her, but still answering
nothing. Juanita grew a little alarmed.

" Take me back," she said earnestly. " Please uke me back,
Mr. Graeme. I think now that I ought not to have come."

For answer he kneeled in the boat and kissed the hem of her
dress. The moon shone on his white boyish face, and on the thick
lock of fair hair that fell across his forehead. Juanita became dread-
fully frightened.

" Oh ! I did not know that that was the way of the English,"
she half sobbed, wringing her hands together, and bringing them
across her face to close out the kneeling figure. " I thought they
were all hard, and cold — cold as death. Oh. take me back I Please
take me back, Mr. Graeme."

He smiled at hci beautifully as he rose and once more took the
oars.

" I did not mean to offend you ; don't be frightened," he said.
" I could not help myself ; but I shall not do it again."

He pulled the boat round, and with a few rapid strokes they were
once more at the steps.

"Jaanita I " cried a voice above.

Looking up they could distinguish the outline of the Warden's
wife through a thick disguise of cloak and wrap standing on the
terrace above them.

"JUANITA I"

The voice told its own tale of dismay, of anger, of outraged [ho*

Hunted. 437

priety, even although Mrs. Hawthorn gave no other vent to these sen-
sations. On the contrary her stifled voice now but repeated smoothly,
*' Juanita ! Come in, my dear,'' she added, " you will catch a cold
from the river mists at this hour of the nights No self-control could
have been proof against a fine emphasis on the last few words.

Juanita obeyed, ascending the steps slowly and deliberately.
Half-way up she paused to call a good-night to her boatman, and to
shake out her gown leisurely.

" I thought that you would be ever so much later, Mrs. Hawthorn,"
she remarked.

Now, was this innocence or devilry ? The Warden's wife could
not tell which the young girl's calm might indicate; and despis-
ing the one and fearing the other, she was at a loss to know on
which supposition to act.

" Juanita," she said, hoarse with the struggle to retain her com-
posure, when they stood together safely within the wide, lighted
hall, — "Juanita, my dear, are you aware that you have done some-
thing that is highly improper — most unbecoming? It is not
customary in England for a young girl ci^er to be alone with a young
man. I thought that the rule was even stricter on the Continent.
Is this not so?"

Juanita stood leaning her guitar on the massive, central, oaken
table, while she proceeded to tune the loosened strings of her in-
strument with minute attention. She glanced up from her occupa-
tion as she answered Mrs. Hawthorn suavely :

" Certainly, dear Mrs. Hawthorn, you are, as always, quite right
It is I who am in error. I had thought that here your customs were
quite different to ours. I knew that but yesterday you had sent Kitty
to sit alone with Mr. Canning, and to give him his tea, while that
we went out Did we not find them still together when we had
returned ? "

Mrs. Hawthorn could willingly have shaken her guest.

" That was very different," she said, with an attempt at dignity,
"altogether different. Mr. Canning is a — very intimate friend.
And, besides, Kitty was in her own home, and that alters matters."
How could she explain things more distinctly to such unreason-
ableness ?

" Ah, yes ! Now I understand ! " acquiesced the young girl
immediately. " In one's own home many forbidden things are per-
missible. I was in error ; pray forgive me."

Mrs. Hawthorn turned impatientlv
twelve.

438 Tha GentUmafis Magazine.

It vill hare been already gathered that this doudless summer wu
not without its anxieties for the Warden's wife. Juanita had, indeed,
brought into her life an element of quite unprecedented care.
Hitherto Mrs. Hawthorn had been the undisputed leader of fashion
in University society. Her restrictions had also been the restrictions
of her followers ; her lead might be, and was, unhesiutingly followed.
It was a responsible position ; but the Warden's wife had always
acted bravely up to it, and could now look back with a clear con-
science on her one- and- twenty years of absolute supremacy. It
seemed unfair — almost monstrous — that after two such decades of
serenity the vagaries of an absolute stranger should hazard the
authority of her name, using what was, after all, but a nominal
chaperonage as a cloak for escapades as unprecedented as they were
reprehensible. For this was not the first occasion on which Juanita
bad acted in a manner strongly to be condemned by every discreet
person. Mrs. Hawthorn could recall episodes which, but for the
unconscious bearing of the chief offender, might well have been
characterised as most shameless proceedings. Yet even more to be
deplored than the freaks and adventures calculated to bring her own
hitherto unimpeachable name under discussion, was the undeniable
and melancholy fact that her daughter Kitty was no longer regarded
as the acknowledged belle of the University. Men who had fonneriy
troubled both herself and even her plainer sister Sybil with their
attentions and admiration, now openly laid their homage at the young
foreigner's feet. Nor was this all. Mr. Canning's attitude, which
before the advent of this unwelcome stranger had been all that a
good parent could have desired, had lately been doubtful, not to say
unsatisfactory. Even her own nephew, Geoffrey Eankes, a young
man whom she had always credited with some common sense — the
birthright of the Bankes family— acted now in a manner often void
oi all propriety, making more to-do over this ridiculous slip of a
stroUing-singe):'s girl than she had been the Queen of Sheba. The
older men were quite as silly as the younger. Her own husband
was simply led by the nose by Juanita, and Professor Wheadey behaved
like an old fool. Insinuation she had tried, su^estions and dark
hints, but all failed to have any effect on the infatuated victims ; her
husband reproved her, and the others ignored her words. Mis.
Hawthorn had completely lost patience with the whole of them.

The ball which the Warden's wife had decided upon giving not
altogether from those disinterested motives for which the younger
members of St Bede's applauded her, was now more matter of
■eriouB than of pleasant anticipation. In her i»esent deprcMed

Hunted.

439 1

Bition she dared no longer allon- herself to hope, as she had

originally planned, thai Canning would take this opportunity to come
forward and claim the hand of her elder daughter ; and even Mr
Radley, whose excellent parts had plainly indicated him as a worthy
partner for her good Sybil, seemed of late to have become even
more taciturn and self-contained than of old. In such case the ball
which was to have led to such brilliant results would be a mere use-
less expenditure, and Mrs. Hawthorn had often to struggle against
her impatience with the girls' innocent delight in the preparations.
It was indeed hard that even from her own daughters she could
receive no intelligent sympathy ; that they should not have more
understanding than to suppose that their mother would invite and
feed some three hundred persons merely for the pleasure of seeing
them dance round on their toes like peasants at a fair.

The eventful night at last arrived. In spite of her gloomy fore-
bodings, Mrs. Hawthorn had spared no effort which might contribute
to the success of her ball. She had never before given one, and she
was determined that the entertainment should mark an epoch. With
far-seeing prudence she had grudged no outlay on minor details,
which she knew to be by far the most important in stamping the
general effect. There was but one quality of champagne, and that
the very be.'^t, and it flowed copiously. All day the girls, with the
willing assistance of Geoffrey Eankes, Harry Latimer, Charles
Graeme, and others, had spent in oudining the carven oak and
Gothic windows in delicate tracery of green. The dais of the hall,
banked with flowers, was set apart for light refreshment, and the
smaller common-rooms which led from thence by narrow winding
stairs were dedicated to " sitting out." A large class-room was to be
utilised for the supper, and the celebrated Bang band had been
engaged for the occasion.

Kitty was looking her best in a faultless creation of soft gray silk-
Mrs, Hawthorn shuddered at the remembrance of the bill. Like a
bold speculator she had risked much on her venture, but now she
was in some trepidation. Sybil, as befiited a di&ulante, appeared
in spotless white. As the two girls stood together in the drawing-
room of their own home, pirouetting before their mother for the all-
important last touch, Juanita joined them.

Even Mrs. Hawthorn, knowing as she did that the young girl's
nimble fingers had manufactured her own costume, was startled by
the exceeding loveliness of the apparition. The slight hthe figure
seemed to be wrapped in sunset clouds, from which the pure throat
alone emerged bare, fit pedestal for a perfect head. The delicate

440 The Gentlemaiis Magazine.

features were faintly flushed — Mrs. Hawthorn could not believe from
excitement, since Juanita appeared as usual totally unmoved, but
perhaps with the reflection of her draperies. In the masses of her
dusky hair she had fastened some late acacia blossom, and as she
stood there she looked like an incarnation of spring, or as if the
goddess of dawn had descended once more amongst men. Her
small feet were plainly visible, and she wore gold and silver bangles
on her ankles and her round bare wrists. The Warden's wife felt
that such unconventional beauty was sinful, unearthly, strongly to be
deplored.

It did not take long to decide who, of all the fair young women
present, was to be the belle of the ball ; that, indeed, had been with
the majority of judges already a foregone conclusion. Yet not one
of Juanita^s many admirers had ever before seen her half so lovely
nor half so animated as she appeared on this night. As a rule the
young girl was languid almost to inertness ; silent, her detractors
would have said, to stupidity, but that it was impossible that one so
responsive in gesture and expression, if not with tongue, could be
accused of denseness. Perhaps it was, indeed, this habitual but
suggestive silence which, in a land where women are accustomed to
think and speak clearly, made so peculiar an attraction. It was all
the more remarkable also because when she did speak her words
were piquant and to the point. To-night, however, Juanita was
found to laugh and chat with the gayest. Mrs. Hawthorn had
cherished a lingering hope that the girl's foreign mode of dancing
might detract from her generally graceful appearance and movements.
But she was now fain to own to an enthusiastic and tactless guest
that Miss Le Marchant's manner of dancing might compare favourably
even with that of her own highly-trained and proficient daughters,
and that the brilliant stranger had never appeared to such advantage
as in the testing waltz. She also remarked with bitterness that Mr.
Canning had been foremost amongst the crowd who immediately
upon her entrance had solicited Juanita's partnership. The Warden's
wife reflected with a sigh that only James Radley remained "unbitten,"
and that his escape was probably but attributable to the fact that
he did not dance. Still she kept him beside her in grateful acknow-
ledgment of his disaffection and steady head.

As with a lingering look Charles Graeme released her, Juanita
sank down on the sofa whence the Warden's wife was keenly watching
the proceedings of the evening. The girl bore none of the usual
marks of two hours* steady dancing. The flowers in her hair were
unshattered and ber gown was as neat as at first She seemed not

Hunted. 44 1

even to have warmed with her exercise. There was something un '
natural and yet beautifully harmonious in the order of her appearance.
She opened her fan, and waving it gently turned to the silent Radley.

"Do you not dance, Mr. Radley?" she said.

The few who were standing round laughed, so that Radley
answered even more curtly than usual : " No, I do not."

She arched her eyebrows, and made a little movement with her
head before she spoke again.

Then she said : " Then you will sit out with me. I am tired of
dancing and should like to rest"

She held out her hand towards his arm without waiting for an
answer, and rising turned to laugh up at the towering figure of
Latimer, who stood by with a most woebegone expression of
countenance.

" Oh ! I know it is your polka, Mr. Latimer," she said, " but I
am so tired, and you — you cannot be. Sybil has one empty situation
just now : go and ask her."

She moved forward and walked down the hall with Radley, and
many seeing him sorely envied him.

Far other than those of satisfaction or elation were, however,
Radley's reflections. All the evening he had been vaguely angry
with himself because, to his own disgust, he had continually arrested
his eyes in the act of wandering round and round the room with the
beautiful floating figure of the girl who was now beside him. What
was he, a man, a Christian and a worker, that he should be allured by
this unholy fascination which had fallen upon other men; that he should
be distracted by mere carnal beauty ? He believed very strongly in
the existence of the devil. He was more than half inclined to think
now that Miss Le Marchant might be some special incarnation which
the wicked one was using for purposes of temptation, some " false
Florimel," some nineteenth-century Circe. When Juanita had asked
him to sit out with her he would certainly have sternly repulsed her
but for very shame of the presence of the bystanders, and because
she did not allow him time for assent or dissent. He was certain
that she intended to draw him into her toils ; to bind him hand and
foot as her victim ; to feed her vanity on the living heart of her prey.
From the first she had in his imagination singled him out for her
particular attention, and her subsequent conduct towards him since
that little dinner ixirty in the Warden's lodgings had tended to
strengthen this fancy. At the same time that he was shamefully
conscious of the attraction of her almost superhuman beauty he
thoroughly despised her. - - "^♦»» shallow fmd worth-

44^ ^>^ Gentleman's Magazine.

less. He disapproved of her also, holding her conduct towards
himself and others to be uniformly forward and unwomanly. He
even hated her — but that was at the times when he felt that he was
not master of his own impulses in her presence.

Gloomy and silent Radley did not attempt to divert his self-
imposed partner as they sat together in a draughty passage, and he
it was who proposed, almost before the polka was over, that he should
take her back to Mrs. Hawthorn. Juanita consented, but half-way
up the hall she slipped from his grudging arm, and he saw her stand-
ing to enrapture Professor Wheatley's vision. Radley turned sharply
away.

" The old fool ! " he thought to himself. " At his years to be
squandering his time in a ball-room, and dangling in the meshes of
an enterprising adventuress ! But am I not quite as much a fool ?
What business have I in this stronghold of Satan ? I will get me
home to my Bible and to my study "

Nevertheless he was content to form these pious resolutions
leaning up against a doorway, and by no means hurrying to carry
them into effect

Towards early morning Radley, who had consumed the interven-
ing hours in futile self-protest and discontent, once more found
himself near Juanita. The girl was surrounded by quite a little
throng of young men, their tongues evidently unloosed by champagne
and exercise, all loudly clamouring for the bestowal of some favour.

" No, no, no, no ! " she answered laughing, letting her dark eyes,
radiant and glowing, pass from one to the other of them, and with
each monosyllable ticking off the gentleman indicated by her head
with an accompanying movement of her fan. ** Those that ask do
not get, as you yourselves say." Her fan and her eyes reached
Radley and paused on him, and an extraordinary and incomprehen-
sible change passed rapidly over her variable countenance. They
all waited breathless for her decision.

" It is Mr. Radley," she announced at last clearly, " Mr. Radley
who is chosen. Mr. Radley, who never asks.**

There was a strong murmur of discontent, while Radley, without
attempting to suppress a touch of irony, inquired stiffly the position
to which he had the honour of being elected.

Juanita, ignoring or unobservant of the satire of his tone, continued
to look at him with unclouded eyes.

" You have the honour of being elected the giver of a river picnic,"
she answered. **The picnic takes place to-morrow, which is to-day,
and the boats are to start from the Warden's garden at two o'clock,"

idy some of the little crowd had fallen disappointedly away,
id Juanita glanced at those remaining with what might in a smaller
less soft eye have been described as a twinkle.
" But 1," she resumed, looking once more direct at Radley, and
■eeming to hold his whole protesting self entirely powerless in her
gaze, " but I it is who am to invite the guests. All our own party
re bidden, of course ; and Professor Wheatley, and Mr. Canning,
id Mr. Bankes, and Mr. Graeme, and Mr. Latimer," making little
}>ows in the direction of each of these gentlemen. Then she dropped
I eyes abruptly, and, thus released, Radley would have spoken, but
that she was already lost among the throng.

" Radley," said Canning impressively, as about an hour later they
paced together smoking in the Fellows' garden, "you ate an
incommonly lucky man, I could tell you of at least fifty who at this
XQoment would willingly stand in your shoes."

Radley tossed back his head with a kind of snort.

"If you refer to the position in which Miss Le Marchant has
placed me," he said in a low angry voice, " the fifty are very welcome
to my shoes, so long as the young lady is included in the bargain.
I do not want her : I do not wish to have anything to do with her.

she — she persecutes me, she thrusts herself on me, she literally
liunls me down 1 She behaves in a manner which is a disgrace
to womankind."

The deep intensity of his voice allowed no doubt of the serious-
ness of his words.

"Radley ! " was all his friend could ejaculate.

To the onlooker it had seemed only as if the beautiful and
popular stranger had bent a little from her pedestal in kindness to
this solitary don. But Radley, conscious only of his fame in that
world of his own in which he habitually lived, and his superiority
all other of his competitors in it, was not even aware that socially
he was generally " out of it," and that there lay upon him In the
drawing-room world a shadow — slight, indeed, but still definite. It
was not for Canning to enlighten him now by calling attention to
Juanita's condescension. Nevertheless, such candid and mistaken
vanity grated on his fine sense of what was fitting: he longed to snub
Radley,

His thoughts may have been divined, for Radley pursued his
tubject, breathlessly anxious to convince perhaps even himself

" I dare say you may think me conceited, and all that sort of
thing. Canning," he said; "but I

i

444 '^^ GentUntafis Magazine.

affair has long outstepped the region of accident, and is evidently
part of a carefully-devised plot I will give you a proof of what I
say. You may remember the luncheon-party which I had to give the
Hawthorns, the end of last month. You were there yourself. Well,
do you recollect that Miss Le Marchant asked me, very pointedly, in
a pause in the general conversation, what were my favourite flowers ?
I am not observant, and I had not noticed what the young lady herself
was wearing, or I should never have answered as I did, truthfully
enough, that I preferred violets."

Canning nodded his head. He quite remembered the incident,
and had at the time been surprised at the question, but still more so
at the unexpected aptness of his friend's rejoinder.

"Well," continued Radley, drawing nearer and dropping his
voice mysteriously, " could you believe it ? That . . . that girl had
actually the face to leave behind her on my writing-table her large
bunch of Parma violets ! "

At this tremendous denouement Canning could not help laughing,
both because the manner of the other was so tragic and indignant,
and because the impotent disgust of all this protest indicated a depth
of interest unwarranted by the importance of the subject

" I really think that you are over-estimating yourself, Radley," he
replied frankly. " Don't be offended with me, old fellow : but what
should induce Miss Lc Marchant to set her cap so determinedly as
you fancy at you in particular out of all the University ? There's
Lord Fanshawe, and Bigby, the millionaire's son, and Graeme — his
father's a baronet — and they and lots of others are all at her feet
Oh ! I know they're not so clever as you by a long way. . . . But
then, young ladies think sometimes of other things besides brains.
. , . And I can't believe that she left you her flowers on purpose.
It would have been very kind and sweet of her if she had, but that's
not her way. Probably they merely dropped out and she did not
miss them."

They had stopped at one of the narrow passages leading into the
quad, and now stood facing each other. Radley regarded Canning
coldly.

" You altogether misunderstand me," he said, and a curious blue
blush stained his pale cheeks. " I do not wish to insist that the
young lady is in love with me. I do not give her credit for being
capable of any such generous sentiment. Did you not hear of her
escapade with Graeme the other night? The whole college is
ringing with it. And yet, though they all continue to adore her, not
one of tbem gives her the justiflcatiop of supposing that she r^tumy

Huntea,

445

his infatuated passion. No ! Miss Le Marchant is incapable of love.
But what I do think is that she is playing the very devil with all you
fools — yes, with the old as well as with the young ; and that in her
insatiable vanity she wishes to add me to the number of her victims.
But that she shall never do. By Heaven ! I swear she shall never
doit!"

His voice was shaken by irrepressible passion. He turned on his
heel abruptly, ashamed of his outburst, and went straight into his
own rooms. Canning, looking after him contemptuously, shrugged
his shoulders.

(To he concluded.)

44^ The Gmtlemaiis Maga^ne.

ENGLISH PLAYERS IN PARIS.

IT has not been exactly deterroined who was the first En^iih
actor to visit France in a professional capacity. The event
may be assumed to have taken place at an early date in the history
of our drama, seeing that a troop of players from our shores bad
visited Germany before 1600. Another company under Marlowe
performed there for a considerable period about twenty-sbt yean
afterwards. We know too that Will Kempe, whom Shakespeare had
in his eye when admonishing the clowns in " Hamlet," visited
France, Germany, and Italy in 160T. His reputation for extempmal
wit had preceded him ; but, beyond his jibing as a morris-dancer,
there is no record of his having appeared, in the vocation of an
actor, abroad. As a matter of fact, few of the many illustrious
English players who from time to time honoured France with their
presence ever thought of exercising their profession in that country.

About the end of the year i75r Manager Rich, of Covent
Garden Theatre, gave Mrs. Gibber a commission to visit Paris and
secure for him the services of Signor Maranesi, Signora Bugiani, and
o:her celebrated dancers of the time, whose fame had reached the
ears of the pantomimically-inclined autocrat. While arranging
matters in the gay city the actress saw a Mule idyllic play which hit
her fancy ; so much so, indeed, that, on her return, she adapted it
for her benefit under the title of "The Oracle," As performed on
the 17th March, 1752, the piece, according to an eyewitness, was
" very prettily executed, and not only gave great pleasure at the first
representation, but even continued for a considerable time after-
wards a standard theatrical collation."

Leaving London in the autumn of 1763 to pass a couple of years
of voluntary exile on the Continent, by way of visiting condign
punishment on a public grown indifferent to his genius, Garrick
found Paris ready to receive him with open arms. Plays in which
he expressed interest were revived at his mere suggestion, tod
many old actors came out of their retirement to give him a taste of
their quality. Socially be was worshipped to his heait^ <

English Players in Paris. 447

e noteworthy supper party, when Marmontel and d'Alerabett
: present, little Davy quite eclipsed the charming impression
L by Mademoiselle Clairon in a scene from " Athaiie " by his
rendering of the curse in " Lear," the dagger scene in " Macbeth,"
and the somnolency of Sir John Brute. Apart from this Garrick,
throughout his lengthened sojourn on the Continent, seems to have
striven to keep his profession somewhat too obtrusively in evidence.
It is to be hoped that very little veracity attaches itself to the many
anecdotes told of his mimetic efforts in the presence of Preville, the
admired French actor. Assuming the entire truth of the relation,
such exhibitions were feeble proof of the possession of high histrionic
powers ; and " showing off," as the modern schoolboy would term

fe; grimacings, is surely far from commendable in an artist of
Hired reputation. How different the port and bearing of John
mble, who, after quitting Drury Lane, went on a similar holiday
nr through France and Spain in 1802 I Sinking the actor for the
time being, Kemble greatly disappointed tout Paris when sojourning
there in July by appearing only in his true character of the thoughtful
and reserved gentleman. Many, however, soon grew with Talma to
admire the stately grace of the English tragedian. He was to!d of
his likeness to the great Napoleon, one of whose hats was presented to
him " that he might judge of the comparative capacity of their heads."
emble saw httle to admire in French histrionic methods ; but, hke
anick, he kept bis eyes widely open, and to the con tinentaltour of both
e English stage owed many material improvements in mUe en seine.
Born in Marylcbone in 1797, of an Italian father and a German
Other, Madame Vestris, by right of her professional associations,
Ust certainly be numbered among English actresses. After her
ffly marriage with Armand Vestris, she took a few lessons in singing,
td appeared for her husband's benefit at the King's Theatre on
sly ao, 1815, as Proserpina in Winter's beautiful opera, "II Katto
[ Proserpina" — a role originally composed for the incomparable
gCBSsini. When at her husband's instigation she elected to appear
I the Th^tre Italien, Paris, on December 7th, 1816, the same opera
IS chosen for her d^hut. On that occasion Mrs. Dickons, a
routite English actress, sang as Ceres. Somewhat qualiiied must
Ive been Madame Vestris's success at the Theatre Italien, as her
jearances there were neither frequent nor important. The same
ry has to be told of her subsequent performances in drama at
Iier of the Parisian theatres. Early in 1820 she returned to Urury
ane, and from that period onwards ^remained steadfastly true to
the country of ber birth.

448 Tlu Genileman's Magazine.

Edmund Kean paid two visits to Paris, a period of well-nigh a
decade intervening. The reception accorded him socially, when
accompanied by his wife during the autumn of 1818, was much the
same as that vouchsafed to Gairiclc and Kemble. Talma, whose
acquaintance he had made previously in London, gave a banquet in
his honour at which all the principal members of the Theatre
Fran^ais assembled to see their illustrious English confrere presented
with a gold snuff-box. Unlike John Kemble, Kean conceived a very
favourable impression of the French actors, and found no terms too
glowing to express his admiration of Talma's acting as Orestes. Of
his second visit we shall treat presently. To arrive at the reasons
which prompted him to appear in Paris in his professional capacity,
it is necessary to see what had happened in the interim.

English playgoers of sixty years ago had reason to feel thankful
for the visit which Fanny Kelly made to Paris during the autumn of
1819. Much against the wishes of her father, the Captain, this young
girl of sixteen had taken to the boards at Cheltenham in the June
previous. After much difficulty, her worthy parents removed her
from the theatre and packed her off to Paris, ostensibly to improve
her pronunciation, the real intention, however, being to weaken her
dramatic bias by an entire change of surroundings. Unlucky project!
Not long after her arrival in Paris Fanny became acquainted with
the great Talma, before whom she gave recitals from Shakespeare,
receiving such unqualified praise in return as to make assurance
doubly sure that she had not mistaken her calling. Thus it was that
the loss to the domestic circle proved a gain to the stage.

Notwithstanding the social amenities of representative actors like
Edmund Kean and Talma, the artistic relationships of England and
France sixty years ago and later were on anything but stable basis.
For instance, when a band of English players attempted at the.Porte
St. Martin Theatre in July and August, 1822, to perform several of
the plays of Shakespeare— some four or five of whose works had
previously been vilely adapted to the French stage by Ducis — they
met with violent opposition from an organised gang of turbulent
spirits. Night after night they were hooted from the stage amid a
storm of jeers, such as " Speak French ! "and "Down with Shakspeare;
he is one of Wellington's aides-de-camp!" English playgoers before
and after that period were equally narrow-minded. This much in
all fairness must be noted when we hark back to the storm of in-
dignation which assailed Garrick for daring to present some Frendi
dancers in " The Chinese Festival," and when, coming to more recent
times, we remember us of the famous " Monte Cristo " riots.

English Players in Paris. 449

The famous T. P. Cooke, who had joined the Adelphi company
in October 1825, repaired to Paris on the closing of that theatre, and
appeared at the Pone St. Martin for eighty successive nights in his
powerful and extraordinary conception of " X-e Monstrc." As one
result of" Tippy's " great success, Daniel Teny, then copartner Kith
Vales in the management of the Adelphi, conceived the idea of
opening an English theatre in the French capital, and at once asked
his friend Sir Walter Scoii's opinion on the subject. In reply, Scott,
according to Mr, Edmund Yates's " Reminiscences," having first
confessed himself alarmed at the subject of Terry's letter, went on to
say: "I doubt greatly whether the Paris undertaking can succeed.
The french («V) have shown a disinclination to l-^nglish actors ; and
for the British Ihey are, generally speaking, persons who care little
about their own country or language while they sojourn in a foreign
counir)-. There are about twenty-five or thirty theatres in Paris
already, and 1 fear it would be a very rash speculation to erect or
open another .... And a London and Paris theatre sounds very
like playing for a gammon, which may be the noblest, but is seldom
the wisest game." Since that date several attempts have been made
to establish a permanent English the.itre in Paris, but all without
exception proved egregious failures.

The year 1827 saw France invaded by quite an army of brilliant
English players, who set up the standard of Shakespeare in the country
of frigid classic tragedy. Abbott's company gave their first per-
formance at the Odcon en September 6, 1827, when Liston played
Bob -Acres in " The Rivals," to the Sir Anthony of Chippendale and
the Lydia Languish of Miss Smithson. But war was not declared
until the Tuesday following, when Charles Kemble, as Hamlet, and
" la llclle Smidson," aroused in full the enthusiasm of the new literary
school which had for leaders Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas.
Donaldson has well said that the fate of the English drama in Paris
hung at this period on an actress who for six years had been kept in
obscurity at Drury Lane. It was certainly strange that the woman
who never got beyond " walking ladies" in London, owing to her
pronounced county Clare accent, should have been hailed with every
token of unbounded enthusiasm in the French capital. What in the
ooc country was spoken of as an obnoxious brogue was raved about
in the other as the soul of melody. Unable to comprehend the reason
of this wholly unexpected success, Abbott brought over an established
English favourite in the person of the bewitching Maria Fooie, only to

I, after her appearances in " 'Hie Belle's Stratagem," " The School

VOU CcmiX. NO. 1-)I9, •• M

450 The GeniUmatis Maganne,

for Scandal," and " 'ITie Wonder," that the French considered her a
feeble imiutor of their idol !

On the removal of Abbott's company to the Salle Favart oq
October 4, Miss Smithson drew crowded houses for twenty-five
nights by her impersonation of Jane Shore, and subsequently appeared
with unvarying success as Portia, Belvidera, and Cordelia. After
losing their heads and hearts over her Ophelia, the town was
unanimous in reckoning Charles Kemble's Othello quite subsidiary
to hci Desdemona. When she took her benefit the stage iras
absolutely smothered in flowers. Presents were sent in galore;
amongst others a handsome douceur from Charles X., and a Sne
Stvies vase from the Duchess de Berri.

Subsequently Abbott's company went on a provincial tour which
proved disastrous to their financial resources. After visiting Rouen,
Havre, Orleans, and Bordeaux the company suddenly disbanded,
most of the members returning at once to England. Early in 1818
Harriet Smithson acted in Paris with Macready, her] popularity—
notwithstanding an occasionally feeble performance — then being
practically undiminished. From that we lose sight of her until the
year 1835, when she proved the truth of Sir Walter Scott's counsel to
Terry by her attempt at establishing a permanent English theatre in
Paris. What little capital she had was speedily swamped in thi)
unlucky venture. Poor Smithson! She retired from the stage, mar-
ried her persistent admirer. Hector Berlioz, and after eight years of
continued unhappiness, separated in 1840. The despised of I>rut>'
Lane was not without her influence on the French stage. Jules Jania
has told us how Rachel as a child was present at her farewell per-
formance, and once said to him in pointing to a portrait of the .Smith-
son as Ophelia, " Voilk une pauvre femme \ qui je dois beaucoup ! "

But we anticipate. Concerning the performances of 1827 Charles
Kemble was wont to relate how the French understood little or
nothing of the language uttered, but expressed themselves highly
delighted with the fine situations and tumultuous action. Once in
conversation with an enthusiastic admirer the Frenchman said to
him with great vivacity, " Othello ! voilh, voili, la passion, la tragMiel
Que j'aime cette pifece ! il y a tant dc remue-mina^e ! " [" There,
there's passion for you, and tragedy ! How I love that play ! There
is so much of a rumpus in it."] Very opportune for the cause of the
romanticists was this audacious incursion of the English players.
Had it not been for the enlightenment effected by their performances
it is doubtful whether Victor Hugo, in that memorable call to anna,
the "Preface de Cromwell," would have dared to deny Sacme
dramatic honouis, while placing Shakespeare upon "rhn hi|hrtf

English Players in Paris,

poetic altitude of modem times." We know, too, that the English
players had no stauncher admirer than Alexandre Dumas, who made
it a point of seeing everything they produced, and subsequently
placed on record the great intellectual benefit he had derived from
seeing real passions moving men of quick vitality.

While literary and artistic Paris was being thus excited Balfe, not
yel out of his teens, was taking singing lessons there at the instigation
of Rossini. The great maestro, after hearing him sing in private, had
recommended him to the direction of the Italian opera in Paris. It
was his desire that the youthful Irishman should succeed the famous
baritone Pellegrini, then fast declining into the sere and yellow leaf,
Ealfe al once placed himself under the care of Bordagni, who was
charmed with the flexibility and compass of his pupil's voice. In less
than twelve months from commencing to take lessons Balfe had made
his first appearance at the Theatre des Italiens as Figaro in Rossini's
"11 Barbiere." Sontag was the Romia and Bordagni himself the
Almaviva. The opera was repeated nine times. Ijurenl, the manager,
induced the dtbutant to sign articles forthwith for a terra of three
years at a gradually increasing salary. Thus it was that Balfe achieved
distinction as a vocalist long before he became known to fame as the
composer of "The Bohemian Girl."

Macready's first appearance on the French stage was made at the
Theatre Italien, April 7, 1828, when he played Macbeth to a crowded
house, numbering among its components the Duke of Orleans and
the Duchess de Bern. Miss Smithson gave the tragedian but feeble
support as Lady Macbeth, but the " Macdulph" of Abbott, as Jules
Janin called it, was described by that critic as " pur, correct, et 6\i-
gam." There were no two questions about the success of Macready,
who was said to have paralleled the featof I.ekain, and, while possess-
ing neither voice, deportment, nor physiognomy, to have rivalled the
brilliance of Talma, upon whom nature had lavished all. Alter giving
about ten performances, four of which were in " Virginius," Mac-
ready returned to London late in April.

Notwithstanding the liberal education in English histrionic
methods which the Parisian public had now received, they do not
seem to have fully appreciated the robust, passionate acting of
Edmund Kean when he appeared at the Theatre Italien (Salle Favart)
in the following May. As Maria Foote is to Harriet Smithson, so is
Kean to Macready : thus ran their reasoning.

By way of marking Iiis disapproval of the cold reception meted
out to him on making his first appearance as Richard III., the trage-
dian repaired at the time of op'"' '" the Caf^

la

452 The Gentleman s Magazine.

Anglais, and well nigh succeeded in drinking himself ^o sleep
the manager, half distraught by the clamours of a crowded au<
could leam of his whereabouls. Under the circumstances his im]
sonation of Othello on that evening fell very much below his ui
brilliant standard. Subsequently, however, his Shylock created
most profound impression, a thrill of horror passing through
house at the deadly realism mth which the Jew sharpened his I;
upon his sleeve in the trial scene. His impersonation of Lear loo,
Nahum Tate's acting version, attracted considerable attention,
evoked a special translation of the tragedy issued, " conforine
representations donnees i Paris, 1828." Entertaining the laoat \
found contempt for the intelligence of the French, and longing
return to the land where even his caprices and freaks were palliati
Kean made a thin audience the pretext for suddenly throwing upl
engagement. Macready, on the other hand, returned to the
immediately after the termination of his Drury Lane engagement, a
putting forth his best powers gave eight performances in the monl
of June and July with unquaUfied success. Mr. ^Villia[ll Archi
in his recently published " Life," quotes from the critic of theyiutn
dei Debals, who says, " At his entrance as \\'illiain Tell, and mt
than thirty times during the performance, salvos of applause
to him that a French pit has ears for the language of truth in wbl
ever idiom it may be couched. Protracted acclamations poisui
him even after the fall of the curtain," On the occasion of his li
performance as Othello a considerable number of excited Frenchtne
ignoring the regulation whereby actors were forbidden to a[^
before the curtain, invaded his dressing-room, bore him bodilf in
the orchestra, and thence lifted him over the footlights. Plomil
themselves on having cut the Gordian knot, the enthusiastic bai
made the most of the situation, and proceeded to bestow upon Ma
ready a series of embraces, which the great man complaceni
accepted. Ludicrous enough from an English standpoint, the in(
dent was rendered all the more comic by the fact that not a few 1
the impulsive ones took away a slight memento in the shape of [laii
from the dusky Moor's countenance.

Taking advantage of the Anglomania which pervaded Pari* I
1827, an attempt (the first of its kind) was made in that eventii
year to create in the French niind a taste for the buffooneries 1
British harlequinade. Southey, a tolerably good clown, and tHQtbi
of the poet, was induced to perform at Franconi's Cirque in compal
with Ellar and Tom Blanchard, the popular harlequin and pant^M
of the lime ; but their success was not very remarkable. Soa

English Players in Paris.

fifteen years afterwards, M. Roqueplan, director of the Vari^t^s,
acting on the advice of Alfred Bunn, engaged the famous clown Tom
Matthews and several other English pantomimists to appear at his
theatre in a comic pantomime entitled " Arlequin Chasseur." All
went well until the third Sunday of their engagement, when, notwith-
standing the fact that a crowd of people awaited the opening of the
doors with eager expectation, H. Roqueplan considered the intense
heat — the month being August— sufficient excuse for not giving the
usual performance. This explanation jirovcd so far unsatisfactory that
it became bruited about that the bright particular Joey of (he troop had
declined to perform from religious scruples. And not all the public
protestations of the manager that the company had given multiplied
proofs of their zeal and fulfilled their contract with loyalty and exact-
ness, could dissipate the bad impression made by the ingenious fable
of some cynica\ ^utieur. But passages at arms of this trifling nature
arc quickly forgotten. Eleven years afterwards (or in the spring of
1853) the jovial Tom Matthews journeyed once more to Paris to
double Hudibras and clown at the Porte St. Martin Theatre in the
Drury Lane pantomime of " Harlequin Hudibras " and quickly
became as popular there as an English clown could hope to be in
the land of the pale-faced Pierrot.

Undaunted by the peculiar reception given to some of the plays
of Shakespeare in 1828, when the appearance of the witches in
" Macbeth " created roars of laughter, and the cauldron scene
caused a mystified Frenchman to howl out "O mon Dieu, quel
melange," Macready was sufficiently satisfied with his success then
to return to the assault late in the year 1844. Happily for the
success of the venture he took with him Miss Helen Faucit and
several other prominent actors, Charles Dickens was in Paris when
the company first appeared at the Salle Ventadour (a house usually
given over to Italian Opera) and was present at the rehearsal of
" Othello," when several departures from the orthodox "business"
of the scene met with his approval as lending greater realism to the
play. It is noteworthy also that Charlotte Cushman after failing in
her first attempt to get a London manager to give her an engage-
ment, journeyed to Paris with the hope that Macready might be able
to find room for her in his company. It was not to be, however,
the indomitable Charlotte returned to London to burst upon
tovm at the Princess's Theatre. Macready's repertory in Paris
listed of stock legitimate pieces Uke "Othello," "Hamlet,"
Werner," "King I^ar," and "Romeo and Juliet-" llnrier date
Decanber 33, 1844, he remark* in his «*'

to nr
Kid
^Keti
^^nsi

X-.

excited andience. I was

bat could not or would

of the dignitj of my poor

Ec^ish actors attracted a good

'' wrote \L Edooaid Thierry in

od retcBo Femphase de la tng^e,

Lube. :s^ qz'oa la dedamait k c6t6 de Talma.

MacrsZiTf "::^-'=ie=e x mrj^igritt par XDoaients ce dAit pompeuz, quil

Mii-T r -.e f iJleirs i jx Ib^cc as^dasse, en appoyant snr toutes les

iyLLies. NLs Hties Fx^ct pirie simplement, natnrellement ; Ii

pcrise cede '-^puiese^i ce ses lerres. et s'echappe d*ime seule

e^LSSTC c r—Tie dizs =>:cr^ reciib on frxn^aise."* It is evident from

'Jz-t zzcit :c ihjs ar»i ccber criSdsna ihx: the race for highest honours

WIS "ti^Tily :*5CiC ry >Lijcrc»dT and his leading lady. Nothing if not

irsct:.:^!; rtr3^r. :c5. :he rn-iiediin in niaking mention of the Macbeth

nii" : - *r.:i i-iry. -eaicr dx:c Jan:iarT S, 1S45, has to confess that " the

:e xTT-i-d'sd Mia* Fxucii's sleeping scene much more than

^ tlae in -^le who".e p '-ay.' •• Hamlet " (minus the gravc-

d*i^:^ was rfTnes*n:cd before the French Court at the Tuileries^
eur.: cxy> anerw-xrdss when King Louis Philippe presented the
•• O7 r.el-1 " cf the occasion wiA a costly bracelet.

Y-.ctcr Huz3 was in the ponerre on this noteworthy occasion, and
ir.c^re :r.ir. cr.ce. so tV.e story goes* attracted all eyes by his inability
to restrain r.:s er.thnsiistn within the kid-gloved limits of courtly
et:.:uette. The visit terminated with Macready's performance of the
death scene :n - Henry IV/ at the Opera Comique on January 18
on behalf of the Society for the relief of Distressed Authors.

By the way, it is noteworthy that the project which the tragedian
conceived in Tans of acting *• Oreste " in the original to the Her-
mione or Andromaque of Rachel — and which he abandoned with
reluctance after weighing all the difficulties of the task — was once
carried into execution with perfect success at the French theatre in
New Orleans by Junius Brutus Booth, who spoke the language like
one to the manner bom.

The casual wayfarer who chanced to pass by the Theatre Imperial
des Italiens, in Paris, at one o'clock in the afternoon of June 30^
:S5S, must have beheld a spectacle somewhat out of the conunon.
About twenty or thirty young women, shabbily attired, but of hand-
some appearance, were to be seen grouped about bearing little
bundles under their arms, and weeping bitterly. Presently Madame
Kistori (who was giving performances at the theatre on alternate
nighu) comes along on her way to rehearsal, and asks the cause of

English Players in Pan's. 455

all this distress, These poor girls, she is informed, are the auxiliaries
in an English company, engaged by M. Ruin de Fy6 at the instiga-
tion of an English capitalist, who was to back up the venture with a
sum of ;^3,ooo, to support Mr. J. W. Wallack, of the Marylebone
Theatre, in a round of English pieces. But only ^^500 have come to
hand, the performances have been stayed, and these poor girls have
been turned out of their lodgings half famished, and know not where
to seek shelter. Medea makes a rapid pass for her purse, finds
some 300 francs therein, and shordy afterwards glides through the
stage door without a sou. Truly " one touch of nature makes the
whole world kin." Rossi, the Italian actor, was performing in Paris
at the period of this woful contretemps, and saw Wallack in all his
characters. Says Rossi, " He was a conscientious actor, but nothing
surprising ; a follower of traditions. His Othello was too northern ;
his Hamlet an American. I had been studying English assiduously,
but I could not understand a word he said on the Stage."

Seeking new worlds to conquer, after asserting his supremacy as
a light comedian throughout Great Britain and America, Charles
Mathews bethought himself of achieving distinction in a line never
previously attempted by an English actor. In a word he made a
French version of his own piece, " Cool as a Cucumber " under title,
" L'Anglais Timide, ' and appeared in the principal characters at the
Th^tre des Vari^tfe, Paris, during September 1863. Some idea of
the success of the venture may be gathered from the following con-
versation between the managers of two rival theatres, which took
place after the premiere, and is related on the authority of Mr. Charles
Hervey. " Qu-'en dites-vous ? " said one ; " Je dis," replied the
other, " que si j'avais dans ma troupe une demi-douzaine de gaillards
comme celui-li tons les ours de raes cartons passeraient pour des
chefs-d'ceuvrc ! '' Flattered by his reception, Charles Mathews
was easily induced to pay another visit to the gay city a couple of
years later, when a French version of " Used Up," entitled " L'Homme
Blas^," enjoyed a prosperous run at the Vaudeville of fully fifty nights'
^duration.

^K Somewhat exceptional too was the success of that extraordinary
^^feman, Ada Isaacs Menken, who made her first appearance at the
^^Sfttt^ on December 30, 1866, in " Les Pirates de la Savane," and was
recalled on that occasion no fewer than nine limes. Some idea of
the Menken's vogue in Paris may be gleaned from the fact that this
engagement extended over 100 nights, the receipts for the first eight
performances reaching 346,000 francs. The voluptuous, undraped
beauty of the oew star "' 'id laddy

45^ The GeniUman's Magazine.

capital. Mazeppa scarfpins, Mazeppa hats, Mazeppa cravats, Mazepptt
handkerchiefs, and even Mazeppa pantaloons met the eye at every
turn. The elder Dumas vas among the most ardent of the Menken's
many worshippers ; and it was openly rumoured that the Empress
hetself was consumed with jealousy because the Emperor thought
proper one night to send for the daring actress to his lo^, and shower
compliments upon her, while asking her acceptance of some valuable
g^ft. After an absence of about a year and a half she returned to
Paris to fulfil a contract made for her reappearance at the Chatelet
Theatre in " Mazeppa." But it was not to be. Death had set his hand
firmly upon the face and form that had enchanted all hearts. After
a tedious illness poor Menken passed away on August lo, 1868, her
remains being interred at P&re la Chaise. Subsequently the cofiin
was exhumed by some American friends, and transferred to Mont
Farnasse, where the last resting place of the once popular actress is
marked by a colossal monument, on the southern side of which is the
inscription " Thou knowest."

Supported by an admirable company, which included the names
of Henry Irving, J, T. Raymond (the American comedian), Edward
Saker, and Marie Gordon, Sothern essayed to take Paris by storm
early in July, 1867, as Lord Dundreary. Unfortunately Mabille and
her children were as niuch mystified at the vagaries of this lisping
and skipping personage as they were astonished at the sporadic out-
burst of posters (a new idea to Paris) with which Sothem heralded
his advent.

Of few English-speaking actresses can it be said that they acquired
distinction in Paris previous to making an appearance before a London
audience. The late Miss Kate Munroe, an American by birth, could
lay claim to this achievement She sang in op^ra-bouffe for six
months at the Theatre des Italtcns, in 1874. Returning to Paris in
the autumn of 1878, Miss Munroe reappeared with success at the
Theatre des Nouveaut^s in the " Deux Nabobs," and afterwards per-
formed at the fioufTes-Parisiens in "La Marquise des Rou^' her
second visit extending over a period of seven months.

Of late years France has taken very kindly to our pantomimists.
The Lauris, or some other well-known troupe, are always to be found
at the Chatelet, the Eden, or be Theatre des Folies. At the close of
the Paris Exhibition of 1878 MM. Blum and Toche produced a
capital revue at the Vari^t^ in which the miming of the Hanlon-Lecs,
as recently seen at the Folies Berg&re was so admirably reproduced
by the actors engaged that the success of the imitation led the
tuthon to writeapantomime vaudeville for the English p

I

I

English Players in Parts,

Hence the origin of that worid-famoui nightmare " Le Voyage en
Suisse," which, on its production at the Vari^tes, September isl,
1879, by the Hanlon-Lees and a number of French comedians,
enjoyed arun of upwards of 100 nights. Another piece by the same
authors, produced at the same theatre by much the same troupe of
panlomlmists, exactly six years afterwards, and called " I-e Naufrage
de M. Godot," failed to meet with anything hkc the same success.
■In the meantime, however, M. Agoust who had seceded from the
'Hanlons, caused an unperformed jiantomime vaudeville, written for
[him by Mr. Joseph Mackay, to be translated into French by
M. William Busnach under the title of "Le Testament de Macfarlane."
As originally performed al the Com^-die Parisienne, October 2 1, 18S1,
the piece met with a rather indifferent reception, but managed to
hold its own for fifty nights. The French scene-shift era made a sad
bungle of the elaborate scenery, which had been jiainted in London,
and on the premibre irritated ihe audience beyond endurance by the
long entr'actes. Among the English members of the company, Mr. F.
Desmond took first honours as Alphonse, a groom, with an imper-
turbable British phlegm, Z'Eita/ctlc considered the actor's style
easy, finished, and artistic ; while the Figaro, in its enthusiasm, could
only say that his miming recalled to mind in the highest degree the
great Deburau, In its original form as " Macfarlane's Will," Mr.
Mackay's play was subsequently performed in London. More recently
Btill, we have had another instance of an English piece first seeing
the light in I'rench form. Mrs. Hooper's four-act drama, " Helen's
Inheritance," which was performed at a matinee at the Madison
Square Theatre, New York, about the middle of December, 1889,
had originally been produced in I'aris, with the author's daughter in
the name part.

In 1877 that conscientious actress Miss Genevitvc Ward went to
Paris to study under Regnier, of the Comddie-Fran^aise. After being
grounded in the French classical repertory and not a few of the
great modern roles, Miss Ward made her first appearance at the Porte
St. Martin on February 1 1, 1877, as I^dy Macbeth in Paul Lacroix's
version of the tragedy. Few among the actress's English admirers
will deny the extreme suitableness of the character ; while those who
saw her play Clorinde in the original at the Prince of Wales's Theatre,
May ir, 1880, can testify to the faultlessness of her accent. Said
the " Revue Britannique," speaking of her debut : — " Dans la sctne
du Gomnambulisme du quatribme acte, ellc a ^ti^ positivement
admirable. Jamais le remords ni les terreurs de I'hallucination n'ont
&i interprdufs d'une fa^on aussi polifp-."'- ■ la vtWf touic entiire

458

The Gentleman's Magazine.

€\zSi suspendue k ses l^vres et frissonnait avec elle." So little question
indeed was there about the success of the English dkbutante^ that an
offer was at once made of an engagement under Regnier at the
Th^tre Fran9ais. It chanced, however, that Madame Favart had
a prescriptive right to the parts in which Miss Genevieve Ward could
only be seen to best advantage, and negotiations fell through.

Owing to the two noteworthy visits which Mr. Augustin Daly's
company of comedians have made to Paris within recent years, the
advisability has suggested itself to some American speculator of
opening a permanent English theatre in the French capital. Over
sixty years have now elapsed since Sir Walter Scott wrote those words
of warning to Terry, and no one has shown as yet the fallacy of his
contentions. But, autres tempSy autres tncturs. Truly this is an age of
enterprise ; and we shall see what we shall see.

W. J. L.VWREKCS.

■JE SALMON STOP-NETS
AT BEACHLEY, ON THE SEWERN.

I

AT Beachley Point — where the Severn and Wye join in a common
estuary — it is possible, when the flood tide rises from the sea,
to witness the streams of the two rivers change their direction, the
striving waters rushing inland for a time against the natural current,
causing endless vortices, with their attendant dangers. Up the Wye as
far as Chepstow, the tide, somewhat deflected in its course by ridges
of rock in the Severn, is one of the highest around the British coasts,
rising from forty to fifty feet according to the phase of the moon. Where
the Severn banks rapidly converge above Sharpness at the bend which
is crossed by the high-level bridge, the inrushing torrent of the spring
tide sweeping with irresistible force up the estuaiy at the rate of twelve
miles an hour, and not to be denied in its forward progression,
creates the curling wave of the bore so often described on the silver
Severn.

A treacherous waterway it is at the best of times. A few miles
below the junction of the two rivers, sunken reefs, extending almost
across the estuary— known as the English stones — render navigation
impossible except at half tide, when the available channel is visible
between the uncovered rocks, At high water a splendid expanse
of water is seen ; but as the tide ebbs, miles of shifting sands and
wastes of mud appear ; never for two years Is the main channel in
exactly the same course, and many a fine vessel or valuable life has
been lost amid the intricacies of the shoals. Between the Wye mouth
and the Severn sailing is especially dangerous in the rip of the tide
without the services of a skilled pilot aboard. The conditions arc
never precisely the same. The very banks by the riverside are, in
places, but meadows reclaimed from the ancient bed of the river
resting on an insecure foundation of blue mud. At your feet are the
salt-loving plants such as sea asters, saltwort, and plantain, with
fleshy leaves suggestive of their alkaline properties.

On a hot Ak'x'b' Asiv it U « bix Mid attractive scene at Beachley.

460 The Gentlemaiis Magazine.

The sur&ce of the water b like oil, reflecting every object in the fore-
ground with inverted image ; the wonderful horizontal stratification
of the Rhsetic Lias clifis, as well as the vegetation, are delineated in
the water in faithful detail until the line of demarcation is well-nigh
lost The vessels glide idly seawards on the tide, with sails hanging
listlessly in the vain endeavour to catch the fleeting breeze. Away
down the channel a bank of haze shivers in the noonday heat ; the
ships appear as much in the clouds as on the surface of the deep. Do
two worlds co-exist within the same dimensions, or is there reality at
all in matter ? The whole surroundings are illusive. On the side
which is clear all is doubly portrayed ; towards the sea everything is
indeflnite. Near at hand, the drowsy' hum of insect-life invites a
siesta by the river-side, where the thyme is fragrant on the sofl turf»
a seduction that must be withstood if my plan for watching the opera-
tions of the salmon fishers, now at work with their stop-nets in the
Wye, is to be literally carried out.

It is an economy of labour for boats to drift down on the ebb
from Chepstow — three miles away — to the allotted station off" the
Chapel rocks. Presently, as a boat passes silently by, I hail the
solitary occupant, and finding the long-desired opportunity, enter
therein, to proceed down stream for a few hours' fishing in the cool
of the summer's evening. Floating peacefully along there is ample
time to examine the structure of the net and master the mode of
capture involved in the process. The owner, being of a communica-
tive nature, is ready to explain any obscure points in the method of
fishing. A large flat-bottomed and roomy boat is employed for the
support of the stop-nets — one that is able to resist the strain of the
meshes and gear carried by the rush of the tide, when the risk of
capsizing is by no means slight. The boat is moored broadside to
the current in the proper station to three stout poles driven into the
muddy bed of the river to maintain the requisite purchase power.
The net, with a 5 -inch mesh from knot to knot, is attached to a
couple of movable bars spread in V-shape from the apex until the
extremities are 32 feet apart. The mouth of the net is kept in posi-
tion by a half-inch rope across ; as it falls about a couple of feet
below the surface of the water the force of the tide causes it to bag
in the necessary fashion ; the narrowing extremity is carried under-
neath the boat, the pocket being attached to a line on the opposite
side to be constantly held in the fisherman's hand. An upstream
salmon swimming swiftly on the tide cannot see the meshes in the thick
and turbid water until it is too late for escape ; it dashes head first
into the net, struggling violently when it is too late to be firee. With

The Salmon Slop-Nets at Beachley, on the Severn. 461

the line in his hand the slightest movement or vibration can be
delected. The pocket is hauled up by the end line for the captured
fish to be knocked on the head before it is extracted ; or sometimes
the V-shaped bars are bodily raised together with the net on the side
of the boat exposed to the tide, the position of the stop-net being
necessarily changed according to the direction of the current. Either
way the salmon — ranging in siie from 7 lbs. to 50 lbs. — is safely held,
and the net is once more lowered into the stream. Occasionally, if
the net is a trifle worn from constant use between April and Septem-
ber, a strong fish tears the meshes in a supreme effort to regain
freedom, and a pretty struggle ensues j the fisherman clasps his arms
around a ao-pounder possessed of enormous power. Before now a
man has been thrown into the river in the tussle.

On the day in question one net had hardly been set in the ebb
tide when a violent twitching at the rope announced that a salmon
had bolted in. Hastily hauling in the pocket, a silvery 7-lb. botcher
soon lay in the boat. In passing, it may be remarked that a Severn
bokhtr is the equivalent of a grilse. After the parr has put on the
smolt scales it descends to the sea, returning after a few weeks'
absence materially increased in size by the sojourn in the salt water
a grilse. After a second migration to the sea, the Severn fishermen
call their fish a gHlian, nothing under 20 lbs. assuming in their eyes
the full dignity of a s;ilmon.

Half-an-hour later the most extraordinary jerks at the line, which
might well have been caused by the gentle play of a porpoise, again
indicated the capture of a fish. This time it was a i3-lb. gilUan^ or
salmon, which had been ensnared — a fellow that required sundry
smart taps on the head to finish his struggles before it was expedient
to release him from the pocket.

Just now the common sea-gulls, kittiwakes, and a black-head gull
were circling overhead, shrieking in discordant chorus, apparently
dissatisfied at having no share in the fishing operations. Off Beachley
is a fine spot for the passage of rare birds, especially in the hardest
winter-time. The peregrine falcon chases the dunlin on the wastes
of sand, and I have seen as many as fourteen herons wading at a
time among the shallows in pursuit of their favourite fishing avoca-
tions. An osprey exhausted with long flight has been known to
alight in a fishing boat in the Severn channel ; red-breasted mer-
gansers, sheldrake, and other wildfowl arrive in frosty weather.

With the change in the tide we reversed the position of the net,
in order to face the rising water. Before the Rood several more
beautiful salmon, 10-14 lb. fish, were taken in our boat, which was

462 The Gentlemafis Magazime.

one of a dozen moored across the mouth of the Wye. Later on, the
tearing force of the surging stream became too strong to maintain
the boat in a safe position. It was positively exciting to watch
the conflict of the troubled waters as the roaring tide eddied swiftly
past the boat, swaying her backwards and forwards in spite of sulv
stantial supports. A sailing boat tr>nng to double the point at this
time against the swirling stream would be infallibly driven on the
rocks. Unshipping the tackle, it was deemed expedient to run before
the flood on the return journey to Chepstow, content with the five sal-
mon stowed away in the long baskets used for the purpose. Sometimes
twenty fish might have been taken in the same time that we had
expended in the capture of the five ; on the other hand, many days are
altogether blank. From about the commencement of May, when the
water becomes sufficiently warm for surface fishing, until the end of
August, the stop-nets are in use on the Wye. Day and night the
men are engaged, suspending work only when the tides are
unsuitable for fishing.

The old Roman road ])asses through Chepstow to Beachley,
where there is the old passage across the Severn from a stone jetty
to Aust on the opposite shore. Here may be seen the wonderfully
streaked and classic section of the Rhaetic Lias cliff, so well-known
to all geologists for the insect and fish-bone beds. At Beachley
there is a pleasant little inn, sheltered by noble elms interlacing their
branches overhead, facing the river-side— a charming resting-place in
summer time. The shipping from Sharpness docks passes within
sight of the windows. The Chapel light at the junction of the Wye
lies half a mile to the right ; the limestone heights flanking the
gorge of the Avon, at Clifton, arc visible, together with the Severn
tunnel works at Portskewett. Below the reef of the "English
stones," exposed only at the lower half of the tides, lies the islet of
Denhay standing in midstream. Behind Chepstow rises the fir-clad
ridge of the Wynd Cliff above the Vale of Tintem, and the wooded
hills of the Forest of Dean stretch to the left behind Newnham. On
the far side of the Severn the Cotswolds extend as far as the eye can
see, the orchard-clad vale of Berkeley affording as rich a bit of
sylvan scenery as can be found in England. Some of the cliffs
are formed of red Trias marls, others are blue Lias, while grey lime-
stones flank the course of the Wye ; there is infinite variety in the
charming landscape.

Proceeding from Beachley a little higher up the Severn towards
Newnham, the description of salmon-fishing with the lave-nets
is in vogue. The men wade in the shallows by the sandbanksi

The Salmon Stop-Nets at Beachley, on the Severn. 463

pushing the net before them on the river bottom. It looks like a
shrimper's net in the distance, but on closer inspection is found lo be
a net with a pocket mounted on a V-shajied frame which is light and
easily handled. The movements of the ascending salmon can often
be seen from afar by experienced eyes, the dorsal fin disturbing the
surface of the shallow water. Then the fisherman goes to work with
his lave-net, meeting the salmon as it swims along unable to see the
obstruction on account of the turbid water, In this way many a fine
fish is taken; and as with the stop-nets, the men, standing knee-deep
in water, often have a rare fight with the salmon. Higher up the
river, again, the seine-nets are landed on the spurs of sand at suitable
conditions of the tide. In the dead of night I have seen a seine
drawn on the shores exposed by the receding water. In the faint
glimmer of the half-hidden moon the kicking salmon lay glittering
and quivering on the sand. All sorts of queer words belonging lo
the Gloucestershire dialect are heard amongst the fishermen. All
floating debris is termed rale ; a creek is a pill, and the sand-banks
are baiies ; a salmon which leapt in the nets, " bommuxed ; " the
scales are the sttllyards, and the muntU is a windlass used for check-
ing the course of the heavy nets, when the pointed stake, called the
debut, is not used.

In the Wye, and perhaps the best of the Severn fisheries, the
salmon netting rights are leased by a few individuals who employ a
great number of men for about half of the year. The lessee finds
all the boats and necessary impediinenia, the men being paid in a
fixed proportion according to the results. Thus, for every ^^i realized
by the sale of the salmon the men receive 8^., subject to certain deduc-
tions, as their share. Ifafishisinany way damaged, I lb. isdocked from
its weight in the reckoning with the fishermen. I saw a salmon that
had been bitten in the side by a porpoise in a previous year. The
fiah was perfectly sound, but the scars remained ; consequently the
deduction had lo be made, 10 the sole disadvantage of the fishermen.
In the same way the men lose the advantage of the odd ounces in
weight. A fish turning the scale at 12 lb. 13 oz. counts for them as
a lalb. fish. At first sight this does not seem quite fair to the hard-
working fishermen plying a precarious trade. It must be remembered,
however, that there is a considerable depreciation in the net weight
of fish after they are taken from the water. A lolb. salmon caught
in the evening may scale but 19^ lbs the following morning. On
the whole it may be presumed that those engaged in the fisheries on
either side know their own busmess best, and that justice is done in
the regulation of hu'-*'

464 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

This year the yield of saUnon in the Severn district has shown a
marked Ming off: in the early part of the season a deficiency of
water in the river prevented the fish running up in the usual quantities.
It remains to be seen whether the tapping of the Vymwy — one of
the upper sources of the Severn system — for the Liverpool water
supply seriously affects the upward migration of the salmon ; some
practical authorities consider that it will do so. From some cause or
other the returns for the first six months of the season of 1890
revealed a falling off on the average of the last seven years to the
extent of full 40 per cent Day after day and night after night, the
heavy seine-nets were drawn blank on the sands, the patience of
the men meanwhile being something quite remarkable— they never
seemed to be disheartened in the daily task.

In the vicinity of the lower Severn there is still considerable un-
certainty amongst the fishermen regarding the various species of
migratory salmonidae which frequent the rivers. Within the tidal
influence the common trout (S,fario) need not be considered ; and
if you question the men they will usually affirm that only two species
enter the estuary, viz., the salmon (5. salar) and the salmon trout
{S. trutta) ; the bull trout (5. eriox)^ which is totally distinct, and not
uncommon, is confused with the salmon trout. The truth is that
numbers of bull trout netted in the Usk, Severn, and Wye, are
disposed of in the market as salmon, to which it has the greater
affinity. The best distinctions will be found in the shape and
position of the fins ; the shape of the opercula, or gill covers ; the
teeth ; and, less surely, in the distribution of spots on the body and
fins. It may be worth while to indicate the chief points of difference
more definitely between the three fishes, taking a fully matured
specimen of each for examination.

The salmon has the tail square ; the bull trout has it convex ; and
the uil of the salmon trout, though square, is shorter and smaller
than that of the salmon. Exact measurements given by Mr
Cholmondeley Pennell, in the fishing volume of the " Badminton
Library," show that the dorsal and adipose fins vary in position and
form in the three species. With regard to the bull trout the dorsal
fin is thickly spotted to the very tip, unlike that of the salmon, which
is but slightly blotched. The plates of the opercula are differently
shaped in either species. The teeth of the bull trout are the longest;
both it and the salmon lack the strong palatial vomers of the salmon
trout The bull trout is thickly spotted with brown over the back
and sides above and below the lateral line, and the fins are strong in
proportion.

The Salmon Stop-Nets at BeachUy, on the Severn. 465

The bull trout has an indifferent reputation amongst anglers,
who often regard it as an inferior and non-sporting fish. It is said
to rise badly at a fly, and to yield poor play when hooked, Mr.
Cholmondeley Pennell, however, appears to give the fish a better
character, and slates that he has taken a good many early in the
season on the Usk. For some reason or another it enters the Usk
and the Wye more generally than the Severn proper. The up-
ward migrations arc in the early spring, almost before rod-fishing
commences, and again in the autumn when the close season arrives.
This is perhaps why the fish is less known in the \Vest than the
salmon or salmon trout.

Several points in the Iifi;*hislory ot the salmon itself are still
wrapped in obscurity, and, considering the amount of interest taken
in the king of fishes, the ignorance in its seafaring habits is sur-
prising. The recent experiments undertaken by Mr. Archer in
the Norwegian fjords, and duly chronicled in the columns of the
J^Uld, with numbers of marked fish, have proved thai the same
individuals, while roaming as much as ninety miles from the coast,
often return to the same haunts in the rivers. Each salmon employed
in the conduct of the experiments has been marked by a numbered
and dated metal plate secured through the dorsal fin, the records of
(he returning fish being carefully noted and tabulated by Mr. Archer.
But the general food supply at sea remains a matter of specula-
tive inquiry. In the rivers salmon have been proved to devour
ephemerids and water -beetles, but the sea-going fish invariably are
taken with the stomach empty. I know of two exceptions to the
rule. Ai the moment when a number of salmon were netted off one
of the Scotch lochs a gentleman witnessed one eject some half-
digested eels from the mouth ; the details are recorded in the volume
of the " Badminton Library " before referred to. In the Fitld for
July afi, 1890, a wrilerrecords in the angling column that he has lately
seen a salmon captured containing young salmon in the stomach. If
the salmon lived chiefly on suction, the teeth would surely show
signs of degeneration, which is by no means the case. I have seen
a fisherman on the Severn have his finger lacerated through pushing
the hand too far through the gills of a still living fish ; and the
quantity of short rounded teeth present every appearance of useful-
ness. The extraordinary increase in bulk during a few weeks' visit
10 the sea clearly points to an abundant food supply, which must be
something plentifully distributed among the littoral fauna. The
migrations of thi' balmon an>l river eels are curiously JntennixKd : ii
is quite possible ■ '> '--iv'

Vpl. CCLXl.-

466 The Gentleman s Magazine.

diet The fact that the stomach of a salmon is almost always empty
when captured has been explained as the result of fear. At the
moment the fish feels the meshes of the net all food is said to be
ejected. Fishing off the coast of Devon this summer I saw a large
salmon leap through the water as if in pursuit of prey, just as a pike
dashes after smaller fish ; it was gone like a flash, and we could see no
more. Some day, doubtless, the full facts will be discovered and
recorded.

Before leaving the vicinity of Beachley, I found it a pleasant
stroll through the waving com, by the side of a park surrounded with a
double row of splendidly grown evergreen oaks, and by the riverside
meadows to the peaceful old town of Chepstow. Here and there are
the remains of the old wall skirting the environs of the town, and the
ruined castle crowns a precipitous limestone crag. The rocks at this
bend in the Wye afford a fine study, a great fault being exhibited near
to the base of the hideous railway bridge spanning the river. Late in
the evening I could see the stop-net boats lying side by side ofifa low
quay, the nets all hung up to dry in the fresh air. After a few hours*
rest, the fishermen will again go forth on the ebb tide, for during the
last weeks of August will be the last opportunity of the year, and the
deficiency of the early season has to be made up when the water is
thoroughly warmed and the salmon are more abundant Provision
has to be made for the winter when work is scarce. Not a tide can
now be wasted, and the summer days and nights are slipping all too
soon away.

C. PARKINSON.

I

46;

SOME EMINENT PIRATES.

THERE is, proverbially, as much difference between a solicitor
and an attorney as there is between a crocodile and an alli-
gator. There is just about as much between a pirate and a buc-
caneer. The buccaneers (I adopt the old-fashioned spelling o(
the word) were the first in the field, and their operations sometimes
assumed a <]uasi-legitin)ate hue by virtue of letters of authorisa-
tion from the ministers of the countries lo which they severally
belonged. But it is impossible to draw even a loose line of distinc-
tion ; for the two both in time and in characteristics overlapped,
went on marauding expeditions in concert, and buccaneers were
numbered among the very last of the brotherhood of pirates proper.
There was no difference whatever in [he modus operandi of the two ;
they frequented the same ground and hunted after the same ships —
usually the luckless ships of Spain— were equally reckless and almost
equally bloodthirsty and cruel. The buccaneers did not always take
care to obtain letters of authorisation, and, even when they did, as
often as not repudiated them, seized the vessel — fitted out originally by
merchants of London or Bristol, who bargained for a proportion
of the booty— and went trading on their own responsibility, pirates
in all but name. And many of them preferred lo be called buccaneers,
because it sounded more honourable than the appellation of pirate,
though forgetful, probably, of the fact that a pirate, as well as a
rose, by any other name will smell as sweet. The great increase o(
both species of the genus freebooter at the beginning of the eigh-
teenth century is attributed by Captain Charles Johnson to the for-
lorn condition of man-of-war's men and privateer's men at the con-
clusion of the peace of Utrecht. A large number of men who,
during war-time, had held commissions of some sort, found them-
selves out of work. Return to the regular mercantile marine offered
few inducements; and hearing of the extraordinary successes of
those hardy individuals who refused to come home on the conclusion
of hostilities, and chose rather to harass Spanish vessels o"" "
gascar and in the West Indies, and feeling also the \

468 Tke Gtutlewimds Mmgrnzum.

and ^^ssaag still m their bkxad, tbe giottr pKt not to tbe West
Indies or Madagatscar, aad )oizied tlmtivfTio to ooe or odher of die
afoffcsaid hardj indnriditals who nov £ve kx is Bam^j m viiat Mr.
Clark RtuseO calls the ''dckctable pages' c3fCa;3CainJoliDSQOL

One of the mo^ noted of tbe piiares was Edward Teacii, com-
monly known as Blackbeard, a thle be exmed bcraase of his
extraordinarilj long and black chin appcnda^ "^ He sti5ined it to
grow to an extravagant length," ve are told. ** As to bteaddi, it came
up to his eyes. He was acozstomed to twist ir with ribbons in small
tails, after the manner of our Ramilies wi^ and turn them about his
ears." In time of action he wore a sling over his shooldexs wrth. three
brace of pistols, which hung in holsters bl^e bandaliers ; and stuck
lighted matches under his hat, which, appearing <hi each side of his
Caure, his e}'es naturally looking 6erce and wild, made him alt(^ether
such a figure that, sa}'s Johnson, ^' imagination cannot form an idea
of a fury from hell to look more frightful^ He was a Bristc^ man by
birth, had been to sea all his life from an early age, and had sailed some
time out of Jamaica, in privateers during the war with the French,
but had never been anything more than a foremastman — though
distinguished for uncommon boldness and personal courage — until he
went a -pirating in the year 1716. Captain Benjamin Homigold put
him in command of a sloop he had taken off Prondence, and the
two sailed together for the Spanish West Indies, taking on the way a
**bill(jl)" from Havana, a sloop from Bermuda, and a larger vessel
l>ound from Madeira to South Carolina^ After careening on the
coast of Virginia, the two, with their prizes, went on to the West
Indies and captured a large French Guinea-man, bound to Martinico,
on board which Teach transferred his flag, separated from Homigold
— who returned to Providence and surrendered to mercy pursuant to
the King's proclamation— and hoisted the black flag on his own
account. He mounted 40 guns on this vessel, to which he gave the
name of the Queen Annes Revenge^ and his first engagement in her
was off St. Vincent, where he tcck the Great Aliens plundered her,
set Captain Taylor and his crew on shore, and fired her. Then he
fell in with the English man-of-war Scarborough^ of 30 guns, and
engaged this vessel for some hours, and until the latter thought it
discreet to give over and make for Barbadoes, the place of her station.
Teach himself sailed for TurnifT to take in fresh water, and while
there improved the occasion by capturing a sloop, the y^^w«/i/frr,
the captain of which no sooner saw the black flag hoisted than he
struck and came to. Four more vessels— a full-rigged ship and three
doops — were captured in the Bay of Honduras, some ten leagues

I

I

I

Some Eminent Pirates. 469

im Turnifl"; and tliree ollicrs on the way to Cliarlesinn, off which
port the pirales lay for five or six days, waiting for a store of
medicines, which the captain of the Jiei'enge sloop was sent to the
Governor to demand.

More captures were made during these five or six days ; first,
a large ship bound for London with some passengers and a valuable
cargo on board ; and, secondly, another large vessel coming out of the
port, two " pinks " going in, and a brigantine on which were fourteen
negroes. All this, done in the very sight of the inhabitants, struck a
mortal terror into their souls, for they had just been visited by Vane,
ftnother notorious pirate, who had knocked down their fortifications,
sacked the town, and made things generally uncomfortable. This
mortal terror may have occasioned the insolent security with which
Richards and the men of his parly paraded the place. They
walked the streets publicly, we are told, and the people, although
fired with the utmost indignation, j-et dared not molest them for fear
of heaping more calamities upon their own heads. Blackbcard in
his demand swore that if the chest of medicines was not immediately
given, or if the ambassadors suffered the least insult, he would
murder all the prisoners taken on board the five captures, send u]i
their heads lo the Governor for his especial edification, and set
fire to the vessels themselves. Under such compulsion, the Governor
was not long making up his mind: he gave Kichards a medicine
chest worth between ^^300 and ;£4oo, and packed him and his men
off, only too glad to purchase immunity at so small a cost Black-
beard then let the prisoners and ships go, but kept about ^^1,500 in
gold and silver, in addition to a quantity of provisions, &c., and
sailed towards North Carohna, made friends with the Governor— who
was a thorough -paced blackguard — and surrendered to the King's
proclamation, his sole motive being lo look about him, or, as Captain
Johnson puts it, "to wait a favourable opportunity of playing his old
game over again."

June 1718 he began anew, and seems to have made some
•greement with the Governor, by which, provided the latter winked
hard at his depredations, and afforded him protection, he should
receive a certain proportion of all plunder. North Carolina hence-
forward became Blackbeard's headquarters, and the Governor his
very good friend, both men prospering marvellously through the
efforts of the active partner. I need not go into particulars of
Blackbeard's exploits ; they are too numerous for the space at my
disposal, and are, moreover, rather monotonous to read o\xi.
"iuffice it that they were very nune'^ ' ■"*"«ting

470 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

to turn to Blackbeard's personality and peculiarities. He was a
beau-ideal pirate, possessed with a mania for getting married.
During his first sojourn at North Carolina, his friend the Governor
married him to his fifteenth wife, a young girl of sixteen, whom he
treated most brutally. Unlike the French Bluebeard, however, he
did not, so far at least as our knowledge goes, kill any of his wives.
He had them at different ports, and presumably visited each just when
he happened to be in her particular neighbourhood. He was a man of
some humour, but humour of a grim, sardonic kind, which is illus-
trated by a couple of stories I take the liberty of relating.

He was drinking one night in his cabin with his pilot, with Hands,
captain of one of the sloops, and with another man, who is unnamed.
Suddenly the diabolical fit came upon him, and, quietly drawing out
a small pair of pistols, he cocked them crosswise under the table,
blew out the light, and fired. The anonymous man had heard the
cock of the weapons, and, knowing that mischief was whistling in the
air, made tracks for the companion \ but Hands and the pilot were
not quick enough, and the former received a shot in the knee, which
lamed him for life, while the latter escaped with nothing worse than
a grazed leg. Hands, with a loud oath, asked what was the meaning
of this diversion, whereupon Blackbeard, with another oath, answered
that " if he did not now and then kill one of them, they would for-
get who he was ! "

The other story is illustrative of Blackbeard's ambition to beat
the devil in his own line. The fit came on him again, and he said
abruptly, " Come, let us make a hell of our own, and try how long
we can bear it." With that he dragged two or three of his subordi-
nates down into the hold, closed up all the hatches, filled several pots
full of brimstone, and other combustible matter, and set it all on
fire. Before long the men cried for air, but he would not open
the hatches, and kept them down there until they were nearly
suffocated, and until the whole three fell down nearly dead with the
poisonous fumes. He piqued himself ever afterwards on being " the
best devil " on his ship. In point of fact the arch-fiend seems to
have been the only being of whom Blackbeard was in the least
afraid ; and, on another occasion, he was in much trepidation owing
to the presence on board of some individual, who came from no one
knew where, and who, after some mysterious conduct during several
days, disappeared without leaving a trace behind him, "They
verily believed it was the devil," we are told. Blackbeard died
fightings as beseems an old sea-ruffian, and in his last encounter,

I

Some Eminent Pirates.

against Lieutenant Maytiard, did not finally drop until he had
received five pistol Ehots, and twenty sabre cuts, about his body.

The pirate of whom renown had most to say in his own time was
Avery, who was represented in Europe as one who had raised himself
to regal dignity, consequent upon his capture of and marriage with the
Grand Mogul's daughter; who had a large brood of dusky princelets,
being bred in great roj'alty and state ; who had eiecled forts and
magazines for the more secure preservation of his immense riches ;
who had a large fleet of ships by which he was constantly increasing
his vast stores ; and upon whom, to cap all, a play entitled " The
Successful Pyrate," was brought out in London. So famous was he,
indeed, that several schemes were offered to the Council for fitting
out a squadron to lake him, while other men were for offering him
and his companions an act of grace, and inviting ihem to England,
wilh all their treasures, lest his growing greatness should hinder the
trade of Europe with the East Indies. As a matter of fact, however,
while all these rumours of his greatness were being credulously
accepted and eagerly retailed, Avery was in the greatest distress.
While he was credited with aspiring to a crown, he was in want of a
shilling; and at the same lime that he was said to be in possession
of such fabulous wealth and dominion in Madagascar and the
remoter East, he «as literally starving at home. True, he did
capture the Dutch East-lndiaman in which the Grand Mogul's
daughter and her innumerable retinue had taken passage for Mecca ;
and true again, by this lucky windfall he had possessed himself of a
great sum of money, of jewels, of gold and silver vessels, of rich
dresses and the like. But he did not marry the lady, and the Grand
Mogul got into such a rage on hearing of the enormous desecration
and robbeiy that he swore to send an army to extirpate the English
with fire and sword from all their settlements on the Indian coast,
unless the offenders were delivered up to him. It cost the E.tst
India Company infinite trouble to pacify the Nabob ; and, as the
Company had promised him that they would send an expedition
after the villains, Avery thought it about time to leave the neigh-
bourhood. It was not a great sacrifice to him to do this, for
the jewels and gold and the rich commodities captured in the
Indiaman represented a total sum sufficient to maintain each of the
pirates in affluence during the remainder of his natural hfe ; and on
the way to Madagascar it struck Avery that he would enjoy life much
better on shore than "in ever climbing up the climbing wave."
He therefore held a council of his subordinate captains and officers,

4^2 The Gentleman s Maga&tnt.

and suggested a proportionate distribution of the spoil and then a
dispersal. The men agreed, the vessel was disposed of at Providence,
the booty shared (by no means equitably, it would seem), and with
his portion — including some diamonds for which he did not account
to his men — Avery purchased a sloop, and made his way in this tiny
vessel to Boston, where he had a desire to settle. But large diamonds
were not vendible in New England, and the possession of them ?ras
the cause of much suspicion against the possessor ; so Avery came to
Cork, where, however, he was in as bad a case as ever with regard to
the disposal of his diamonds ; and so he proceeded to Bristol, some
merchants of which place, he thought, might sell them for him on
commission.

At this time, when the rumours of his vast riches and power had
grown into a roar of excitement, Avery was on English soil with
diamonds valued at many thousands of pounds in his pocket, and
with hardly a coin to purchase bread. He was too well known to
dare stay long at Bristol, so he went quietly to Bideford until his
brokers had negotiated the sale of his diamonds. A few pounds
were advanced him for immediate necessaries ; but as some months
went by, and he received no more, nor even heard from the brokers,
he ventured on a private visit to Bristol. The diamonds had been
sold, they told him ; but they refused to give him a penny of the
money, and threatened that if he did not get out of the town and
" lie low," the King's officers would be informed of the dangerous
character that was lurking in the place. Avery fled again to Bideford,
heartbroken and starving, and two or three days after his arrival
there was dead. It is a strange example of the irony of fate that,
while the parish of Bideford was burying the man, the people of
London were witnessing and loudly applauding a play which assumed
that he was the most successful Englishman in the world.

A modem writer has dubbed Blackbeard the Dick Turpin of the
seas. If this appellation holds good, then Captain Bartholomew
Roberts was the Claude Duval of the same element. Roberts was
essentially a dandy — and a dandy in the best sense of the word — for
he prided himself on his intellectual achievements, and his voyages
show that he had a mind of decidedly finer calibre than any of the
long list of freebooters, save only Dampier, Woodes Rogers, and
Clipperton. His motto was, "A short life and a merry one"; and
he lived up to it. During his brief three years' career he look no
less than four hundred sail, large and small ; and he fell, when the
order of things brought round that event, shot through the heart,
and with all his regimentals on. He always made a splendid figure

I

I

Some Eminent Pirates.

I an engagement, and was the most conspicuous ni.in on board his
ship. His full dress consisted of "a rich crimson damask waistcoat
and breeches, a red feather in his hat, a gold chain with a diamond
cross hanging to it round his nccic, a sword in his hand, and two
pair of pistols hanging at the end of a silk sling flung over his
shoulders, according to ihe fashion of the pirates." It is not on
record that he, hke Claude Duval the landsman, ever danced a
cotillon with a lady on any of the ships he captured, but his treat-
ment of femaJcs was more uniformly courteous than that of any of
fais companions in villainy.

Roberts was, as the name implies, a Welshman, and, before
adopting piracy as a profession, had sailed " in honest employ," as
second mate of the Princess, bound for the Guinea coast for slaves.
The Princess was taken at Anamaboe — where the negroes were being
embarked for the ^Vest Indies— by another Welshman, Captain
Howel Davis, and Roberts was persuaded to throw in his fortune
with his countryman, though he " was in the beginning very much
averse to this sort of life." Davis was soon after killed in an ambus-
cade on shore, and the young recruit, showing great capabilities, was
chosen lo lake his place. Dennis, one of the officers and a fearful
blackguard, proposed Roberts In a very neat speech — or rather in a
speech which is very neat and decent as it appears in print, but
which was improved probably (if not invented) by Johnson, just as
Ihc speeches of Cjtus were improved (if not invented) by Xenophon.
However, here is a portion of it given pro ianio :

" It is my advice," said Dennis, " that while we are sober we
pitch upon a man of courage, and with skill in navigation — one who
by his counsel and bravery seems best able to defend this common-
wealth, and ward us from the dangers and tempests of an unstable
element, and the fatal consequences of anarchy. Such an one I take
Roberts to be, a fellow, I think, in all respects worthy your esteem
and honour."

So Roberts was chosen with acclamation, and very quickly
justified the choice. Nothing seemed to daunt him, and he thought
no more of going into a harbour and taking ten or twelve sail than a
more commonplace pirate would have thought of taking one. The
total number of his captures is ample indication of his success ; but
ihe wonder to us moderns is how he ever managed to instil such
widespread fear into the hearts of honest seamen as he undoubtedly
did spread. He never maintained more than two vessels, the Royal
Fortune and the Jianger, and yet 1"* — --•n»^ ^ I have said, four
hundred large and small f -^iv ruffian

474 Tk€

Ske Lov, Fng^anri. Azsa, LovrKr. Eias, lad ife res ; and his
ooed cjssMSJCj to prvTvn pe^acs kad s c&ct a nakiiig
nea fcbcir: :Le cere easly id iiiL Tboe v3s oo wwraking die
Ro^al F^rtmrnc I: a2«3Ts f.ii;gf* 2 " Sc GcGCze s cns^Vv > hb(C±
sik £a^ a: the mizes-peak. ard a J»± and iir niinr of the same,*
00 vrjt fag ben^ 2 deal's bsad viri za ixcr-cSas in ooe hand
and croB bones a the ocber, a can besoe rite zrim ooe, and under-
neath a heart droppisg btood. The Jack bad a nun poKtnred upon
it widi a ftiTning svord in his band, and yjrn!?ng 00 two skulls,
subscnbedrespectirelTA. B. H. ^a Rzrbarian*s Head> and A. M. H.
(a >IartJnican's Head . Roberts vas kiTed in an engagement with
the SuhUIcw man-of-var, which he wooxl pcobablj hare taken had
he not been shot in the throa: by a char;^ of giape: He was sitting
at the time on the tackles of a gnn, and it was not noticed imtil some
minutes after that he had dropped, ^^lien Stevenson the hHmsman
ran to his aid and found him verilj dead, he burst into tears, and
'^ wished the next shot might be his lot" It was not, however.
Stevenson rushed back to his post, put the hdm up, and carried the
vessel out of the reach of the man-of-war's guns. Their commander
the pirates threw into the sea with his arms and ornaments on, and
with a shot at his feet Their spirits sank as his body sank ; they
deserted their quarters, and stupidly n^Iected all means of defence
or esca|>e ; and the Swallow coming again on the scene had no
difficulty in taking captive the Royal Fortune and her crew, who
were tried at Cape Corse Castle on March aS, ryaa, and the majority
of them condemned to be hanged.

Edward Low may be called the Jonathan Wild of the pirates.
He was bom in an element of thieving and rascality, and has the
questionable distinction of being brother to the ingenious individual
who (according to the Newgate Calendar) was the first systematic
stealer of wigs. This youth, when but seven years old, used to be
carried in a basket on a porter's head, and from this coign of vantage
" lifted " hats and wigs from the heads of passers-by, and popped down
into his hiding again. Naturally, he came to a violent end, and swung
high upon the gallows tree, a fate which his brother Edward and
others of the family also met. Edward commenced his active career
by cheating the small boys of Westminster of their halfpence — at
chuck-farthing possibly, or at some such edifying game. Then he
transferred himself and his talents to the lobby of the House of
Commons, where he gambled with the footmen, and made things so
decidedly unpleasant by his barefaced cheating that he had to leave
the country. He went to Boston, and thence to Hondurasi where

p

^V he worli
^H prcsenli

^^ this onr

h

I

Some Eminent Pirates. 475

he worked for a short lime as a logwood cutter. An opportunity
presented itself for the acquisition of a trading sloop at no cost, and
this opportunity Low embraced, took a dozen companions — all un-
conscionable rogues— and hoisted the black Hag. I am not going
to speak in detail of Low's many piracies ; the truth is, he is a disagree-
able subject for an operation ; and the reader will be quite contented,
no doubt, to lake them "as read." But an illustration or two of his
cruelty I may give. The pirates fell in with a schooner between St.
MichaeJ's and St Mary's, and because Captain Carter and his men
showed an inclination to defend themselves they were cut and
mangled in a barbarous manner, two Portuguese friars, who were
among the passengers, being triced up at each yard of the fore-arm
and pulled up and down until they were dead, just to aiTord laughter
to Low and his companions. Another Portuguese passenger, for
daring to look sorrowfully at this spectacle, had his stomach ripped
open with a cutlass.

" At the same time," says Johnson, " another of these rogues,
cutting at a prisoner, missed his mark, and Captain Low, standing in
his way, very opportunely received the stroke upon his under jaw,
which laid the teeth bare. Upon this the surgeon was called, who
immediately stitched up the wound ; but Ix>w finding fault with the
operation, the surgeon being tolerably drunk (as it was customary for
everybody to be), struck Low such a blow with his fist as broke all
the stitches, and then bid him sew up his chops himself and be
damned ; so that Low made a very pitiful figure for some time
after."

What a picture of depravity, recklessness, and vice may be con-
jured up from this short quotation I It will afford some idea of the
atmosphere in which the greater number of the pirates passed their
lives. But to relurn to Low. He meditated an expedition into
some part of Brazil, but his large vessel was overturned when she
was upon the careen, and was lost consequently ; and, being reduced
to his old schooner again, he had to give up the project. Cruising
in the \V'est Indies, he attacked a rich Portuguese ship, the Nostra
Signora de Victoria, homeward bound from Bahia. The captain of
thb ship, on finding himself pursued, hung a bag containing 11,000
tiioidores out of the cabin window, and, when the vessel was taken,
dropped it into the sea. On learning this Low raved like a fury,
swore a thousand good round oaths, and ordered the captain's lips to
be cut off, and broiled before his face. Then he murdered the whole
crew of thirty-two persons, all told. It is quite a pleasure to know
for certain that this seedy cut-throat was banged in due course ; the

476 The GentUmafis Magazine.

pity is that the whirligig of time did not bring round its revenges
sooner. No other of the thirty odd English pirates whose exploits
are on record ever approached him for sheer cold-blooded heartless-
ness ; one can only find a parallel in the careers of Lolonois the
Cruel and Montbars the Exterminator, who are counted among the
earliest of the freebooters, and who both believed themselves sent
by Heaven to avenge the injuries done by the Spaniards to the
Indians of Panama.

M. R. DAVIES.

477

AT THE BEND OF THE RIVER.

A PLEASANT change truly from the hot dusty road to the fair
cool river. At this point a bend in its course conceals the
upper part ; another lower down cuts it off below. We are sur-
rounded and shut in by trees ; only a glimpse of some not very
distant hills can be seen beyond. On the opposite side of the river
a tongue of gravel stretches into the water, and is bounded by willows
and a few small trees.

Immediately in front is the river, raised into ripples by the wind,
and lapping gently against the shore ; behind is the steep bank of
clay leading down from the road.

The stream has here performed a signal service to the geologist :
it has revealed some of those secrets of mother earth dear to his
heart Great boulders, washed out of the clay, lie on the brink of
the river. Beneath the clay a richly fossiliferous limestone has been
laid bare. Relics of a far past lie* thickly scattered around. To
adapt a well-known line —

The stont we sU upon was once alive.

It is full of shells, corals, and encrinites— ready amply to reward the
geologist actively hunting for specimens, or philosophically intent
on speculations and musings on the past. To the latter the pretty little
enchanter's nightshade, growing on the banks above, will be an ap-
propriate symbol of his power to call forth out of their stony sleep
the "forms that once have been." The former will doubtless rely
mainly on his hammer and trained hand and eye.

Which shall it be, then, this blazing August day, when it is sweet
to sit by the stream and watch the soft refreshing breeze curling its
surface into dainty ripples ? The river's soothing influence gains the
day. It has for the time the fabled power of the lotus : all things
are full of rest.

The rocks around are a vast and anci^
records, not only of individuals, bu^
a rustic churchyard may be w^

478 The Gentknuifis Magazine.

one side it is partly smoothed to bear an inscription, the other is
rough and full of fossil shells, corals, and encrinites. Thus, in dose
contact are seen the record of an individual written by his fellow
man, and the memorials of more ancient creations inscribed involun-
tarily by themselves.

And here, verily, the injunction contained in Virgil's line,

£t tnmalam fadte, et tumulo snpenddite carmen.
Build a tomb, and upon it write an inscription,

has been carried out on a large scale. Behold the tomb ! See the
inscription from which the geologist has learned so much of the
ancient life-history of the globe !

Encrinite stems are among the most common fossils of this car-
boniferous limestone, they constitute a large portion of its bulk.
Locally they are known as St. Cuthbert's beads. On a little rock off
Holy Island, on the Northumbrian coast, sa}'s the old legend, the
Saint laboriously forged them on his anvil :

On a rock, by Lindisfarne,
Saint Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame
The sea-bom beads that bear his name.

Here we are presented with the work of St Cuthbert ; further
down the coast, near the classic town of Whitby, we encounter the
deeds of St. Hilda. The ammonites occurring in the Lias there are
the relics of snakes, of which

Each one
Was changed into a coil of stone
When holy Hilda pray'd.

Thus even in the domains of the geologist is found the work of the
weaver of legends.

In Sir Walter Scott*s lines the beads are described as "sea-bom "*;
and sea-bom they undoubtedly are, for they grew and flourished in
the seas of the Carboniferous age. There, strung on living tissues,
they formed the pedicels of those sea-lilies, the encrinites, which
played so important a part among the inhabitants of those ancient
waters.

At Holy Island, indeed, they are doubly sea-bom. The sea
washes them out cf the rock, and prepares them for the hand of the
visitor. Here, the river has been the agent in their final appearance.

And we are further reminded that the great Saint himself^ whose
name has become associated by legendary lore with these fossils of
the limestone, wandered through these regions; for we are in
Northumberland, and the river before us is the Tjrne.

At the Bend of the River. 479

The limestone, with its marine fossils, brings before us the fact
that here, where the river flows calmly on past its green banks, full
twenty miles from the sea, the salt waves once rolled.

Ovid's line,

Et procul a pelago conchae jacuere marinae,
And far from the sea lie marine shells,

might have been written of this spot.

Change is the law in all things here. Nature is well termed
Novatrix rerum.

The river runs on to the sea, and returns again to whence it came
— the clouds — to continue its endless circulation. And the solid
earth escapes not, but goes a similar round. The wasie of the river
cliff is carried out to sea, to form new land at some future time.
These changes from land to sea, and from sea to land again, are
among the most interesting truths revealed to us by geology. And
yet the revelation is not altogether a new one. The truth was
known at least as long ago as the time of Ovid. In one of his fables
— in this particular not fable at all, but solid fact — ^he speaks of it as
a thing familiar to himself :

Vidi ego, quod fuerat quondam solidissima tellus
Esse fretum ; vidi factas ex aequore terras.
(I have seen what formerly was firmest land the sea ; I have seen lands made
out of the water. )

When we remember that some of the great truths taught by
modern geology are compressed by a modern poet into a few lines ;
when we reflect what volumes of geology are expressed in those
words —

The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands ;
They melt like mists, the solid lands
Like clouds they shape themselves and go —

and other passages, we may well wonder whence Ovid drew the infor-
mation contained in the quoted lines.

The shells and other organisms of the limestone, lowly as they are
in the scale of life, have obtained a memorial which has endured
through countless ages.

Horace desired for himself a monument more durable than brass
and loftier than the pyramids :

Exegi monamentiim aere perennins,
Regtlique situ pyramidum altlut.

And the fossils in the limestone here bw

480 The Gentleman's Mqgasime^

memofial more lasting than brass ; while otheiSi as the nnmnmlitBs
of the Eunoos limestone, are kept in remembrance by ooe loftier than
the pyramids.

Yet eren these memorials, afto' lasting throogh all these long
ages, are now being obliterated. The poet, in wishing for the lasting
and lofty monument, also expressed the desire that it mi;^ escape
the devouring shower — imber edax — to which the limestone b an
easy prey. Charged with carbonic-add gas, the rain, whether in the
form of scattered drops, or collected as rivers or streams, dissolves the
rock and carries it away in solution. Chaimels and hollows of various
shapes and sizes are formed in it. The surfure of an elevated lime-
stone r^ion is thus often carved into many beautiful aixi fuitastic
forms. Many of the curiously carved hollows are converted into
most exquisite natural ferneries, with dainty spleenworts, graceful
Uadder-fems, and glossy hart's-tongue.

At the sea-side, the limestone hollows between high and low
water become aquaria of rare beauty. In them the sea displays the
lovely hues of its many -coloured vegetation and its curious forms of
animal life.

The larger cavities in the limestone often form caves. .And here
a subject of much interest opens out. Here is the happy hunting-
ground of the antiquary. Dim, mysterious, and fascinating, under-
ground water-courses stretch away into the dark distance ; fairy
caverns with graceful stalactites hanging from the roof, and stalagmites
shooting upwards amid dainty pools of water on the floor, tempt the
explorer onward ; the scaled -up records of bygone ages, both historic
and pre-historic, lie below.

Above the limestone, here, is the boulder clay : large rounded
stones washed out of it strew the margin of the river. This deposit
points back to an interesting epoch in the climate of the past We
see the geologist's now familiar picture of our land in the great Ice
age. A huge mantle of snow covers the surface of the country, and
mighty glaciers grind their way down the valleys. But according to
modern geology we have had, not one, but many Ice ages. Dr.
Croll's theory asserts the occurrence of such at inter\'als, not regular,
but ascertainable by calculation from certain data. Thus in the
Carboniferous age, to which our limestone belongs, have been many
alterations in climate, from warm to cold and the reverse.

Astronomical and other changes, says Dr. Croll, cause the north

and south hemisphere to be alternately glaciated. When this occurs,

an accumulation of ice at either pole alters the centre of gravity of

he globe, and the waters of the ocean are consequently drawn to that

Jl the Send of tie Rivir.

Si

I

pole. Much of the land in the corresponding hemisphere is conse-
quently submerged: when the ice has passed to Ihe other pole the
waters retire, and Ihe land re-cmergcs. In this way would Ur. CroU
account for the alterations of sea and land which have occurred so
frequently in the Carboniferous period.

'I'he work of the river is to wear down the surface of the land, to
fonn Ihe broad valley and the narrow ravine. And this chiselling of
the surface — one of the important truths of modem geology — was
also known lo the Roman poet, whose remarks on changes from land
to sea, and sea to land, have been quoted above :

Quodqae fiiit campus, vallem decursus nquanlm
Fecit i et elavie irons est deduclus in aequor.

he water-course has mnJe a valley ; Md b/ [he Water

> brought down lo the plain.)

Yes, the broad valley in which the river runs is largely its own
work. Aided by atmospheric forces, it has made the level plain a
valley and brought down the high grounds to the plain.

See how great masses of clay have slipjied down the bank ! They
have been carried off by the flood, leaving as witnesses the large
boulders formerly imbedded in it, and which now strew the ground.

Not even the hard limestone can resist the river's soft hand :
hidden away in those transparent depths is the substance of the
rock. Shells, corals, and encrinites, dissolved in the water, are
carried out to sea. There they may go lo form the hard parts of
many marine organisms. Wonderful, endless, round of changes !
The carbonate of time drawn from the carboniferous sea formed the
stem of the encrinitc ; after reposing long ages in the rock it is
carried away in solution, and may go to form the shell of an oyster
or part of a coral reef:

Imperious Cnrsar, dcnd, and turned to claf.
Might slop a hole to keep ibe wind .-iw:>]-.

Thus the great monument reared to the inhabitants of those
ancient seas is fast wasting away. Horace has hitherto obtained the
fame he required, but it has lasted only a moment compared lo the
memorial of the lowly organisms of the limestone. Yet, which will
in the end prove most enduring? Will mind assert its superiority
over matter, and the thoughts of the poet outlive not only the

\ destruction of the fossils of the limestone, but of the material u

I itself?

VOL. CCUlX. HO. I9t9>

483 Tie G«Milew$tuis Magnnme.

CURIOSITIES OF EATING AND

DRINKING.

AS French has, from some not very obvious reason, except that
our lively neighbours generally take the lead in all the
£ishioQS| osorped the first place in the vernacular of the table,
something more effectual than the private order said to have been
recendy issued to the German Emperor's establishment to substitute
German for French will be needed to work a revolution in this
respect in Prussia, whfle the rest of Europe will certainly foUow its
time-honoured customs. In spite of the prestige of French, English is
not so poor that it would be difficult to draw up a decent bill of £sire
in it — more pretentious than the "Sausage and Mashed" tempt-
ingly blazoned in the windows of humble refreshment-rooms.
Having regard, however, to the extraordinary blunders sometimes
perpetrated in the futile attempt to describe a good English dish in
bad French, it would be more prudent were those who use the latter
to take some pains to guard against errors. •* Menus made Easy " is
one of the best books of the kind, and, in the modest preface, the
author explains that she aims at assisting ladies in the delicate task
of naming the dinner for the day. If " Menus made Easy " does
nothing besides helping the comparatively small number of ladies
who want to describe the day's dinner in correct French, its useful-
ness would be confined within narrow limits ; but it has a far wider
field, and it could not be read without much useful information being
obtained. In summer, when thousands of our countrymen make
their way to Paris, this book would be of immense service, and
would save many of them serious trouble in selecting their dinners.
A good story is told of an English tourist, who, accompanied by
two ladies, visited a Parisian restaurant. He volunteered to choose
the dishes. Taking the menu from the waiter, he held it long
enough to convey the impression that he was a profound linguist and
had read the contents through; then, to strengthen the deception,' he
pointed, with the air of one who had made up his mind, to two items
* ^vn the list, and, to begin with, ordered the ** garsong " to supply

Curiosities of Eating and Drinking. 483

the party with ihem. His chagrin and the merry glances of his
friends may be imagined when the waiter, with imperturbable gravity,
placed on the table three finger-bowls filled with rose-water and a
wine-glass containing toothpicks !

The following was a receipt to make turnip-bread, much used in
Essex towards the end of the fifteenth century : " Take peeled
turnips, boil them till they are soft in water ; then strongly press
out the juice, and mix them, being beaten very fine and small, with
their weight in wheat-meal ; add salt, as much as is sufficient,
dissolved in warm water; knead it up as other dough or paste, and
bake it."

This may be compared with the bread, little more luxurious and
digestible, used by the young German Emperor. He is said to be
fond of constant variety, even in such trifJing matters as bread. He
takes, at breaklast, a small white loaf, called " salt-bun," the top of
which is powdtriid over with salt — it costs one penny ; this done, he
has a half-penny bun, known as " Lucca-eye "; for sandwiches he has
still another kind, made of the finest Vienna flour, and baked till
the outside, afterwards cut off", is perfectly black — this also costs a
penny. At dinner, with soup, " brolhsticks " are served ; they are
made after an Italian recipe, the secret of the court bakers — they
come to a half-penny each.

While treating of low prices, the reader will be interested to see
the menv and cost of a dinner-party given by Darrell of Littlecote,
a rich country squire, in Elizabeth's days \ they are sufficiently
curious ; —

A pece of beef xvii,/.

A legg of mutton r.t.d.

II chickeos aod bacon xxi.

I chicken and II pigeons rost xviiii/.

For dressing all viii/.

For parslf , cliives, inJ laucc tor the muilun . . . i\d.

Bread and beer y\d.

71. llA

Supper the same day cost 4J. grf.

The profusion which characterised the unfortunate Charles I.
is well shown in the following account of the lavish and wasteful
table which he kept up ; it is asserted that —

There weri; Jaily in liia Court 86 libles well fumiiheil each mc«l, whereof the
king's ubic h»d 2S dishes, the (iiieen'n 24 ; 4 r.iher tables ti di^f <•"■*< ■ 1 other
■odishes each ! 12 other had 7 diilics each 1 17—'-"
S diihes ; 3 other hod 4 «ach ; 33 other toblo
B aU sbwl 500 di '

484 The Gentlematis Magazine,

other things necessary — all which was provided most by the several panreyors»
who by commission, legally and regularly authorised, did receive those provisions
at a moderate price, such as had been formerly agreed upon in the several counties
of England, which price (by reason of the value of money much altered) was
become low, yet a very inconsiderable burthen to the kingdom in geneial, but
thereby was greatly supported the dignity royal in the eyes of strangers as well as
subjects. The English nobility and gentry, according to the king's example,
were excited to keep a proportionate hospitality in their several country mansions,
the husbandmen encouraged to breed cattle, all tradesmen to a cheerful industry ;
and there was then a free circulation of monies throughout the whole body of the
kingdom. There was spent yearly in the king's house of gross meat 1,500 oxen,
7,000 sheep, 1,200 veals, 300 porkers, 400 sturks or young l>eefs, 6,800 lambs,
300 flitches of bacon, and 26 boars ; also 140 dozen of geese, 250 dozen of capons,
470 dozen of hens, 750 dozen of pullets, 1470 dozen of chickens ; for bread,
3,600 bushels of wheat ; and for drink, 600 tun of wine and 1,700 tun of beer ;
moreover, of butter 46,640 pounds, together with fish, and fowl, venison, fruit,
and spice proportionably.

A century before Charles I. ended his tortuous and unhappy life
on the scaffold, which the miserable monarch had done his best
to merit, by infringing the constitution, extravagance, and bad
£iith, a tract throwing great light on the times of Henry VIIL was
" printed for Rycharde Bankes by Robert Wycr," relating to the legal
times of work, meals, and sleep for artificers in the reign of King
Henry VIH., and entitled, "The Ordynral or Satut concemyng
Artyfycers, Servauntes, and Labourers, newly prynted with dyvers
other things thereunto added":

It is enacted by ye sayd statute made in the vi. yere of Kyng Henry the
VIH., the iii. chaptyer, that every artyfycer and labourer shal be at his workc
betwene the myddes of Marche and the myddes of Septembre before fyve of the
clocke in the momynge, and that he shall have but halfe an houre for his breke-
faste, and an houre and an halfe for his dyner at such time as he hath to slepc by
the statute, and when he hath no season to hym appoynted to slepe, then he shall
have but one houre for his dyner, and halfe an houre for his noone meate, and
that he departe not from his worke tyll betwene vii. and viii. of the clocke at
nyght.

And that from the myddes of Septembre to the myddes of Marche, every
artyfycer and labourer to be at their worke in the spryngynge of the daye, and
departe not tyll nyght.

And yf that any of the sayde Artyfycers or labourers do ofTende in any of
these Artycles, that then theyre defaultes to be marked by hym or his deputy
that shal paye theyr wages, and at the weke's end theyr wages to be abated
after the rate.

And that the sayde artyfycers and labourers shall not slepe in the daye, but
onely from the myddest of Maye unto the myddest of Auguste.

Some time ago Joseph Dugnol, the &mou8 chef^ was interviewed
by a New York reporter, who tried to get an original bill of £ue from
him, and succeeded Here It is— it has been called the best in the

I

Curiosilies of Eating and Drinking.

world ; it certainly has the merit of neither restricting the variety
nor stinting the appetite:

BREAKFAST.

Anylhing you like and not too much of it. Change every day.
niNNER.

Ditlo.

SUPPKR.

Ditlo,

In strong contrast to the moderate price of the German Emperor's
bread may be placed the frightful extravagance in drink which still
disgraces many working-men. The following extract from the
Guardian deals with twenty-five years ago, but I could, from my
knowledge of country labourers, give recent figures still more
startling. Five years ago I used to see a Dorset labourer, whose
wages were one pound a week ; this man, in one whole year, was said
to have taken home five shillings only ; ail the rest, his afflicted
wife assured me, had gone in drink, and yet he had never once been
intoxicated.

Few of us realise, says the writer in the Guardian,

I bow much is, or useil to be, spent in villi^c jiublic-houscs. Some twenly'five
' years ago 1 had an upporlunily of forming an opiaioa on this point, and, taking
Into counsel a wise old friend, the vicar of a parish adjoining my own, 1 was
able 10 get pretty eccuiaiely (i) the amount of wages paid yearly in these two
paiishea, with a population of about 1,400 together, and (3) the annual quantity
of beer consumed in the six public-bouses in the two parishes. I cannot now
give you the actual figures we arrived at, but I know thai we deliberately con-
cluded that more than 6;. was consumed in drink out of every pound paid in
wikges by the farmers. Spirits were very little drunk ai that time in such places.
My impression is that we only took note of be«r, and we were able to get *s
nearly as possible at the actual minis paid by the various farmers and the actual
number of barrels of beer supplied (o each public-bouse. Subsequeully I had
for a lime in my possession the tsek of one of these houses, given to me by a
former landlord, and there were cases there of men earning I3i. to 141, a week,
and not reckoned as unsteady, who babitually ipenl 6r. or ^^. a week al the
public house.

It may interest consumers of alcoholic beverages to learn what,

according to the figures oflScially placed, on July i5lh, 1890, before
the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Deleterious
Spirits, some of the drinks so generally relished are really made up of.
That report states that, one year with another, there are sold in this
country as whiskey 21,828,284 gallons of a decoction which is not
whiskey at all ; 6,000,000 gallons are sold as brandy and gin which
are neither the one nor the other ; nearly 14,000,000 gallons of potato
aiid rice spirit ar@ imported, and 17,500,000 gallons sre consumed

486 The Gentlematis Magazine.

under the erroneous impression that they are rum or gin. Wlio,
after this, would care to be a spirit drinker?

The recent edition of Sir Henry Thompson's popular " Food and
Feeding " does not call for much comment The importance of
properly selecting and preparing food, the various materials at man's
comnuuid, the ordinary dietary of Englishmen, the contrast between
it and that of Continental nations, and many other topics are fiilly
discussed in its pages. Sir Henry regards the food taken in this
country as far too solid and stimulating — shall I say, too indigestible
— and throughout the work this is the key-note. Greater attention
should rather, he thinks, be paid to skill in cooking than to quantity.
The dreary monotony of the dinner-table of many middle-class
fiunilies is most wasteful Describing such an establishment, our
accomplished author observes : "Joints of beef and mutton, of which
we all know the very shape and the changeless odour, follow one
another with unvarying regularity, six roast to one boiled, and have
done so ever since the average middle-class Englishman began to keep
house some five-and-twenty years ago !" But roast meat is rarely to
be obtained, when the term is used in the good old sense of a joint
cooked in front of an open fire. Without disparaging the improve-
ments of cooking-range manufacturers, the difference between roasting
before an open fire and baking in a close or partially ventilated
range is considerable, while the superiority is with the former.
The author lays great stress on braising animal food, and regrets
that it is not better understood and more generally practised in this
country. Braising^ as ordinarily understood by English cooks,
does not strongly recommend itself; for its successful performance
the meat should be just immersed in a strong liquor of vegetable and
animal juices, called braise^ in a close covered vessel ; the latter
should be exposed for a considerable time to a degree of heat just
short of boiling, and as little evaporation as possible should be per-
mitted. In this manner the toughest and most fibrous of flesh
becomes tender and digestible. Soups, although excellent and
economical, are not sufficiently used among us, and the author of
" Food and Feeding" gives considerable space to them. In connec-
tion with this matter, some of my readers will recollect the amusing
controversy, a few years ago, when Sir Henry Thompson stated, in a
paper read at the Fisheries Exhibition, that turtle-soup " at its best "
was made of stock from the conger-eel, the turtle only furnishing the
garnish and the name. Several dealers in turtle-soup, and some
other persons who were somewhat over zealous to protect, as they
imagined, the injured reputation of civic banquets, took up the

I

Curiosities of Eating and Drinking.

cudgels against Sir Henry, but he silenced his critics and estabhshed
the accuracy of his assertions.

What would Sir Henry say to plum-pidding as an Invalid's dish ?
Would he be more amused or disgusted with the following. " A
much insulted British Plum-Pudding " some time ago wrote to the
Times :

Perhaps yoar readers may be interested as well as amused at Ibe iaformalbn
which llie Kreut-iztituag oilers lo lis patrons concerning English Chtislraai
pudding. The extract, of which Ihc following is a translitioD, is from no article
rm English Christmas cusloms, reprinted from the Krenimilung by Ihc Pilcrs-
iurger^ Zeitung of January S ^ "The ingredienls of this famous national dish
consist of dough, beer in the course of fennenlalion, milk, brandy, whisky, and
Ein in equal puts ; bread, cilrooade, and small and laige raisins in profusion.
The mass most be stirred by the whole family for at least Ihcee days, and then
liuag up m a linen bag (or six weeks in order to thoroughly ferment. The cost
of this delicacy," adds the well-informed writer, "is about 3w. for four persons."
Live and learn I

One can only hope that the amusing articles one so often reads in
English periodicals on foreign curiosities of diet have something more
reliable lo rest upon, and that foreigners do not find them more
amusing than true.

The fruit lover will be glad to hear on good authority that fruit
farming is rapidly making way in many parts of the three kingdoms,
Mr. Charles Whitehead mentions, in an interesting article, originally
pubhshed in the Royal Agricultural Soaetys Journal, that fifty years
ago under 100,000 acres of land were given to fruit growing; these
in 1872 had increased to 170,000, and the present estimate is at
least 214,000. When allowance is also made for the improved
methods of cultivation generally adopted there is good reason for
satisfaction. In addition, it should be remembered that the imports
of apples have increased from 71,16a bushels in 1S39 to 3,796,692
in 1888 ; nearly half this enormous amount comes from the United
States, and half the remainder, a quarter of the whole that is, from
Canada ; but we also receive large quantities of soft fruit from Spain,
France, Belgium, Holland, and Portugal. It remains true that there
is still plenty of room for the development of fruit-growing in this
country. Unfortunately our fruit-growers arc severely handicapped
by drawbacks less felt in the States and on the Continent ; amongst
these may be mentioned excessive carriage rates and the charges of
the middle-men — though how the latter are to be avoided is not
obvious — and late spring frosts, to which the author of '
Doone" has just drawn marked attention. If "^ -'
the extent we ought, we are none the '

488 The Gentleman's Magazine.

vegetables to proper account Some very serious diseases are
aggravated, if not caused by meat, and the well-to-do, to put the
matter mildly, certainly eat too much animal food. Almost all large
overgrown vegetables can be boiled, and make excellent dishes.
Huge cucumbers, too overgrown to be eaten raw, are a wholesome
second vegetable, cooked like vegetable- marrow, or boiled whole
in salt and water, and when thoroughly tender, should be strained
through a sieve, and seasoned with pepper, salt, and butter. Lettuces,
radishes, and celery can also be served up well boiled, and are delicious.
Under the title of " Our Farmers in Chains," the Rev. Harry
Jones gives, in a recent number of the National Review^ the prices
of different agricultural products which the farmer receives, the cost
of transit to the Metropolis, and the price paid by consumers ; and
the facts which this distinguished writer has collected, though in the
main not new to the farmer, who has long known the vast difference
between the sum paid him and that obtained by the retailer, are so
strikingly put that they must arrest the attention of every reader.
Mr. Jones observes that people will hardly credit that some things
which the farmer gro^s easily and abundantly, and which are in con-
stant demand, are retailed at more than double and treble the price
which he receives for them ; and yet the truth of this is capable of
easy proof. Struck by the price charged for small carrots, a penny
for three, in one of the poorer districts of London, Mr. Harry Jones
directed an agent to pay regular visits to the humbler shops in Lisson
Grove, Bethnal Green, Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, and Limehouse, and
ascertain the prices charged. The result was, broadly, the discovery
that carrots, bought in the bunch, were charged for at the rate of a
half-penny apiece, turnips about th** same, and good p>arsnips every-
where a penny each. Ten bushe » of carrots were then bought for
him by a farmer friend near Thurstcn Station on iheGreat Eastern Rail-
way, about three hours from London ; they weighed 3 cwt. 2 qrs. 14 lbs.,
and contained six hundred and thirty carrots — sixty-three to the
bushel. The cost of the whole was 2s. 1 1^., or 3^^/. the bushel; thus
he bought sixty-three good carrots for 3 J^.— the current price of nine
to the working- people of London. Six hundred and thirty carrots
weigh one-sixth of a ton, so that a ton would number 3,780, and the
price would be 1 7 j. dd, ; the cost of carriage between Thurston and
London is 8x. 9^. in two-ton truck loads. Hence a ton of carrots,
numbering 3,780 roots, can be bought at Thurston and transported
to Bishopsgate for ;^i. 65. 3^., while close to the latter a bundle of
nine is selling at 3^^ or £fi. 2s. 6d, the ton 1 Deducting ^i. ts. 5^.
from £6. ds. 6i/*, ^4f i6s. yl. remains to cover the cost of tbe qur-

Curiosities of Eating and Drinking. 489

rriage of the ton to the shop of the retail dealer, leaving him a very
handsome profit. But the Great Eastern undertakes to bring from
station to station and to deliver a ton of carrots in London within
ordinary limits for 15J, loi/., so that the actual cost of this quantity
of carrots, placed in Ihc hands of a retailer, is ^r. 13^. a,d. His
retail price would make a ton fetch £fi. i.s. bJ., showing a profit
which he certainly does not get under existing conditions, the lion's
share going to the middle-man, Dealing with white turnips, Mr.
Jones estimates the number grown on an acre at 30,000, and as fine
oneaarc sold in London at a \,J. each, and bundles of smaller ones
ai 3W-, an enormous difference exists between prices in town and

I in the open country. Parsnips are grown much in the same way as
carrots, and a good crop of the latter produces 1,000 bushels to the
acre ; if only fifty roots were allowed to the bushel the total would
be 50,000, Even half that number would, at the London retail price,
come to £104. 3f, 4^,, a sum which, could he only get it, would
make the poor farmer's mouth water.
How much can be written on such an apparently insignificant
text as oysters is shown by a singularly curious and even learned
work just given to the world by Dr. J. R. Philpots, of Parkstone, It
deals with the whole history of oysters and extends to 900 closely
printed pages. The author however informs me that his material
would fill i,zoo, but that in pity to his readers he has held over 300
pages for another edition. Had his portly tome extended to the
dimensions originally proposed it would have more than merited the
comprehensive title it bears, "Oysters and All about Them " — for could
anyone find more to say ? The work abounds in quaint passages and
anecdotes drawn from old and little read sources, and therefore
resembles, mutatis mutandis, tiic " Anatomy of Melancholy " or the
" Compleat Angler, " I venture to give a brief passage as a specimen
of the bvely style and careful research of the author.

la the days wben luxury was lampaot, and men of great wealth, like Liciniui
Craisus, the Icviatbon slave merchoDt, rose to the highest honour, this dealer in
human flesh in the Ixiaiited land of libeily Riled Ihc office oi consul aiong with
Pompej the Great, On one occasion he required to.O(x> tables to accommodate
>11 his guests. How niuiy barrels of oysters were eaten at that celebrated dinner
the Ephemeridti—as Piutortb calls the Timet and the Morning Post of his day-
have omiUed to state ; but as oysters then look the place that turtlc-soup now
does at our great Cily banquets, the imaginaliun may busy itscir, if it likes, with
the calculation. All we know is that oysters then fetched very high prices nt
Rome, as the author of Ihc " Tabelta Cilioria " has not bilcd lo tcH us ; and
then, as now, the high price of any [usury wa» sure to make a liberal supply
necessary, when a ptuiocrat like Ctassus, ti
hplf the city as bis f^uesls. Tbe Romans hid ■

490 The Gentlematis Magazine.

M Christopher North calls them in his inimitable ** Noctes AmbrosiaDae.** In the
time of Nero, at least one hundred and twenty-four years later, the consomption
of oysters in the Imperial City was nearly as great as it is now in the World's
Metropolis ; and there is a statement that during the reign of Domitian mitold
millions of bushels were annually consumed at Rome. These oysters were but
the Mediterranean produce — the small fry of Circe and the smaller Locrinians.
This unreasonable demand upon them quite exhausted the beds in the great fly-
catcher's reign ; and it was not till under the wise administration of Agricola m
Britain, when the Romans got their far-famed Rutupians from the shores of Kent,
from Richborough and the Reculvers— the Rutufi Portus of the Itinerary, of
which the Regulbium^ near Whitstable, at the mouth of the Thames, was the
northern boundary — that Juvenal praised them as he does. And he was rightt for
the whole world besides produces no oyster like them ; and of all the bieedy
creatures that glide, or have ever glided, down the throats of the human lace,
9ur Natives are probably the most delectable. Can we wonder when Macrobins
tells us the Roman pontiffs, in the fourth century of our era, never failed to have
Rutupians at table, for we can feel sure that Constantine the Great and his
mother, the pious Helena, must have carried their British taste with them to
Rome. Pliny mentions that, according to the historians of Alexander's expedi-
tion, 03rsters, a foot in diameter, were found in the Indian Seas ; and Sir James
E. Tennent was unexpectedly enabled to corroborate the correctness of this
statement, for at Kottier, near Trincomalee, enormous specimens of edible oysters
were brought to the rest-house. One measured more than eleven inches in length,
by half as many in width. But this extraordinary measurement is beaten by the
oysters of Port Lincoln, in South Australia, whidi are the largest edible ones in
the world. They are as large as a dinner-plate, and of much the same shape.
They are sometimes more than a foot across the shell, and the oyster fits hii
habitation so well that he does not leave much margin. It is a new sensatioo,
when a friend asks you to lunch at Adelaide, to have one oyster fried in butter,
or eggs and bread* crumbs, set before you ; but it is a very pleasant experience,
for the flavour and delicacy of the Port Lincoln mammoths are proverbial even
in that land of luxuries.

Dr. Philpots has as an object to draw special attention to the
importance of a longer close season, less recklessness in dredging,
and the systematic extension of oyster-beds; but in some respects his
conclusions are at variance with those of Huxley.

The last report of the Scotch Fishery Board is rich in curious
information on salmon — king of fish — herrings, and oysters. The
Times^ in a sparkling leader, has given the " Breedy Creatures " of
Christopher North a telling paragraph, which my readers will thank
me for giving them an opportunity of reperusing at their leisure^ and
which supplements my own remarks on Dr. Philpots' great book of
900 pages.

The movements and the multiplication of the herring are beyond hnnan
control, bat it is otherwise with the oyster. The pages of the Repoit whi^ the
Commiftioners devote to this delicate morsel are, in CkI, filled widi ^sfh^W as
to the destnictioii of nataiml o|ster*beds throng^iit the wocld, and as to tttt wqf

I

Curiosities of Ealing and Drinking.

in which art \% contriving lo supply their place. Far example, the Fitlh of Forth
isslmost emptied of its oysters, and the trade of Leith has dwindled lo 31 5 hundreds,
valued at C'^^^, or I II. |>er hundred. At the beginning of the century a single
bo»t would often take 6,000 oysters in a day, which would be said for 11, 31/. a
hundred. The same stoiy, as everyone knows, is told of all the natural oyster
6Bheries, not only tound our own coast, but in France and even in America. For
example, " the produce of the rich beds of the Kay of Cancale, on the coast of
NoHnandy, gradually fell from 71,000,000 of oysters in 1847 to t, 000,000 in
1665." In America the beds north of the Chesapeake are now worthless ; those
on Rhode Island and Connecticut are reported extinct ; and even the great beds
of Maryland and Virginia are becoming rapidly exhausted. But there is happily
another side to the medaL The oyster is a being that can be watched, and the
man of science has been watching iL lis development in all its stages is known,
and, fortunately, the conditions of it are such as can be produced arCilicially. The
fint important step seems 10 have been taken in 1851, under the direction of
Professor Coite, of Ihe Collige de France ; and the astonishing result of the
experiment! introduced by him has been that, at Arcachon alone, the number of
oyttets exported rose in ten yeais, between 1871 and iSEo, from under 5,000,000
lo Ihe enormous namber of 195.000,000. In America, as might be expected from
Ihat country, where everything is done on n lai^e scale, the results are greater
itill. It was in 1S74 that Mr. H. C. Gowe, of Newhaven, began sowing shelli
in deep water : this being the method which experience has suggested for giving
Ihe young fry, diffused throughouLthe water, a place lo which they can attach them-
lelves. Mr. Rowe, according 10 Ihe Commissioners, "now sows as monyasa
hundred thousand bushels of shells annually upon what is now the most colossal
qyiter-farm In the world, embracing an area of 15,000 acres at the bottom of the
Ka." He and his imitators, in fact, have developed a large industry, and already
■upply the markets of New York with 60 per cent, of all the oysters sold there.
For the details of the method adopted we must refer our readers to the Blue-book,
only expressing the hope that something like the American system, which is
capable of much regulation and improvement, may be largely adopted on our
own coasts, famous for oj'sters since Koman times.

How rapidly animals adapt ihemselves lo altered conditions of
existence the following passage will show : and human beings are not
less quick in submitting to unfamiliar circumstances and in thriving
upon them. " Hereabouts," says Miss Betham Edwards in her
recent work on the " Roof of France," " the barren, stony wilderness-
like country betokens the region of the Gausses. We are all this
time winding round the rampart-like walls of the great Causse de
Lariac, which stretches from Le Vigan to Millaw, rising to a height
of 2,624 feet above sea-level, and covering an area of nearly a
hundred square miles. This Causse affords some interesting facts
to evolutionists : the aridity, the absolutely waterless condition of
the Larzac has evolved a race of non-drinking animals. The sheep,
browsing the fragrant herbs of these plateaux, have altogether
unlearned the habit r^f ' ' " whilst the cows drink very little.
The much est' ' - ""^ milk, the

492 The Gentlentatts Magazine.

non-drinking ones of the Larzac Is the peculiar flavour of the
cheese due to this non-drinking habit ? "

Most people, no doubt, know that the ruminants — ^that is, certain
animals, like cows — have large pouches connected with their intestinal
apparatus, in which imperfectly masticated food is received, and, at
a convenient season, returned into the mouth and there thoroughly
masticated. Human beings occasionally have the power of returning
their food into the mouth for a more complete mastication, and one
such instance is recorded by Mrs. Piorzi in her " Journey through
Italy,'' that of a gentleman living at Milan, in the year 1786, who
had this remarkable peculiarity :

There is a lawyer at Milan, and* a man respected in his profession, who
actually chews the cud like an ox, which he did at my request and in my presence.
He is apparently much like another tall, stout man, but has many extraordinary
properties, being eminent for strength, and possessing a set of rit>s and stemom
very surprising, and worthy the attention of anatomists. His body, upon the
slightest touch, even through all his clothes, throws out electric sparks. He can
reject his meals from his stomach at pleasure, and did absolutely, in .the course of
two hours — the only two I ever passed in his company — go through, to oblige me,
the whole operation of eating, masticating, swallowing, and returning by the
mouth a large piece of bread and a peach. With all this conviction nothing more
was wanting ; but I obtained, besides, the confirmation of common friends, who
were willing likewise to bear testimony of this strange accidental variety. Wliat
I hear of his character is that he is a low-spirited, nervous man, and I suppose
his ruminating moments are spent in lamenting the singularities of his frame.

Mrs. Oliphant, one of the most charming and entertaining of
living writers, has in her delightful " Literary History of England," a
work of extraordinary merit and as interesting as a novel, given a
touching account of Bums* habits and his deplorable craving for
stimulants. She also draws pointed attention to the melancholy,
though of course well-known, fact that Samuel Taylor Coleridge and
Thomas de Quincey, who were both connected, at least for a time,
with the Lake school of poets, were addicted to a dreadful habit,
closely allied to intemperance — an inordinate craving for opiimi,
which blasted the lives of both. A passage that greatly struck me in
reading her graceful narrative of Anna Seward, the "Swan of
Lichfield," draws a sad picture of the disgraceful exhibition which
poor Erasmus Darwin, the once famous poet, though now almost
forgotten, usually so abstemious, made of himself one day that he
had been transgressing his ordinary temperance.

'* To balance,** says Mrs. Oliphant, *' Miss Seward's semi-heroic narrative, we
are told of a certain occasion on which Dr. Darwin, who as a mle esdiewed all
intoxicating liquorsi was persuaded to drink more wine than was good for Iuql
li waf while on a boating expedition, in the m}4d|e oCi^ liQt wiilwuif 1 ^.

I

P Curiosities of Eating and Drinking. 493

To tb« honor and astonishmeiit of his Triends, llie hilT-inloucatcd doctor,
(uddcnly plunged out of the boat into the river, when Ihey were close to Notting-
ham, and mshiog, in his wel clothes, across the fields, reached the isarkel-plac^e
before they could overtake him. Here they found him motinted on n tub, making
an oration to the gaping multitude around. ' Ye men of Nottingham, listen to
me,' he said. * You are ingenious and industrious mechanics. By four industiy,
life's comforts are procured for yourselves and your families. If you lose your
heaJih, the power of being industrious will forsake you, that yon know ; but you
may not know that lobtealhelreshand changed nirconstantly is not less necessary
to procure health than sobriety itself. Air becomCB unwhole&ouie in a few hours
if the windows ate shut. 1 have no intertsi in giving you this advice. Re-
member what I, yout countryman and a physician, lell you. If you would not
bring infection and disease upon yourselves, and la your wives and little ones,
change the air you breathe ; chnngc it many times a day by opening yoni windows.'
After this abrupt address he got down from his tub and went back with his
friends to their boat. The dripping philosopher on his homely platform, the
gaping crowd about him, an eager apothecary of his acquaintance vainly endeav-
ouiing to persuade him to come home with him and change his wet clothes, and
the astounded excursionists standing by, not knowingwhattomakeoftheii friend's
vagary, form on amusing picture."

Perhaps one of the most singular proofs of affection ever recorded
is that given by ihe eccentric genius, De Quincey. He [laid a girl of
eighteen a signal compliment, and showed himself capable of sublime
self-sacrifice for her sake : during his engagement he positively
reduced his daily allowance of opium from 340 grains to 40. With
his constitutional melancholy, aggravated by the abuse of this terrible
drug, De Quincey went through as much misery as the most unfor-
tunate of men ever experienced.

The physician is asked a dozen times a day, by clients of an
inquiring turn, what they had better eat, but usually ihey intend all
the while to take just what pleases them. If the doctor's advice is
in accordance with their humour, well and good ; if not, they abiL-ie
him, and go their own way, notwithstanding all the cogent arguments
he can bring forward. A great physician of the past — Sir Richard
Jcbb— was not distinguished for the delicate language he made use
of to his patients. Nothing used to make him swear more than the
eternal question, " What may I eat ? " " Pray, Sit Richard, may I
eat a muffin?" "Yes, madam— the best thing you can take." "Oh,
dear me, I am glad of that But, Sir Richard, you told me the other
day that it was the it'orst thing I could cat ! " " ^V'hat would be
proper forme to eat to-day ?" queries another lady. "Boiled turnips."
" Boiled turnips ! " exclaims the patient. " You forget. Sir Richard,
I told you I could never eat boiled turnips." " Then, madam,
must have a terribly vitiated appetite I "

The following lines were wiittcf

494 ^^ Gentlematts Magazine.

Here, caught in Death's web,
Lies the great Doctor Jebb,

Who got gold-dust like Sir Astley Cooper ;
Did you speak about diet.
He would kick up a riot.

And swear like a madman or trooper*

When he wanted your money.
Like sugar or honey,

Sir Richard looked happy and placid ;
Having once touched the cash
He was testy and rash.

And his honey was turned all to acid.

Perhaps one of the most curious features of the present age is
the constant attack on time-honoured beliefs. Every kind of food
and drink is proved by some scientific discoverer or another to be
rank poison ; all amusements are attacked on sanitary grounds, while
no occupation escapes : in short, according to some pedant or
another, life is beset with such perils that how it is preserved for a
single month must startle the inquirer. How singular to be warned
that tea and coffee are more dangerous than alcohol, and that excess
— though, what is excess ? — in the former is worse, positively worse
than drunkenness caused by wine and beer ! This, at any rate, is the
conclusion drawn by Dr. Mendel, of Berlin. But he has been fore-
stalled, and Brillat-Savarin, who really can write well, long ago assured
us that Buffon and Voltaire drank enormous quantities of coffee to
their deadly hurt, and that the descriptions, which the former penned
of the dog, the tiger, the lion and the horse, were written under
strong cerebral excitement He uttered the awful warning that a
person of sound constitution might without danger take two bottles
of wine a day, pace Dr. Richardson, throughout a long lifetime, but
with the same indulgence in coffee he would become an idiot or die
of consumption. But let us descend to particulars. " In Leicester
Square, London,*' writes the author of the " Physiologie du Gofit,"
" I have seen a man whom the immoderate use of coffee had reduced
to the state of a helpless cripple. He no longer suffered any pain,
but had become accustomed to the state, and treated himself to five
or six glasses a day." Brillat-Savarin, in his inimitable fashion, there-
upon adds that to prepare himself for a severe task he once drank a
larger quantity of coffee than usual, but, not having to grapple with
the work he expected, had to pay for his rashness by not dosing his
eyes for forty hours, his brain all the while being on the rack, and
*' acting like a mill in motion with nothing to grind." But, pleasantry
apart, every medical practitioner knows that the reckless consumpdoa

I

Curiosities of Eating and Drinking. 495

of hot tea, so common among the poorer class of middle-aged
women, is not unattended with inconvenience, in some cases indeed
with actual danger, and much of the indigestion that makes iheir
lives so miserable can be traced to their craving — a perfectly
artiiicial one— for tea : at any rate, I have in hundreds of cases
succeeded in relieving many of these unhappy sufferers by
stopping the supplies of tea for a few weeks.

While on tea, a few words on common household beverages may
not be out of place. As every child knows m days when, as the
Latin Delectus says, " even boj^s know many things of which the
learned of olden times were ignorant," four or iive non-alcoholic
beverages are consumed in incredible quantities in all parts of the
world, and by all classes ; of these, infusions of tea, coffee-beans,
coffee-leaves, cocoa, Paraguay tea, chicorj-, and l^razilian cocoa, or
guarana, are the principal, though others are taken in smaller
amounts.

To commence with cocoa. This familiar lieverage contains a
crystallised nitrogenous alkaloid called theobromine, the analogue of
the theine or caffeine in the other members of the same class.
Theobromine is noteworthy for its large jwrcentage of nitrogen, and
it has been credited with being a nerve restorer. Though tasteless,
Iheine is the stimulating constituent for which these beverages are
drunk in such quantities, and any useful physiological properties they
possess mainly depend on it. Although the warmth of the infusion
is grateful to most people, the aroma of cocoa, tea, and coffee, which
has something to do with making them general favourites, is due lo
a pungent and powerful volatile oil, rarely exceeding one part in
150 or aoo. Cocoa, though it should be thoroughly mixed with
water and beaten into a paste to prevent the formation of lumps,
should invariably be vtll boiled; it is then more palatable, and when
the manufacturer has added starch, a harmless constituent of the
cheaper brands, more nutritious. Cocoa made with milk, or equal
parts of milk and water, is nutritious and wholesome, and cheaper
than tea or coffee. My readers should remember that perfectly pure
brands, like Cadbury's cocoa essence and Frj^'s cocoa extract, never
thicken on the application of hot water, for they contain no starch.
These high-class preparations are cheaper and wholesomer, for they
only consist of cocoa from which two-thirds of the rich and indi-
gestible cacao butter has been expressed ; nor are they, like the
Dutch cocoas, adulterated with dangerous and objectionable alkaline
It issignificantlhat the fierce batde on behalf of pure non-
ted cocoa whicK ■■ not

49^ The Gentlemafis MagaziiUi

confined to England ; the firm of Walter Baker & Co., of Dordiester,
Mass., U.S.A., has also been compelled to exert itself to the utmost
against Dutch cocoas, which sell at higher prices than their pure
rivab, because the alkalies added to them by the makers give the
resulting infusion or soup an appearance of increased fictitious
strength, and so deceive the public.

The nutritious properties of tea and coffee hardly call for atten-
tion, nor is it certain that — unless sugar and milk are added — they
have any value at all as food. Tea has been credited with promoting
the transformation of starchy and fatty food, and with encouraging
perspiration, by stimulating the action of the skin ; but some physi-
ologists try to show that it promotes the chemico-vital bodily
functions, and increases rather than checks waste. Strong tea
counteracts, in some limited degree, alcohol, and is often used by
dram-drinkers, especially in London, for that purpose, and I have
known Warwickshire peasants fall back upon it The Metropolitan
Police are said to be keenly alive to its anti-alcoholic properties, while
hard drinkers are not ignorant of them, and sometimes tax them to
the utmost

Coffee lessens the action of the skin, and it is said — but more
observations are needed to settle the matter — that with a moderate
allowance of food, and a liberal supply of tea and coffee, a much larger
amount of bodily and mental work can be got through than when these
beverages are excluded from the diet and more food is given; in
other words, one of the strongest claims on behalf of all these
beverages is that they are food economisers and waste preventers—
and if this could be sustained their physiological value would be
established ; but I fancy much can be said on the other side. Tea
and coffee are, in some at present inexplicable way, of service to the
human economy, and most people look upon them as prime neces-
saries of life. Marked recovery of spirits follows a cup of coffee or
tea taken directly after violent exertion — at any rate, many people say
so. These fluids ought not to be drunk hot, nor in excess, nor at a
late hour, as all — but coffee more particularly — interfere with sleep.
Unfortunately, the custom is growing of taking them nearly boiUng
hot ; the folly of this is shown by the indigestion and disturbance of
the system sometimes following a single cup of very hot strong tea
or coffee. Besides, pepsin — the active principle of the gastric juice —
is rendered inert when very hot drinks are taken into the stomach,
and a temperature of 120*" to 130^ Fah. appears to destroy its active
properties ; in other words, very hot fluids give rise to indigestioii,
disturbance of the systenoi and waste of food, and many expeneoced

Curiosities of Eating and Dritih'ng. 497

medical practitioners trace a great deal of the severe indigestion
which torments middle-aged women to the inordinate quantities of
scalding weak tea they take six or seven times a day. I notice that
a large proportion, perhaps a majority, of my dyspeptic patients are
tea-drinking total abstainers, principally women, who are foolish
enough to saturate themselves with insipid hot fluids, and then blame
teetotalism for their bad health.

Tea, coffee, and cocoa are all more economical when finely sub-
divided. At the barracks of the Royal Marines, at Slonehouse, I
was surprised to find that tea-leaves were always ground very fine
before being infused. An orderly told me that the saving was con-
siderable, less ground lea being needed than unground ; this is a
good hint, and my readers should not forget to act upon it. A small
hand-mill, like the one for coffee, answers admirably, and the daily
allowance of tea could be ground in it. Some years ago cakes of
compressed tea, divided by a network of lines for greater ease in
breaking them into pieces of proper size, were widely advertised : I
do not know what has befallen the venture ; it could not fail to have
many uses, and ought to have been successful A curious and
entertaining article on brick-tea caught my eye a short time ago : I
give the most interesting passages, from which the reader will see
that the Orientals are aware of the importance of compressing their
tea.

A curious and interesting feature of the Chinese tea Ir&de is Ihe exlrootdinitiy
ETOwth of the brick-lm industry. Formerly the "Bods" of Thibet were the
only cuslomeis for the comptessed and sourish sl9.bs that found their way across
the frontiers to Ihe Chinese dependency, Init now the Tartars o( Central Asia, the
Siberians, and the peoples of Eastern Russia, all demand their raw tea in slabs,
tabids, or bricks. Consul Allen recently staled that the liade in brick-tea seems
to increase by leaps and bounds. The bricks are prepared by machinerr, and
the brick-tea factories, with their fall chimneys, are the most sinking buildings
in the European settlement at Hankow. The museum at Kew Gardens received
a couple of samples of this tablel-lea early in the present year, and the kst
number of the Rew Btdltlin contains an interesting reference to brick-tea. Two
kinds of tablet-tea are manuractured for the Siberian and Rusiian markets, the
large and the Email ; but they diRei both in manner of preparation and in quality
of the leaf used. The large bricks are made io a very simple way : k quantity
of common tea-dust is placed in a sort of puddingcloth or bag, steamed for a
few moments, then turned into wooden moulds, where it is beaten to the required
consistency by wooden mallets.

In the modern steam manufactories of Hankow Ihe dry dust is poured into

iron moulds, and there subjected to steaming and pressure. This gives a belter

•hapcd and firmer brick. When reedy, the bricks are placed to cool, stored in

drying rooms for a week, carefully wrapped in separate papen and packed in

I biJnboo baskets, eacb containing sixty-four. Each brick must weigh one calty —

vl| lb.~ind care must be - ■'■•'red weiglit, ot ihc

>U CCLXtl. NO. 191* ^^

498 The Gentleman s Magazine.

SiberUns and Tartars reruse them. Hence, a brick, if undsr weight, is rejected.
Green tea is prepared in the same way, only the prejudices of buyers reqmre it
to be made up in 2|-lb. tablets, to be made of the whole leaf, and to be packed
thirty-six in a basket. The cost of preparation, carriage, duty, and packing is
jor. per picui of 133 lbs., or 2. J*/, per Ib^ — hence it can be sold at a very low
price in the Siberian and Russian markets. The makers, being practical
men, take care to resenre the finer and best dust for the outside, keeping the
coarser and inferior leaf for the inside. Some years ago this kind of bride-tea
was shipped to London in large quantities for Russia. At present it all goes
direct from China overland, vid Kiuhhta and Maimachin.

The better class of Siberians and Mongols require a superior article, and to
supply their wants a smaller brick or tablet of good quality leaf is prepared. It
is manufactured from the finest tea-dust. The selection is carefully made, only
the product of the early pickings or first crop being chosen. The fine leaf is not
steamed, for steaming robs the tea of all its fragrance, and would ill adapt the
bricks for connoisseurs. The dust is poured into steel moulds, quite dry, and
subjected to hydraulic pressure of two tons to the square inch. In this way the
tea preserves for an indefinite period all its aroma and freshness. The original
cost to the manufacturer at Hankow is over 841. per picul. Duty, carriage, pack*
ing, and so forth, amount to at least as much, so that the tablets can hardly be
sold at a profit by the wholesale dealer and retailed much under \s, per pound.
With the best steam machinery the failures are only five per cent.; where the old-
fashioned hand-moulds are used, twenty- five per cent, of the bricks turned out
are imperfect and have to be remade. It is claimed for the compressed tablets
and bricks that the fragrant constituents of the leaf are better preserved than in
the ordinary loose state, that the cells are broken by the heavy hydraulic pressure;
hence the use of bricks is more economical, a given weight yielding a stronger
infusion than the same quantity of loose tea. But though the small tiblets have
been introduced in this country, they have not taken with English tea-drinkers.
l*he true brick-tea of China, the unsophisticated article, is, however, nothing like
the tablets and slabs which find their way to Russia and Siberia. The genuine
brick-tea of the Chinese manufacturers is intended for the Thibetan market and
for the Eastern Mongols. It is made of the whole leaf, stalk, flower, and all, as
it is picked from the tea-shrub, and is in shape and appearance not unlike a rather
dirty ordinary brick. The correspondent writing in the Kern Gardnu Bulletin
Slates that he has never seen this kind of brick-tea manufactured, but knows it is
made by the Chinese in a very simple way. Simple is hardly the word : ^miiivi
is nearer the mark. The leaves are chewed, and when well saturated with saliva
are laid out to ferment and partially Axy. They are then rolled up into little
bal's, with the help of some additional moisture, and afterwards moulded by hand
into oblong blocks, or bricks, ten inches long, ten broad, and four thick. The
leaves thus prepared acquire a slightly sour taste, due to fermentation induced by
the saliva. The trade in these bricks is a most important one, and it is the fear
of interference with it on the part of the tea-growers of Assam that is at the
bottom of the hostility manifested by the Chinese and Thibetans to an attempt
to enter into closer commercial relations with the trans- Himalayan state. The
trade in brick-tea is a monopoly of the Lamas or priestly caste of Thibet, and
they are very jealous of any interference with a highly profitable business. The
ordinary Thibetan must have tea ; it is the only thing he considers indispensable,
and for this commodity he depends entirely upon the Lamas. The latter know
that, if intercourse between Darjeeling and Thibet were encouraged, the Assam

Curiosities of Eating and Drinking.

planlns wonld supply the Dalives with tea at it much lower rale thin the piiesti
ctiatge. So, what with the Lamas on ihe one hand and the Chinese planters on
the other, it is not surprising that the attempt to fo^tcT commercial intercourse
between India and Bodyul is not viewed with favour on the other side of the
Iiuto-ChiDese frontier. Brick-tea is also >ued as currency in Thibet, prices being
quoted in equivalents of the compressed leaf. The beverage prepared from the
sourish tablets is hardly likely to tempt the Western palate. The Thibclin tea-
pot is ■ sort of wooden chum, into which a hoiting infusion of the lea-leaves is
poured through the strainer ; a little salt is added, and some twenty or thirty
strokes are applied with a wooden dasher pierced with holes. A lump of butler
is thrown in, and ihc mixture churned with one bundled or one hundred and fifty
strokes administered with much preciElon. But this is a good deal morepaUtable
to Europeans than the brew concocted of the bricks by the Mongols. Meal, as
well as a bountiful supply of butler, is added to the decoction, and with a fat
sheep's tail or two swimming about in the liquid, a dish of tea is served which,
in flavour and appearance, is difficult to distinguish from well- thickened pea-
It will long be a moot question, which common household bever-
age is the most wholesome and useful. That most people prefer
something hot to drink is as certain as that the sun is the source of
light and heat, and the well-meant crusade against hot infusions is
making little way ; few indeed are the persons who stick to cold
water, though a good many make free use of milk. In England tea
is in almost universal request, and 150,000,000 lbs. are used annually;
coffee is not becoming a greater favourite — indeed, it is said to be
actually losing ground ; while, though cocoa is coming into greater
request, and the consumption has advanced rapidly of late, it is still
far less used than it deserves. Although many persons complain that
it does not refresh them like tea or coffee, it possesses the same
advantage of warmth, while it is immensely more nutritious, and a
large cup of rich, pure cocoa, with sugar and milk, is greatly more
sustaining than one of tea or coffee. Cocoa is not an infusion or
decoction, but a soup or gruel, and the finely divided particles are
suspended in the mixture, but only for a short time ; they have a
tendency to settle at the bottom, hence it requires frequent stirring ;
and it was to saponify the cocoa soup that certain Dutch firms have
added alkalies to their preparations, so that precipitation is not so
rapid and an appearance of greater fictitious strength is obtained.
It is to be regretted that people cannot see the reason of the hostility
firms to these medicated brands. It is no narrow or false
tend that when our own manufacturers offer, at very

of Engh'sh

" , fgctlypuceand wholesome preparations, we should, other

low price?, I , eivethem ihe preference. Something too could

Soo The Gentleman's Magazine.

cocoas, as the human system is not the better for daily doses of
alkaline salts, and on account of their absolute purity the preparations
of our own great makers have much to reconunend diem.

From cocoa to the end of the world is a far cry apparently, bat
not in reality, for as soon as the population of the globe is so dense
that sufficient food cannot be found, cocoa, which, unlike many other
beverages, is a food, will not be forthcoming in sufficient quantities.
Now, according to a leader in the Times of September 9, the British
Association, at its recent Leeds gathering, was sorely exercised dis-
cussing the very serious question presented by the rapid increase of
population, and the first paragraph of that leader is worthy of dose
attention ; I give it verbatim.

Some flippant person once observed that, as posterity had never done aof*
thing for him, he could not see why he should trouble himself about posteiitj.
It may be hoped that few would avow their acceptance of this shocking sod-
ment, but there is reason to fear that many among us have fonned a veij in-
adequate conception of the duty we all owe, even to our more remote demh
dants. Happily the British Association exists to correct erroneous notioits upoa
this and other important subjects, and to substitute serious reflection for irrespoo-
sible frivolity. Its anxiety for the future of the race may be estinuted from the
fact that two important sections — the Geographical and the E^nonoical— met
yesterday, September S, to discuris the prospects of the population of the globe.
Mr. Kavcnstein opened the discussion with a paper in which he offered a carefiil
and elaborate estimate of the possibilities of expansion. Our readers wiU lein
with relief that, notwithstanding the gloomy prognostications sometimes heard,
these possibilities are still in his view considerable. He estimates the popolatiou
of the world for the present year at 1,468 millions, and, after making carefnl
allowance for various unfavourable circumstances, he comes to the comforting
conclusion that the human race may increase to the number of 5,994 millioos
without outrunning the supply of food. As this is equal to more than four times
the existing population, it may be feared that improvident persons will find in his
figures some encouragement to continued carelessness. But a closer ^TamiwaHna
will convince all but the most thoughtless that, great as is the apparent maigiii,
we cannot afford to dispense with caution and foresight. Mr. Ravenstein bss
put to himself the pregnant question — How long will it be before the worid is
full, if humanity persists in its present reckless rate of increase, namely 8 per
cent, per decade? Most people will probably learn with pained surprise ?>^t,
on these terms, the limit of expansion will be reached in 182 years. In the jtir
2072, unless the human race mends its ways, there will be no more room any-
where. But a single decade will see an increase of 479 millions, and in a single
year— the year 2073— a numl>er of unfortunates exceeding the present popuktioo
of the United Kingdom will be l)orn into a world which will have no food to
offer them. Imagination reels under the effort to realize the gigantic calamity
thus clearly foreshadowed by the operations of science. The interval may actotOy
be bridged by a couple of lives. The babe bom this year may live to see the
birth of a grandchild or great-grandchild in 198 1, who in turn may live to witnes
the birth, in 2073, of one of his descendanU £ited to endure cither stwatiQuoia

Curiosities of Eating and Dnnhng.

diet of glass. Surely the most fiivolous must pause at tbe awful thought that
his infant's grandchild may live to see the wotld marked comflel, like a Freoch
omnibus.

Not long ago, what at first seemed an incomprehensible inquiry
was addressed to me : I was asked by a young lady, in a letter for-
warded by a London editor, to inform her whether starch would do
her and some young female friends harm. In my innocence I thought
she meant the starch we get in flour, and which is so large and
wholesome a part of its bulk, and so I replied that it was most useful
and excellent. Judge of my astonishment to learn that she meant a
horrid compound of washing starch, which she and her friends took
in inordinate quantities to make themselves thin and interesting,
much as vinegar is still so often swallowed for the same criminal
purpose What a shock to one's feelings in the year 1890 to discover,
for the first time, that starch, compounded with I know not what
injurious messes, is taken 10 derange the stomach and to make the
eater thin! Surely, if leanness and a bloodless complexion are
coveted, nothing could be easier than to abstain from all but a
modicum of food.

For people bent on starving themselves or disorganising their
digestion tlie quality of their food is of minor importance, so that my
next paragraph will not interest them.

The Bread and Food Reform League having recently obtained
leave to hold meetings in the Board Schools of the Metropolis to air
their views, a preliminary gathering was held at the Parkes' Museum
of Hygiene, and was attended by a large number of visitors. Dr.
Hare, one of the most learned and genial of Metropolitan medical
luminaries, a true philanthropist, and absolutely venerated by his old
pupils, took the chair, and Dr. Norman Kerr, the great authority on
the treatment of inebriety, read a paper on the " Inestimable Value
of Good Bread " — arguing that, while while bread was indigestible
and innutritions, brown bread, prepared on scientific principles,
satisfied every demand from the hygienist's standpoint. Dr. Kerr
continued that it was rather singular that while the well-to-do were
open to sound teaching — but are not the ignorant always the most
impenetrable to new ideas— the views of the league, supported by a
mass of incontrovertible evidence, had found little acceptance among
the poor, who were far more directly concerned. Whole-meal bread
develops a healthy structure of the body with vigorous brain-power,
while flour, deprived of its phosphates, will, in the course of time,
should it be relied upon as the stafl" of life, reduce those who eai it
. to the CO"'*' ' ' -fish" (the expression, though telling, is not

502 The Gentleman's Magazine.

mine but Dr. Kerr's). Miss Yates, the hon. secretary of the League,
contended that the use of white bread is a common cause of rickets
in children, and of consumption, neuralgia, and other complaints in
adults. This shows that even a vegetarian diet, in spite of its
superior cheapness and wholesomeness, has drawbacks, when zeal is
not accompanied by discretion and knowledge. By the way, an
argument in support of vegetarianism, crowning all the others, and, in
my humble judgment, giving them tenfold weight, is that the exten-
sion of vegetarianism would lessen the indescribable and agonising
sufferings of the unhappy creatures reared and killed for human food
To say nothing of the atrocities perpetrated on calves, Strasbuig
geese, and many other timid animals reserved for the epicure's con-
sumption— of turtles nailed down to the decks of ships and trans-
ported thousands of miles lying on their backs ; of cattle and poultry
packed in railway carriages, and driven wild by want of food and
water, jammed against one another, crushed into comers of vans and
trucks, and shaken by the jolting of the trains — what of the crudtyof
drovers and the ferocity of butchers ? From one end of the world to
another, through all the ages, the sufferings of animals at the hand of
man have been so terrible, unnecessary and cold-blooded, that they
have saddened the hearts and darkened the lives of all the thoughtful
men and women who have dared to think about them. Well has it
been said, although with no bearing on vegetarianism, that no animal
is half so savage as man. Whatever else it might mean, a vegetable
diet would lessen the torture of animals and make humanity to them
more common.

ALFRED J. H. CRESPI.

503

UP AND DOIVN THE LINE.

ONE needs to be as great a man as Mr. Ruskin to be able to
write to a correspondent, as he did in March, 1887, and
describe railroads as " the most hideous things now extant,
animated and deliberate earthtjuakes, destructive of all wise social
habit or possible natural beauty, carriages of poor souls on the ridges
of their own graves." It is only fair to remember that these very
burning words were written in reply to a gentleman of Cumberland,
who had communicated with him respecting the then projected
Ambleside Railway; they owe without doubt much of their intensity to
Ksthetic reasons of the greatest cogency. Such a dislike to railways
seems refreshingly fantastic now, but it was extremely common in the
first half of this waning century, and fortified itself with reasons quite
the reverse of esthetic ; in fact, the anti-railway champions look up
a sternly practical stand-point. At the third reading of the Liverpool
and Manchester Railway Bill in the House of Commons in 1816,
the Hon. Edward Stanley moved that the Bil! be read that day six
months, and Sir Isaac Coffin seconded the motion, indignantly
denouncing the project as fraught with fraud and imposition. He
would not consent to see widows' premises invaded, he gallantly said,
and " how," he asked, " would any person like to have a railroad
under his parlour window? What was to be done with all those who
had advanced money in making and repairing turnpike roads? What
with those who may still wish to travel in their own or hired carriages,
after the fashion of their forefathers ? What was to become of
coach-makers and harness -makers, coach-masters and coachmen,
innkeepers, horse-breeders, and horse-dealers? Was the House
aware of the smoke and noise, the hiss and whirl, which locomotive
engines, passing at the rate often of ten or twelve miles an hour,
would occasion? Neither the cattle ploughing in the fields or graz-
ing in the meadows could behold them without dismay. Iron would
be raised in price too per cent., or, more probably, exhausted alto-
gether I It would be the gre^ ">ie(e
disturbance of quiet and com

504 The Gefttlemafis Magazine.

the ingenuity of man could invent ! " Other opponents to the Bill
gave forth still gloomier and odder predictions ; the smoke of the
engines would kill the birds, and the cows would be so frightened
(poor things !) as to cease to give their milk ; the sparks from die
engines would set fire to the houses and manufactories on the lice of
route ; the horse would become an extinct animal, and such dire
results were to ensue that amongst them the absolute ruin of the
whole country would shrink to the insignificance of a mere detail
This was not considered particularly absurd by a large class of people
in 1826, and one rather looks on those daring spirits as heroes who
are represented in an old print of two trains as travelling on the
Liverpool and Manchester line in 1830. One of these, which
apparently represents the very earliest form of passenger train, is
drawn by an engine, which is a species of first cousin to the famous
" Rocket," the engine which gained Stephenson the prize of ;^ 500 in
a competition at Rainhill, and which is still preserved in the South
Kensington Museum. Previous to its opening the Liverpool and
Manchester line offered this prize for the best engine that could draw
three times its own weight On the 8th October, 1829, three engines
entered the competition ; the *' Rocket " was there in charge of
Stephenson ; Ericsson and Braithwaite showed the ^ Novelty," and
Hackworth produced his "Nonpareil.* All the vehicles at the
bottom of the print seem to be fully exposed to the weather, except
for a slight awning overhead, and only a portion of the passengers are
enjoying the luxury of seats ; the vehicles are in type not unlike open
goods waggons of the present day. The upper portion of the picture
shows a train with better accommodation, as all the carriages are
covered in. It is worth noticing that the luggage of the passengers
is piled on the roofs of the carriages, which elevated situation is also
occupied by the guards ; the carriages are named " The Traveller,"
" The Times," &c. ; like their predecessors, the stage coaches, which
they had but recently then superseded. At the end of the train are
seen a party of travellers seated in their own family carriage, which is
mounted on a low truck and without the wheels having been removed
from it This self-respecting family includes some ladies in decollete
dresses, and on the box-seat are perched the coachman and footman,
apparently as ornaments, for naturally there are no horses. Surely,
even the Sage of Coniston would approve of this method of travel-
ling, which has all the charms of Britannic exclusiveness and an
almost artistic originality. The curious-looking engines of the
"Rocket* t3rpe lingered on till comparatively recently on some
Cornish lines. Their strange-looking apparatus of piston-iodsi

Vp and Down the Lim

\

Co^ed on one side, gave them a terrific appearance ; living eye-
witnesses describe them as moving along with a horrid clang, which
caused the country-folk to name them onomatopoeically ^'jim-jams,"
and they looked to an imaginative spectator like some great dragon
or prehistoric beast painfully dragging its unwieldy bulk along and
Uttering discordant shrieks the while.

It is most interesting to trace how tenaciously the first railway
managers clung to the traditions of coaching, probably out of defer-
ence to the susceptibilities of the timid travellers by the new convey-
ance, who themselves adopted at first a method of procedure very
different from our present airy style of "Third, single, Jericho." An
old work gives us a ghmpse of ticket taking about eight and forty
years ago on the London and Birmingham hne. Having reached
Euston the traveller found a policeman, in the company's dark green
uniform, standing about the entrance of the station. He then passed
through the portico ; on the right was a range of buildings, the upper
part of which was used as offices for the secretary and other officials.
Moving on he entered beneath the colonnade, where the booking-
offices were, and a number of people generally hung about, wailing
to pay their fares. There were no pigeon holes in those days, but
a large counter was in the booking-office with a number of clerks
behind it " displaying the usual bustling, but with rather a more
methodical appearance than their professional brethren at the coach-
offices." Then as now, the passengers passed in between a rail,
through which only one individual could go at a time. Our early
historian in recording his experiences (bold man that be was !) says :
" Into this pass we enter, and we patiently listen to the utterance
of the names of stations. When our turn comes we mention the
place we are going to, and the station nearest it is named, together
with the fare to that station. This sum we pay, and receive a ticket,
which is forthwith stamped for us, and on which the number of the
seat we are to occupy, and all the necessary directions, are printed.
Ticket in hand, we proceed forwards through the entrance hall, and
emerge beneath a spacious shedding, round which the traveller can
scarcely cast a wondering gaze, when a policeman approaches, and
hurriedly asks, ' Number of your ticket, sir ? ' Having obtained a
glance at the ticket, the ofHcial immediately points out the owner's
seat in the train, and then hastens away to perform similar duties to
Others." We must here say farewell to this observant tr.iveller of
the past, and leave him shivering at the entrance of his railway
•carriage, unwilling to quit the terra fintia of thr '
itform was anciently called. The first railw

'^^4

5o6 The Gentleman s Alagazine.

of ivory or horn ; some of them were charmingly engraved in steel
by the American Bank-note Engraving Company. In shape they
were circular, square, octagonal, and triangular. On the Leicester
and Swannington Railway, metal tickets were used engraved with
the name of the station which was the traveller's destination. At
the journey's end these were collected by the guard, placed in a
leather pouch, and taken to Leicester for future use. The builders
of the first railway-carriages made not the least allowance for the
changed mode of progression and motion which was naturally intro-
duced with the steam-engine when they built the first coaches. They
retained the short, narrow, stuffy body of the stage-coach, set it upon
four wheels of another make, and then simply attached it to the
engine as to a new, enlarged kind of horse. With the increased
speed of travelling the motion became intolerable, and when a high
rate of speed was reached few people could keep their seats. By
degrees, but very slowly, these things were improved ; better ventila-
tion was ensured, more wheels were added, and the carriages
enlarged in height, length, and width ; doors and windows also were
so constructed as to keep out the clouds of dust that choked the
traveller on badly-made and ill-kept lines. A good idea of the pitch
to which modem care is extended to all the minutut and details of
carriage building may be gained by going over the works of the
London and North Western at Wolverton. Here immense
stores of the woods used are kept in stock. The spoils of West
Indian and American forests are to be seen in the shape of huge
logs of mahogany, bay-wood, pine and Quebec oak ; the East Indies
send teak, which is largely used in the framing and fittings of the
carriages, while English oak and ash are also to the fore. Overhead
is a high-speed travelling crane, which, while one is looking on,
seizes the great log in its powerful clutch and lifls it on to two trucks,
standing upon a miniature railway of two feet gauge, which runs
throughout the works. The log is swiftly conveyed into the saw-
mill, and is met on its entrance either by a large circular saw, which
soon converts it into planks, or by a frame saw, which cuts it into
boards or panels as required. The planks are then cut to standard
sizes, and packed away in drying sheds to season, or if they consist
of already seasoned timber, they are at once marked out, and
fashioned into the various parts of a carriage by some of the
numerous complex machines which abound on every side. In the
drying-sheds are kept, with the planks already mentioned, piles of
mahogany panels and of veneers of walnut, sycamore, ebony, and
various other woods used for ornamental purposes. These are all

I

I

up and Down the Line,

labelled and dated, and receive as lender care as a leisured con-
noisseur bestows upon his bins of choice vintages, for it seems that
much depends upon skilful selection and preparation of the materials
from which the carriages are built. In the " body-shop " (which has
a rather medical- student kind of sound by the way) these parts and
sections, already cut out of seasoned timber, are put together and
assume for the first time the tough semblance of the body of a
carriage. This is then raised by a crane and lowered on to the
under-frame already prepared for it ; the vehicle is then taken in the
rough to another shop, where it undergoes long tedious processes of
rubbing down, painting, and varnishing ; the internal fittings and
upholsterings (which have been prepared in other shops} are then
added, and the carriage is finally put in a cool airy shed for its paint
and varnish to harden and dry before it finally emerges for, let us
hope, a long career of usefulness in the world.

It is quite worth while to go and see the process of wheel-making
at the wheel-shop. The wheels are made without spokes, and the
centres are solidly built up of segments of teak compressed by
hydraulic power. Passing the imposing double row of wheel lathes,
yrhich, with apparently very little attention from the workmen, are
cutting long spiral shavings of steel from the tyres, much as one pares
an apple with a knife, or boring out tyres, and cutting the grooves for
the retaining rings (which, once in place, make it impossible for the
tyie to leave the wheel, even if broken into several pieces), one
reaches the machinery by which the wheels are finally put together.
A steel tyre, spun from a solid block of weldless Bessemer steel, is
swung up by a hydraulic crane on to the press, the teak segments
already prepared are placed in position within the circumference of
the tyre, the press is closed up and a handle turned which sets the
hydraulic ram in motion. Groaning, the solid blocks of teak are
forced into the tyre ; with a few thumps they are driven home.
When the press is opened the wood centre is seen to be as homo-
geneous as though formed out of one piece of timber. Nothing
remains but to add the retaining ring and boss plates ; another
hydraulic press forces Ihc wheel and its fellow on to the axle and
keys them up. These are the means taken to set one more wheel
roiling forth into the world to join its thousands of companions
which are hurrying along the iron road day and night unceasingly.
The curious in such matters may be interested to learn that the
London and North Western Rp*'- '- '■^ilculated to run one

mile and three quarters eve '"^ 104

miles, while all the year ro

5oS The Gentleman s Magazine.

equal to a girdle round the earth. Poor wheel and its destiny of eternal
unrest ! A Victor Hugo alone could properly deal with its feelings
from the moment when the teak is uprooted from its native forests of
Siam to the time when it passes out of the yard of the works at Wol-
verton to its giddy life of perpetual revolution. The same principle of
evolution which has turned the old stage-coach into the comfortable
modem saloon-carriage has been at work in every department of
railways and their management, and the highly intricate and impor-
tant modem system of railway-signalling springs from a most simple
beginning. There is, of course, an obvious need on every railway
for some visible indication by means of which the drivers of trains
may be warned when they may proceed and when they must come
to a standstill Shortly after the opening of the Stockton and Dar-
lington line, which was the earliest line constmcted, one of the
station masters is traditionally said to have adopted the simple
expedieitt of placing a lighted candle in the window of the station-
house when it was necessary for a train to stop. From this rough
expedient has developed the complicated system of signals and
interlocking which may be seen at its highest development at
Clapham Junction or at Waterloo. When the Liverpool and Man-
chester Railway was first opened in 1830, the only means of
signalling the trains was a flag by day and a lamp by night An old
print in the Illustrated London News shows us the pointsman or
policeman in the longtailed coat and tall hat of the period making
the prescribed motions with his flag. The first advance to modem
signalling began about four years afler the line had been opened,
when stout posts were provided upon which lamps were placed by
the pointsman. Nowadays the signalman's cabin is the centre from
which all signalling radiates, and it is necessary to enter one before
the working of the system can be thoroughly imderstood. In the
Cannon Street box, which is a very typically important one, there are
rows of bright levers, divided into two sets — the up and the down —
each relating to their respective lines. They are also further sub-
divided into home and distance signals. Besides these levers there
is a round dial worked by electricity, which informs the signalman if
the arm of the signal has answered or not to his lever. The motive
power of this dial is the arm of the signal itself ; hence no error can
possibly happen. Above the levers are nine or ten wooden boxes,
resembling the ordinary telegraph instmments, as indeed some of
them are. At many great junctions the signalman is aided by an
arrangement on the lever, which prevents a signal being lowered
while the points which it covers are wrongly set. Thus, if a train is

I

I

up and Down the Line. 509

crossing from one line to another, all the signals both upon the up and
the down line are blocked ; by these means any traffic is prevented
from approaching. As to the telegraph communication, there is not
only a wire between box and box, but there is also a " through " wire
from station to station, On the " through" instrument the attention
of the man required is called by using a particular letter before com-
mencing, and the code can thus be used at any intermediale station
needed. It is a remark common-place enough after any railway
accident to refer to the onerous duties of signalmen, but with r,joo
trains passing daily through Clapham Junction, over three hundred
leaving Victoria, and more than four hundred leaving Waterloo, and
80 on, is it to be wondered at that occasionally things do go wrong?
It is a curious fact that the general public put but little faith in
the telegraph until it accomplished, in connection with the railway,
a feat which at the time made a considerable sensation, and popu-
larised the new invention. This was caused by the capture of
Tawell, the murderer, who poisoned his sweetheart at Slough. The
poor woman, being at the point of death, called in her friends, who
chased the villain to the station, where he just caught the London
train. The telegraph was called into requisition, and the following
message was sent : " A murder has just been committed at Salthill,
and the suspected murderer was seen to take a first-class ticket for
London by the train which left Slough at 7.42 p.m. He is in the
garb of a Quaker, with a brown greatcoat on, which reaches nearly
down to his feet. He is in the last compartment of the second-class
carriage." On arriving at the terminus he took a City omnibus, but
the conductor was a policeman in disguise, and Tawel! was watched
from one coflee-house to another, which he entered probably for
purposes of proving an alibi, as they were all places he was in the
habit of frequenting. Finally, he went to a City lodging-house ; as
he was on the threshold, the policeman who had followed all his
movements quietly said to him ; "Haven't you just come from
Slough?" He confusedly denied, but was immediately taken into
custody, tried, and hanged. A countr>-man who travelled in the
same carriage with Sir Francis Head from Paddington a few months
later, loolcinj; up at the wires, exclaimed, " Them's the cords that
hung John Tawell." This whole occurrence greatly took hold of the
public mind and rendered it favourable to the telegraph ; in the
sequel the long " brown greatcoat " of this murderer does not appear
' the subsequent popular odium which the black satin
ling the murderess incurred, nor did it gain the
of mi'UhtT and earlier criminal, ThurtctI,

5IO The Gentlemafis Magazine.

whose gig and respectability have become historical in the pages of
Carlyle. Electricity in the future will probably have a much more
intimate connection with the railway when electric lighting becomes
more common. At present it has only been adopted by a few lines,
although there are at least three methods by which an electric current
may be obtained for lighting the carriages of a train. A primary
battery may be used, a secondary battery, as on the Brighton line, or
the dynamo may be used direct Each system has its advocates ;
among railway engineers the consensus of opinion is favourable
either to the secondary batteries or the direct action of the dynamos,
but perhaps ultimately the two systems may be combined. The
Liverpool and Manchester Railway carries a Brotherwood's engine
and a Siemens compound shunt dynamo fixed on the tender of the
locomotive, with an ammeter and switch on the engine, so that the
driver may regulate the current ; there are two lamps in each com-
partment of the train, with an automatic switch arrangement, so that
in the event of one lamp failing, the second would be automatically
brought into use. The expense of each lamp under this system per
hour is '628 of a penny, but this is only for one train ; there would
be no higher working expenses if it were applied to three or four
trains working between the same points. It is beyond question,
however, that electricity will eventually supersede gas and oil. The
dangers of oil in case of accident to a train are even greater than
those of gas, and in America the horrors of many terrible railway
accidents have been greatly increased by the fires which have arisen
from the gas and oil. Probably the next decade will see many more
changes for the better in improved railway carriages, and it is note-
worthy that the improvements all tend to the amelioration of the
third-class carriages, and are for the benefit of third-class passengers,
who are now as valued by the companies as they were formerly
despised and ill-treated. Mr. Gladstone may claim probably to have
been the prophet or first advocate for the change of the time-
honoured three classes into a fusion of two only, as on the Midland.
In 1874 he remarked, in the course of a letter addressed to a chair-
man of the Metropolitan Railway, "AVith moderation of fares, I
join, in my mind, another change — the substitution of two classes
for three." It is estimated that in 1854 only 53 per cent, of
passengers travelled third-class, and recent figures prove that now
they number at least 87. \ per cent. \ figures which speak for them-
selves of the value of the ever-increasing class of economical
travellers. The enterprising Midland was the first company to intro-
duce the Pullman car into Great Britain, and in 1872 the first

contract was signed for their supply for fifteen years. The English
Pullman cars are specially constructed for our lines, being narrower
than ihose used in America. The ordinarj- car is some 48 or 50 feet
long. Those which are run on the Midland are well carpeted and
furnished, and have cushioned easy chairs which turn on a pivot.
The drawing-room sleeping-car is another well-appointed saloon, with
fixed seats at the windows like short sofas, two and two, and facing
each other. Between them is a table on which it is possible to write,
without difficulty, while the train is going at full speed. At night the
tables are removed, and the seats, being lowered, form good
bedsteads ; the panels overhead can be unfastened, and form good
upper berths.

Luxurious travelling has reached a great pitch in the United
States and there are more than a hundred such carriages belonging
to private individuals, and one millionaire travels about with a pic-
ture gallery on board ; it may be guessed he is unmarried, for the
female of that species would scarcely be able to give up the space
to pictures and ofije/iifari, which her Saratoga trunks would probably
claim. The Emperor Napoleon III. was an early specimen of the
luxurious traveller, and more than twenty-five years ago had carried
"land-yachting" to a pitch of great perfection. He travelled with
a large suite which occupied fourteen carriages. The engine was
one specially constructed and of great power ; following the engine
was a huge baggage car, in which was carried the luggage and the
provisions for the party ; the dining car came next, and was the
first used in Europe. The Emperor and Empress on more than
one occasion gave dinner-parties in their train that have rarely
been equalled in royal palaces. Behind the dining-room car came
an open carriage in which travelling was exceedingly comfortable
and pleasant In fine weather ; succeeding this was a drawing-room car,
containing a piano, sofas, arm-chairs, card-tables, clocks, a musical-
box, a library, and many other things useful and ornamental. The
sleeping appointments of the train were excellent ; most of the
servants occupied the baggage-carriage, in which beds could be
formed by drawing out panels, on the American system. For the
Royal party there was a car divided into a number of compart-
ments; one for the Emperor, one for the Empress, two dressing-
rooms, two rooms for the ladies- in- wailing, one for the Emperor's
valet, and an extra room. Next to this came the apartments of
the i'rmce Imperial and his attendants. All the com|)arinients
communicated with the others by electric bells, and the Emperor
could at anv moment slop the train by direct communication with

512 The Gentleman's Magazine.

the driver. At the end of the train were placed two or three
additional luggage vans to serve as buffers in case of danger.
The Prince of Wales possesses a private train which was built
for him by the South-Eastem Company, and consists of seven
rooms and is fifty feet long. The ex-£mperor of Brazil had one
which was made for him in America ; it is said to have every-
thing on board from a Turkish-bath to an ice-cream machine.
The Czar also possesses a day-car fitted up in every way like that of
the Prince of Wales. It is well known that Her Majesty the Queen
is the greatest traveller probably of all the sovereigns who have
occupied her throne, though King John must have nearly equalled
his Royal successor, as he is said never to have spent a fortnight
consecutively in the same place, during the whole of his reign. As
is becoming for such a great and experienced traveller the royal
carriages are simply furnished and built for real use, in spite of
fanciful descriptions which Society newspapers have given of them
from time to time. The great luxury is, humanly speaking, its ab-
solute safety ; a pilot engine precedes the royal train some fifteen
minutes or so a-head, and between that and the royal train no
waggon, carriage, or engine is allowed to run. After the royal train
has passed, full fifteen minutes must elapse before any engine or
train is allowed to leave a station or siding. Immense care is taken
to inspect all crossing-gates before the train passes, and some one
is appointed to watch them with all attention, and the siding points
are spoked. Her Majesty has been an excellent customer to the
railways, and is said to have paid more than two pounds per mile
when travelling from Baden to Aix-les- Bains. The railways in this
country are a very loyal body, and from them has been formed what
is termed the "Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps" ; this is
composed of a certain number of engineers, several of the great con-
tractors, and the general managers of most of the principal railways,
the contractors forming the "Labour Branch" of the corps. In
case of an invasion the officers of the corps would superintend the
working of the railways, as they do in times of peace, but would be
under military command ; it is believed that the system is so perfect
that a considerable body of troops could be concentrated at any
given point on our shores in a short time, if necessary. The War
Office, in 1885, instituted a test of the ability of the officers of the Staff
Corps, which may be interesting to describe ; although only carried
out on paper it affords an idea of what the railway companies could
accomplish in case of emergency. The test took the form of an
" Exercise," proposed by order of the Commander-in-Chief, and was

up and Down the Line,

513

Really a kind of problem which ihe Staff Corps were offered to solve.
An invading force of 150,000 men was assumed to be disembarking
between Southend and Shoeburyness, and hostile vessels were
simultaneously ascending the Blackwater river to land a strong
detachment at Stangate Abbey. Instructions were supposed to have
been telegraphed to concentrate 130,000 men on the line of Stan-
ford-le-Hope. Billericay, and Chelmsford, with a view to occupy the
Basildon position and repel the invader, three corps to be brought
up as quickly as possible, and the rest within forty-eight hours. The
particulars were given as to where the troops were stationed all over
the country, and the number of men at each place. In due time
the problem was solved and the answer furnished. It was assumed
that for the time being all ordinary traffic had been suspended, that
all the railways could be worked at once, and that encroachments
of land to form due temporary platforms of sleepers and ballast, for
loading and unloading horses and artillery, would be permitted.
Tables were submitted to the War Office showing every detail of
arrival, departure, time allowed for refreshment, and the number of
men convt-yed by each train. The totai number of trains to be
employed was 515 ; not counting stoppages, the speed twenty-five
miles an hour ; no trains were to follow one another on the same
lines at a less interval than fifteen minutes, and the last train was
timed lo anive at Chelmsford within forty-five hours and fifty
minutes of the hour at which the order was supposed to have been
given by telegraph, so that mercifully, on paper, the defenders were
placed in a position to drive the invaders of our hearths and homes
into the sea. Once landed, however, our enemies might turn the tables
on us, as the Germans did onthc Trench in the war of 1870-1, when
investing Paris ; for not only did they avail themselves of the rail-
ways around the city, but they took possession of the large loco-
motive works of the Northern of France Railway, and by means of
impressed labour (which Ihcy properly remunerated nevertheless)
they repaired rolling-stock and plant, and worked the railway,

A charming story was told by the locomotive superintendent of
the French railway, which shows international courtesy flourishing
amazingly under most trying circumstances. This gentleman
occupied a comfortable and well-fumished residence at Saint Denis,
whence he was forced to retreat at the approach of the German
army; zealously occupied with L-iking with him as much as pos-
sible of the rolling-stock of his railway to Lille, he had no lime
to dismantle his house or remove ""v of his possessions. He
accordingly left behind him ;• ""icers of the

VOL. CCUUX. MO. I9IP

514 ^^ Gentlemafis Magazine.

German army who might take up quarters in his house, poiitdy
begging them to make the freest use of everything, but entreatmg
them to do as little damage as possible. Under the circumstances
the Teuton rose to the height of the occasion, and was not to be
beaten by Gallic courtesy, for, on the superintendent's return, after
the evacuation, he found everything as he had left it, and upon the
piano, in his drawing-room, was a volume of Schubert's songs sab-
scribed to their courteous, though involuntary host, by those officen
of the German army who had been his guests. A few facts as to
rapid travelling may be of some interest, as on no other point do such
misconceptions exist, and very wild statements have at times been
made with regard to how fast a locomotive can run, and travelling at
the rate of one hundred miles an hour has been freely talked of by
those who are unaware of the facts. A Bristol and Exeter broad-
gauge engine, having nine- feet wheels, was, in 1853, officially timed
at a speed of just over eighty miles an hour, for a short distance^
upon a falling gradient with a light load. Great Western broad-gauge
engines with eight-feet wheels were tried upon several occasions
during the years 1847 ^o 1854. They attained seventy-eight, but
could not reach eighty miles an hour. The Great Northern 8 ft. i in.
engines have attained seventy-nine and a half miles an hour. At the
commencement of the Civil War in America the London and North-
western achieved a notable record of fast travelling. It was at the
time when the British Foreign Secretary had sent a despatch, in the
nature of an ultimatum, to the Federal Government, with respect to
the case of Messrs. Mason and Slidell, the Confederate envoys, who
had been taken forcibly out of a British ship by a Federal cruiser.
There was no Atlantic cable in those days, and although all England
was on the tip- toe of expectation to know the nature of a reply which
would decide the issue of peace or war between two great nations,
there was no swifter means of communication than steamer to
Queenstown, thence by rail to Dublin, then again by steamer to
Holyhead, and by rail again to London. From the 2nd to the 9th
of January, 1862, an engine was kept constantly in steam at Holy-
head, and when at length the ardently awaited despatch arrived, it
was brought from Holyhead to Euston, a distance of 264 miles, in
five hours. This meant an average speed of fifty- three miles an hour
throughout, including one stoppage at Stafford for the purpose of
changing engines. Although at this time the company had not
adopted the block telegraph system (now in use on 96 per cent of
our lines), and the working was carried on by the ordinary telegraph
signals from station to station, the whole journey was performed

up and Down the Line. 515

^^■ithoul the slightest hitch. The Prince of Wales has done some
fast travelling, having gone on this same line from Manchester to
London in three hours and fifty-five minutes ; but the Great Western
had previously beaten this by conveying him from London to Swan-
sea— z6o miles — in three hours and fifty-three minutes, the average
speed throughout that remarkable journey being almost fifty-six
miles an hour. During the railway race of 1888, several trains on
various hnes ran on falling gradients at seventy-six miles an hour,
and at the present lime in ordinary traffic, on certain portions of
railways, trains are run at seventy, seventy -three, and occasionally
seventy-five miles an hour. It, therefore, will be seen that eighty
miles an hour is the maximum of a locomotive's pace, and the cause of
this is that at that speed the resistance of the air, the back pressure
in the cylinders, and the friction together have become so great that
they absorb the whole power of the engine; and the back pressure in
the wrong side of the piston becomes greatly increased by the fact that
the exhaust steam cannot be got out of the cyhnders fast enough. The
limit of locomotive speed, both theoretically and practically, is, there-
fore, eighty miles an hour. Probably the fastest train now booked on
any time-table is that which is timed to run between Liverpool and
Manchester in thirty-two minutes {including two stoppages)— that is,
a shade over sixty miles an hour actual running time. For long-
distance fast trains the average time is about fifty miles an hour,
inclusive of stoppages : though the actual speed between the long-
dislanced stations is sometimes accelerated to as high as seventy and
seventy-five miles an hour. A train not stopping between Carlisle
and Preston, when running between Grayrigg and Oxenholme, has
been timed to cover five miles in three and three- quarter minutes.
Such are a few facts and reminiscences concerning those roads of
our nineteenth century which have accomplished as great revolutions,
political and social, as ever did the roads of the Romans. Those who
are inclined to take a more favourable view of them than does Mr.
Ruskin may be interested to hear that for the idea of the rails them-
selves they have to thank some inventive genius of the seventeenth
century who hit upon the plan of laying down parallel blocks of
timber, to form rude tramways in the vicinity of mines, to enable the
mineral products to be drawn more easily to the riverside. It was
not till one hundred years later that, about the year 1768, casl-iron
rails were substituted for the wooden blocks and the rails were laid
ready for the locomotive engines of the nineteenth century somewhat
in the fashion that is now in vogue.

W. ARMSTRONG WIIXIS.

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Ancient Inscriptions on and in our old Churches, 5 1 7

porta cell." In St. Sennen's Church, in the same county, there is a
slab inserted in the floor of the chancel to record its erection in 1533.
And again, on a cornice in the south aisle of Bodmin Church is
carved a Latin line to the effect the edifice was erected in 1475.

Some inscriptions relate to the dedications of the fabric. The
most ancient, perhaps, is that in Jarrow Church. This is cut into a
stone, which stone has been removed from a place in the north wall
of the nave and carefully fixed on the west wall of the tower. On
it is cut in Roman lettering a Latin inscription to the following
effect : " The dedication of the Basilica of St. Paul on the ninth of
the Kalends of May in the fifteenth year of King Egfrid and the
fourth year of Abbot Ceolfrid, under God the founder of the same
church." There is a later one in Holy Trinity Church, Clee, in Lin-
colnshire, of the time of Richard the First, which says this church
was dedicated to the honour of the Holy Trinity and St. Mary in
the time of Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, mcxcii, tempore Richardi
regis. And in St. Mary's Church, Rolvenden, Kent, there is another,
setting forth the edifice was founded in honour of St. Anne and
St. Catharine by Edward Gyldeford, a.d. mcccxliv. Foundation
stones are also occasionally inscribed, as in the instance of that of
the chapel of Queen's College, Cambridge, on which Sir John
Wenlock caused to be cut, in Latin, " The Lord will be a refuge to
our Lady Queen Margaret, and this stone shall be a token thereof."
In the cloisters of Norwich Cathedral are two ancient inscriptions
on single stones. One says, " The Lord Ralph Walpole, Bishop of
Norwich, placed me ; " the other, " Richard Uphalle placed me."

Some examples are known to have existed that have now dis-
appeared. There was one in Luton Church, Bedfordshire, which
contained a statement respecting the foundation of the chapel there
on the north side of the chancel : —

Jesu Christ most of myght,

Have mercy on John Le Wenlock, Knight,

And on his wyfe Elizabeth,

Who out of this world is past by death,

Which founded this chapel here,

Help them with your hearty prayer

That they may come to that place

Where ever is joy and solace.

When removed, they have generally passed out of remembrance
and we thus learn the importance of the preservation of those still
left us. Another o»««'*»iw »f\ Abingdon Church, has disappeared,
which ra« ' ^^ Pray for Nicholas Gould

404 A] ' ' ovements to

5i8 The Gentkntatis Magazine.

this fabric Only recently, under the floor of a gallery in the chapel
of St. John the Baptist, in Gloucester Cathedral, fragments of stone-
work were found to be part of an inscription that was once below the
battlemented parapet of the reredos, and which, when whole^ according
to the Rev. H. Haines, ran thus : —

Hoc Baptistx Lyon Gloucestre fecit honore
Fac hunc ergo frui Celi sine fine decore
Hie & cultonim precibus memorare tnonim
Et Rex Celorum semper sit tutor eorum
Hoc Pater et flamen concordat jugiter Amen.

There is a very curious doorway in Dinton Church, in Bucking-
hamshire, which is enriched with two hexameters. There are spiral
columns to this doorway, and a carving in bas-relief on the door-
head, showing two dragons eating fruit from a tree, and St. Michael
thrusting a cross into the mouth of a third. And from one side to
the other runs : —

PREMIAPROMERITISSIQIDESPETHABENDA
AVDIATHICPRECEPTASIBIQVESITRETINENDA.

This, when divided thus : —

Prsemia pro mentis si quis desperet habenda,
Audiat hie precepta sibi que sint retinenda,

may be paraphrased as signifying that he who hears the precepts
there taught, and acts up to them, will not be without reward.
Door-heads are, perhaps, more frequently chosen than other places
for inscriptions, on account, may be, of the greater facility with which
they may be read there than in more out-of-the-way situations. In
a small Welsh church, very hoary and massy, at Llanbedr, Merioneth-
shire, there is a tablet inserted over the doorway with a Welsh in-
scription to the effect that no man was to come to this privileged
and strong refuge but with good thoughts in his heart. On the
south door of Castor Church, Northamptonshire, we may read : —
" Richardus Beby Rector Ecclesie de Castre fecit."

These legends are not infrequent upon church towers. Over the
west door of St Peter's, Angmering, Sussex, runs : — " Anno D*ni
milFmo quingentessimo sept'mo." And in a similar position on
the tower of St. Michael's, Stawley, Somerset, are twelve panels, on
the sixth and seventh of which is inscribed : — " Pray for the sowle of
Henry Hine & Agnes his wyflfe, a.d. 1522." Below the rich open-
worked parapet upon the tower of All Saints' Church, Derby, is in-
scribed : — " Young men and maydens." St Cybi's Church, Holy-
head, has on the frieze under the battlements, *' S. T. S. Kybi on
p' ns. ;" and on the north side : '' Sancte Kybi era pro nobis.* This

piion

I

Ancient JnscripHons on and in our old Churches. 519

is of fourteenih-cenlury workmanship.; On the west front of the
tower of Backwell Church, over the doorway, is cut:— "In Jesu spes
mea. 1551." A campanile at Sl Tydecho, Mallwydd, Merionethshire,
has the date 1640, and "Soli Deo Sacrum." The great tower of
Fountains Abbey, i66 feet high and 24 feet square, has an inscription
on each side : —

Regi autem seculorntn immortali invisiblli

Soli Deo i'hu »'po honor el gl'ia in s'cia t.'clot'.

Et virtus et fortiludo Deo oostro in sccula seculorum, Amea.

Soli Deo i'hu x'po honor et gl'ia in s'cla s'cloi'.

Bencdiccio el ciritas et sapientia el gratiarum accio honor.

Soli Deo i'hu x'po honor et gl'ia in s'cla s'clot'.

Soli Deo honor el gloria in secula seculorum. Amen.
They are also occasionally associated with the fenestration. Under
the east window of Sl Firmin's Church, North Crawley, Buckingham-
shire, is cut: — "Petris cancellum tibi dat Firmane novellum, est cum
lauderis Deo Petri mcmoretis," Over the west window of the Abbey
Church of Valle Crucis, among the mountains and streams of North
Wales, is inscribed : — "A. D. Adam, D, M. S. Fecit hoc opus. Pace
Beata quiescat. Amen." And then follows a date of which M.D.
only is legible. Again, in the panelling under the west window of the
choir of Gloucester Cathedral may be read:—" Hoc quod digestum
specularis opusq" poUtum Tullij hac ex onere Seabrooke abbate
jubenie."

Amongst other external inscriptions on sacred fabrics may be
mentioned the curious and anagrammatical examples at the east and
west entrances to the slype of Winchester Cathedral. At the end is
cut: — ■

"B ILL PREC

\

AC

ATOR H

./

v/^ ■

Ambu]

Iliac precalor, Hac

via lot ambu

a. (That way thou who comesl lo piay

Ihij way thou who ail pursuing thy journey, walk.)

And at the east >-

-

63>-

Cessit Communi Proprium, jam

per^te qua fai. (Private property ha

yielded to public utility.

Proceed no

w by Ihe way that is open lo Ibee.)

ACR

S

ILL CH M

/ \

^T

\ro ■

\ /

/

/ / ^

ERV

s

1ST F

Sacra sit ilia cboio, serva ait isla foio. (That war ■> coDsecroled to ibe cb^

Uuiwajltrndstothemuket.)

m

520 The Gentlentatis Magazine.

There are two ancient Roman inscriptions set into the tower of
the Church of St Mary le Wigford on the south side of the doorway
which is of Norman workmanship. They are considerably the worse
for their long exposure to the weather, but have been made out
The first says : — " Dis manibus. Nomini sacrum Brusci filii civis
Senonis, et carissimae Unae conjugis ejus et Quinti filii." The second,
which is above it, is not quite so certain : — " Marie ofeisce nerisie io
vipioscsi in criiemeie iripe." There is another instance of mediaeval
builders using up ancient inscribed Roman stones in Hexham Abbey
Church, where in the Saxon crypt, may be seen a stone with a Roman
inscription to this effect : " The legate of Augustus being Propraetor,
Quintus Calpurnius Concessinus prefect of the Caesarian horse, of the
Corionototae, honoured by the hand of the Emperor, erects this altar to
his divinity, performing his vow." And in the roof of the entrance
passage to this relic of the old Saxon evangelists, may be seen a tablet
on which may be deciphered a Roman legend stating: "To the
Emperor Caesar Lucius Septimus Pertinax, and the Emperor Caesar
Lucius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Pius Felix, and Geta Caesar (the
soldiers of) the vexillations of the cohorts dedicate this monument"
The Saxon masons found these stones ready to their hands and built
them in, just as the twelfth-century masons found their crypt ready
and convenient, and left it intact below the magnificent structure
with which they replaced the small Saxon edifice that first stood upon
the site.

Looking now to inscriptions in the interiors of our ancient
churches attention may be directed to the roof of Iselham Church,
in Cambridgeshire, which has a very explicit one. It was erected in
1495, W Christopher Peyton Esq., whose arms with those of his wife,
are to be seen among the angelic figures, quatrefoils, roses, and
tracery enriching it. Running along both sides is the following : —
" Pray for the good prosperite of Crystofer Peyton and Elizabeth his
wyfe, and for the sowle of Thomas Peyton Sqwyer, and Margarete
his wyfe, fader and moder of the said Crystofer, and for the sowles of
al the awncestre of the sayd Crystofer Peyton wych dyd mak thys
rofe in the yere of owre Lord mcccclxxxxv beyng the x yere of
Kynge Hery the VII." The cornice of the roof in the Church of
St Collen, Llangollen, has also a long continuous inscription. On
the cornice of the rich roof of a chapel in Tiverton Church may be

* Have grace, ye men, and ever pray

For the souls of John and Jone Greenwaye.

In the aisle of Asherington Church runs the following : —
God save the Church, our Queen Elizabeth, and reahne^
^d ^ttnl u^ pef^e a^id t^ith m Christt A^^^t

I

Ancient Inscriptions on and in our old Clmrches. 5 2 1

On an impost moulding of one of the lower arches in SunninghiU
Church is : — " Undccimo kalendarum Marlii obiit Livingus Presbyter,"
which is as likely to be commemorative as sepulchral. The oaken
beams of the roof of the west end of the norlh aisle of the chancel in
St Mary's Church, Beverley, have carved upon them : — " Mayn in thy
lyfling lowfc God a bown all ihyng and euer thynke al the Begynyng
quhat schall cowtne off the endyng," And on the bosses formed by
the junction of the ribs, we may pick out r " W. Hal, carpenter,
mad this Rowfie."

In the countyofKilkenny, at Freshford Church, on therich Norman
porch, are two bands on the external face of the inner arch, both of
which areinscribed with contemporary characters. The first says: — "A
prayer for Niam, Daughter of Core, and for Mathghamain O'Chiarmeic,
by whom was made this church." The one above it says : — "A prayer
for Gille Mocholmoc O'Cencucam, who made it." This class of in-
scription is also of frequent occurrence on the Continent, where the
custom of carving the names of the sculptors and architects, as well
as artificers, upon iheit works was more in vogue in old times than is
generally known. In many of the noble buildings in France,
Germany, and Italy the names of those who made the work are
recorded on the architraves, pillars, doorways, and other places. The
statements are generally in Latin, but not always. To give but one
example. Above the doorway in the principal front of Cremona
Cathedral, and below the fine wheel-window, is cut : —

+ MCCLXXniI

MAGISTER JA

COBUS PORRA

TA DE CUMIS FE

CIT HANC ROTAM.

To return to our own country. There Is an alms-box in Bram-
ford Church, Suffolk, dated 1591, inscribed:^

Remember ihe poor : the Scripture dolh record
Wlial lo IhecD is given is teat unto tlie Lonl.

In St Cuthbert's Church, Billingham, is a carved oak alms-box
supported on a baluster shaft against the most westerly pillar of the
south aisle. It is inscribed : — " Remember ye poor, ARo. Dom.
1673."

Several pulpits have inscriptions. The pulpit in Winchester
Cathedral has the name of the donor — Thomas Silkestede. That in
Wells Cathedral has " Preache thou the worde. B** frrvpnt in seaion
and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exh*'
apd doctryne." Another in AH Sain'"'

522 The Gentleman's Magazine.

example with its original sounding-board, and among the carved
foliage on its front runs : — " How beautiful are the feet of them that
bring glad tidings of peace and hope." In St Katherine's Church,
Regent's Park, the pulpit has carved on it a verse from Nehemiah,
declaring Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood and read the
Book of the Law in the sight of all the people.

A bench end in Blickling Church, Norfolk, seems to give the
name of the clever carver — "Thorns Hylle."

The font in St. Ives' Church is inscribed : — " Ecce karissimi de
Deo vero baptizabuntur spiritu sco." A very ancient example in
All Saints' Church, Little Billing, Northamptonshire, has: — "Wilbertus
artifex atque coementarius hunc fabricavit, Quisque suum venit
mergere corpus procul dubio capit" An early English font at
Keysoe, Bedfordshire, has in old French : —

Trestui ki par hici passerui
Pur le alme Warel prieui :
Ke Dea par sa grace
Verry merd 11 face. AA.

An inscription on a font in Chilli ngham Church, Northumberland,
says, " God blis this church. M.R.W. An.Dom. 1670." Another, on a
font in Eglingham Church, in the same county, says, " Wash and be
den. 1663." On a font in a neighbouring church, at Alnham, are the
Percy arms, and the date 1664 ; and on one at Ingram the same
heraldic ornamentation and the date 1664. The font in St Mary's
Church, Beverley, has cut round the ledge, " Pray for the soules of
Wyllm Ferefaxe, draper, and his wyvis, whiche made thys font of his
pper costes, the day of March v, Yere of our Lord mdxxx."
This church has also interesting inscriptions on the pillars, which
appear to have been erected at the " pper costes " of various people.
We may read on one : — " Xlay and hys wyfe made thes to pyllors
and a halffe." On another : — " John Croslay mercatoris et Johanne
uxor' eius orate pro animabus." Again, "Thes to pyllors made
gud . . . histarum proarum . . . Wyffis. God reward thaym." The
last-mentioned is a record that it was the ladies of Beverley who
were at the necessary expense of the work. The sixth pillar
has : — " Thys pyllor made the meynstyrls, orate pro animabus pro
Hysteriorum." A pillar in Romsey Abbey Church has on the capital
a winged figure with an inscription : — " Robertus me fecit Robertus
tute. Consul d. s. me fac salvum." A very ancient font in Bridekirk
Church, Cumberland, has in Runic characters : — rikarth he me

IWROKTE AND TO THIS MERTHE GERNR ME BROKTE. (Richaid he Qie

{•wrought and to this mirth (beauty) gem (carefully) me brought)

I

Ancient Inscriptions on and in our old Churches. 523

Amidst the sculpture on this font is the figure of a sculptor engaged in
carving, which has been thought likely to be acertain Richard employed
by Pudsey, Bishop of Durham, in the twelfth century. The highly
ornamental sixteenth -century cover of the font in St. George's Church,
South Acre, Norfolk, bears a Latin inscription to the effect that we are
to pray for the soul of Geoffrey Baker, rector, who made the work.

A font in Burgate Church, Suffolk, has :- — " (Orate p' aiabs) Will ffii
Burgate, milit', et dne Eleanore ux' ei' qui istura fontem fieri fecerunt."

Screens have been very frequently enriched with inscriptions.
On the frieze of one in Malpas Church, in Cheshire, runs : — " Pray,
good people, for the prosperous estate of Sir Randolph Brereton,
Baronet, of thys werke edificatour, with his wyfe dame Helenour,
and after this lyfe transytorie to obtayne eternal felicity. Amen,
Amen," And on another screen in the same church we may read :
" Orate pro bono statu Richardi Cholmondely et Elizabeth uxoris
ejus hujus sacelli factores Anno Domini Millesimo quingentesimo
quarto decimo." In Bunbury Church, in the same county, is a
handsome stone screen, the frieze of which is inscribed ; — " This
chapel was made at the cost and charg of Syr Rauffe Eggerton,
Knyght, in the ycre of owrc Lord God mcccccxxvii." On the rood-
screen at Gilden-Morden, Cambridgeshire, runs the following : —

Ad mortem (iiiram Jhu de me cipe curtim.
Vitam venturttm post mortem redde secuiam.
Fac me conlessum rogo (e Deus acte recessum.
Et post deeessum ccrlo michi diriee giesaum.

A very rich screen, that is supposed to have belonged to Jervaulx
Abbey, now in Aysgarth Church, Yorkshire, is inscribed, " A. S.
Abbas, Anno D'ni 1536." These initials are thought to represent
Adam Sedbergh, who was hanged for the part he took in a rebellion.
The rood-screen in Hexham Abbey Church is in good preservation.
On its cornice is an inscription which determines its date as being
between the years 1491-1524 : — "Orate proanima domini Thomas
Smithson prioris hujus ecclesise qui fecit hoc opus," On the middle
rail of the screen in the Church of St. Catharine, Ludham, Norfolk,
is carved in raised letters, somewhat difficult to decipher, " Pray for
the sowle of John . . . and Sysyle hys wyfe that gave forte pude,
and for a!le other bifactors made in the ycrr of ower Lord God
MCCCCLXxxxiu." On the screen in the tower arch of Addlethorpe
Church, Lincolnshire, the inscription, instead of being spread out, as
usual) along a cornice, is enclosed in a central space in the centre
a D, anima Johannis Dudick senior, et uxor' ejus." A
'*ock Church is inscribed:— "Whan God

524 The Gentleman s Ma^azim.

woC better may hi: be."' Acorbeiiiid:eQ:urchofSt.Mary,ReailveB,
Kent, has : — ** Disca: qzi nescxt, quia (Tbomas) hie requiescat."

Mo^ of u:e ^^gmens of andent sained glass handed down to
OS have insciipdcns, azui da^es ictrodoced ehher on scrolls in the
hands of ihe personages depicted, or in some other manner. In the
east window of the chapel in Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, for instance,
we nuy read: — "•Oraie pro ai'abus Ricardi Vernon et Jenette
uxoris ejus qui fecenint a&o dni mUessimo ccccxxytl" In the north
aisle of Morley Church, in the same neighbourhood, is some painted
glass, in which is set out an old tradition that the king once gave the
Canons of Dale Abbey as much land as could be encircled by a
plough drawn by stags in a day, or ** betwixt two suns," which stags
were to be caught in the foresL One legend says : — ^* Go whom and
yowke them and take ye ground t^ ye plooe " ; and another : — " Here
Saynt Robert ploo^ih with the . . . ." In the chancel is a figure of
St Ursula with this legend on a label : — ^' Sea Uisula, cam xi mill
virginum, ascendens in ccelum.'' In HiUesden Church, Buckingham-
shire, the east window of the north aisle is filled with stained glass
depicting the legend of Sl Nicholas, to whom the edifice is dedicated,
and the different scenes are described as ^' Mortuus ad vitam redit
precibus Nicholai," &c The south window in the chancel of
Leverington Church, Cambridgeshire, shows a knight and his lady
on either side of the Virgin, with this inscription: — "Ju fro sine
make us fre, for John's love yat baptised ye " ; and, " Lady lede us
all fro harm to him yat lay did in yi barm." On one of the windows
of St Neot*s Church, Cornwall, the mediaeval glass-painter has
placed : — " Ex dono et sumptibus Radulphi Harys et ejus labore
ista fenestra facta fuit"

Volumes have been written on the subject of bells and their
inscriptions. It is only in very out-of-the-way places that a bell may
still occasionally be found with an inscription that has not been
recorded. And even in very secluded places the narrow winding
steps up to the belfries must be very worn and faulty, or the ladders
which were the only means of ascent taken away, to ensure a chance
of finding one that collectors have not already "made a note of."
There is an old bell in Eglingham Church, Northumberland, amongst
moors and hills, that has a Dutch inscription. This states:—
"Anthony is my name. I was made in the year 1489." (Antonis
es minen name ic ben gemaectint jaer mcccclxxxix.) Seeing there
are scarcely more than half-a-dozen bells of its nationality in the

e country, it is difficult to account for its presence in this wild
TOoping border-l|U)d. Bell legends are iQost firequentljr iq

*

t

I

Ancient Instriptioiis on and in our old Chunlies. 525

Latin, unless of a somewhat late date, when quaint English wording
occurs, such as that on one of the bells in Kirltby Stephen Church,
Cumberland ; — " Be it known to ail men that me see Thomas
Stafibid of Penrith made me. 1631." An older bell in Atkborough
'Church has : —

Jesn. for. yi. niodii. sake.

Save. Hi. yE. sauls. jat. me. p:iit. make. Amen.

Some bells have the whole alphabet upon them. These are called
alphabet bells, and there are many examples of them. A very early
one is to be seen in the Church of St. John and St. Pandiana, Eltisley,
Cambridgeshire. It was supposed as all wisdom can only be ex-
pressed by the letters of the alphabet, they contained " the whole
counsel of God." A Morpeth bell has : — " Cry alovde repent
MDCXXXV," and the names of the churchwardens. In the fine old
parish Church of St Michael, Alnwick, there are three bells of
different centuries, al! very sonorous and silver-toned. The first of
thirteenth-century date says appeaUngly: — "ADivTORio+K)PVLO-f
DEI MiCHAEL+ARCHANCELE + VENi + iN-)-." (The Archangel is
the guardian saint of the church.) The second, which is of late
fourteenth-century work, says :— " ave+maria+gracia-i- plena
+ oRATE+PRO-fAiA + riE+jOHANNE+vALKA . . ." And thc third,
an ancient bell that was melted down in 1764, bears that date.

The old Glastonbury clock in the north transept of Wells
Cathedral has two mottoes : — " Semper peragrat Phoebe," and
" Punctus ab hinc monstrat micro sidericus arcus," and a third on
the clock face on the exterior of the edifice says :—" Ne quid pereat."

As examples of inscriptions on ancient floor-tiles, those in the
lady-chapel of Gloucester Cathedral may be mentioned. One
legend is spread over sixteen tiles, and is four times repealed : — "Ave
Maria gra pic' Dns tecum." Another is :- — " Domine Jhu miserere."
Another, spread over four tiles : — " Ave Maria gia pltn'." And a
fourth set :— " Dne JhQ miserere."

Thc value of church plale, combined with the ease with which it
can be melted down, has led to the disappearance of many a noble
piece that would now be worth, if not a king's ransom, a very con-
siderable sum, Besides thos? preserved in our Museums, we still
find some interesting chalices and flagons in some of our ancient
churches. Many have the names of the parishes to which they
belong upon them; many the names of the donors; many a date only.
There isa tall slender silvcrcupof Elizabethan workmanship still passed
from lip to lip in the sea-bleached, wind -worn venerable parish church
on Holy Island, witi" '^79- Holy Island." Many

526 The Gentlematis Magazine,

seem to have been memorials. A silver cup, nine inches high, thus
tells its own tale : — " Given to St Andrew's Church, in Hexham, by
Mabel Hoorde, wid., 1634." A flagon in St Mary's, Gateshead,
says : — " The gift of Elizabeth Collinson, in memorie of her daughter
Jane Wrangham, deceased, to the Church of St Maries in Gateside,
1672." Haltwhistle Church, Northumberland, has a pewter flagon
engraved : — " The gift of Geo. Lowes in N Castle +Pewterer to the
parish of Haltwhisell." The chalice belonging to Eglingham Church
is inscribed: — "Sacra Sacrus. Anno 1701. Ex dono Edwardj
Collingwood de Byker Armigeri quondam Comitatus hujus Vice
Comitis Ecclesie parochjali de Eglingham."

Thus it will be seen, there has been from the earliest times a feeling
in favour of making the various parts of a sacred edifice the medium
of an expression of devotion, praise, or thanksgiving, appeal to sacred
persons with entreaty for help, and a record of benefactions. Over
the whole country from the bells floated, as it were, invocations and
exclamations of adoration. In most parishes the eyes of worshippers
were reminded by inscriptions, if not on the fabric or furniture,
perhaps in the stained glass, or on the chalice, flagon, or paten of the
communion service, of the glory of God. There was made apparent
by them an atmosphere of piety, gratitude, and love. Only a few
are here gathered together ; there is therefore a wide field left open
and free for interested collectors ; only the gate into it is pointed out
To conclude this brief survey, it may be added there is at least one
instance in which art has made use of an imaginary inscription in a
church to inculcate a lesson. To the curious and minute " Medita-
tions among the Tombs " of the Rev. James Hervey, in the last
century, there is a frontispiece representing the interior of a church
— spacious, lofty, and magnificently plain, he called it, in which are
many sepulchral monuments. In this ancient pile " reared by hands,
that, ages ago, were mouldered into dust," a youth in flowing drapery
stands before a tomb of a hero inscribed " Pro Patria," from which a
minister endeavours to attract his attention to an inscription on the
wall above the altar, " Pro inimicis," as a matter of greater heroism.

There is a seventeenth-century verse by Maurice Wheeler, the
head- master of the King*s School, in Stuart times, painted on the
wall of the whispering gallery of Gloucester Cathedral, too good to
omit, though of a less durable character in its manual execution : —

Doubt not but God who sits on high
Thy secret prayers can hear ;
When a dead wall thus cunningly
Conve)'s soft whispers to the ear.

SARAH WILSON.

S'7

THE PROGRESS AND FUTURE OF
DROITIFICH.

AS the January number of the GenihmarCi had a long paper on
Droitwich from my pen, in which I tried to do fuU justice to
the place, it was rather startling to be asked to write a second article
on the same subject so soon after the former. But there is ample
excuse for my audacity, and I will let the reader into the secret. As
I ventured to prophesy, Droitwich has grown in size and popularity
with a rapidity that reminds one of American enterprise rather than
of English sluggishness and deliberation; and invahds and visitors
are flocking to it in such enormous numbers as to call for extensive
preparation for their accommodation. On August i the British
Medical Associ.ition, then holding its general annual meeting in
Biraiingham, having accepted an invitation, paid the place a visit
and inspected the baths, hotels, and lodging-houses, while many of
the visitors went over Impncy House, and all partook of luncheon
in the Salters' Hall. I had the good fortune to be one of the party,
and saw a place, familiar to rac from childhood, to great advantage.
Unfortunately, though rain did not fall, ihe day was threatening, and
the skies had that sombre, depressing appearance with which we in
England are only too familiar, and which spoils two garden parties
and out-door excursions in every three. Many of the elderly visitors
took the trouble to wear a great-coat and to carry a heavy cape or
waterproof over the arm ; this, in addition to an umbrella, and in
many cases the large bag which many excursionists insist on saddling
themselves with on such occasions— though what earthly purpose a
small portmanteau can serve on a day excursion one cannot under-
stand— made a tout ememble not particularly favourable to rapid
movement ; and I certainly think that, as rain did not descend, some
of these unfortunate sight-seers found themselves far too heavily
weighted. All health resorts need bright sunshine and dry warmth,
while Droitwich, being primarily a manufacturing town, especially
demands unclouded skies ; this it unfortunately did not have, so ihat
many of the medical visitors were less favourably impressed than
they ought to ha\-e b^cn.

528 Tlu Gentlehidns Magazine^

The luncheon was sumptuous, but that goes without sayings as
Mr. Corbett was the host. Unfortunately he was not able to be
present, and the chah' of state was filled with some dignity by Dr.
S. S. Roden, the venerable practitioner, whose long residence in the
place has made his fame little inferior to that of the ancient town
itself^ and whose knowledge of the brine treatment is greater than
that of anyone else now living in the neighbourhood. This gentleman
is now assisted by his son, Dr. Percy Roden, who, since the removal
of Dr. W. Parker Bainbrigge, has had charge of the Mineral Waters
Hospital.

Dr. S. S. Roden, in a useful pamphlet, " Droitwich Baths," has
the following passage on the past of the town. It is sufficiently
interesting to bear reproducing here : —

The existence of Droitwich as a Roman station, under the name of *' Salinae,"
is beyond question, and remains exist of highways, known as the " Upper and
Lower Saltways,*' one leading over the Lickey Hills, through Saltley, into
Lincolnshire ; the other, or Lower, crossing the country through Alcester and
over Broadway IliU into Gloucestershire and Hampshire. These roads possibly
existed prior to the Roman occupation ; and knowing how important salt b in
contributing to the health not of man only, but of the animal world generally, it
is reasonable to assume that in those primitive times, when few of the natives
travelled far from their birthplace unless in time of war, a place where a strong brine
spring flowed to the surface must have been well known and largely resorted to
by the inhabitants of the surrounding districts. The ancient Saxon name of the
town, Wych or Vic, is said to have given rise to ** Wiccii," applied to the inhabi-
tants of the county. Tradition records that letters were sometimes addressed to
"Worcester, near Droitwich." Habbingdon, historian of Worcestershire, who
lived at Hindlip and wrote about 1630, thus describes Droitwich : "Five miles
north of Worcester is Wich, anciently named * Wiccii,* whereof this county before
the Conquest took its name. A famous borough, whose burgesses challenging
thyer places of descent, surpass for nubility, worthyness, and wealth the greatest
burgesses in the kingdom.*' He further says of them, *'that at this instant they
are of that generous disposition as they are rightly called ' ye Gentlemen of
Wych.* *' Droitwich seems to have been first represented in Parliament in the
reign of Edward L King James I. granted the borough a new charter for appoint-
ing a recorder, town clerk, two magistrates, and two representatives in Parliament.
The place enjoyed great dignity. Not only did it send two members to Parlia-
ment, but, when under the Reform Bill of 1832 the county was divided, it became
the polling place for the eastern division. The Reform Bill of 1832 deprived
Droitwich of one member, and now it is reduced to giving its name to one of the
electoral divisions of the county.

Although Droitwich has long been famous all the world over for
its inexhaustible treasures of the finest table salt, it 1^ at last coming
prominently into notice as a health resort True, it can boast of no
dazzling Sicilian sky, no mild humidity, no furnace-like he^t Its
sole claim to the invalid's attention is its brine baths, whose efficacy

The Progress and Fitlure of Draitivich.

has been proved by thousands of tnailj^s to chronic rheumatism and
gout. Some of the letters from persons of high rank and national
reputation which I have had the privilege of reading have been
extremely touching in their exuberant gratitude. One states that the
writer was urged to visit Droitwich by Sir James Paget ; this shows
that that distinguished surgeon has a high opinion of the baths; other
leaders of the medical profession endorse Sir James's verdict. The
brine of Droitwich is interesting from its exceptional purity and
extraordinary strength ; it contains nearly 50 per cent, of salt Fifty
years have passed since attention was first drawn to the medical
value of hot brine baihs in complaints for which they are not usually
resorted to. The late Mr. \\'itliam Bainbrigge, an excellent surgeon
in his day, did much to make the place popular; but the pioneers in
such undertakings are rarely rewarded, and Mr. Bainbrigge went to
his rest, having done less for himself than for suffering humanity.
In consequence of the high specific gravity of the brine, it is neces-
sary to dilute it with twice as much hot water before it can be used
for bathing purposes ; after a time the swollen and tender joints

t become less sensitive, and more or less completely return to their
patural size, while the skin of the whole body gets soft and velvety.
J>r. W. P. Bainbrigge assured me that the water in which gouty
nitients had bathed contained a good deal of urate of soda, which
ie believed was dissolved out of the tissues by the solvent properties
m the brine. No one doubts that these baths gel rid of a great deal
bf gouty matter, though they should he taken under experienced
medical supervision, as they do not suit all the cases which would
seem hkeSy to benefit by them,

"AlthouEh." writes Dt. S. S. Roden, "the waters of Droitwich are said to
tuvc been used in tlie times of Ibe Romnni, (heir iDeilicinal and curative properties
WGfe not fully known until the list half-century. Auention was iiisl promiocDtlj
cnlled to their efficacy as an eilema! application in the first severe visilalion ot
Aiiilic cholera in iSja. This discovery whs so linking that I vcniuro lo relate
it. Dtoilwich, like many other places, suffered severely from'lhe oulbteak, and
people died so rapidly and suddenly that a panic seiied the inhabilanli, and great
(llfliculty wu experienced in gelliog anyone 10 wait, on those who were attacked.
The disease was looked upon ac so infectious thai to approach any of Ihe stricken
was to insure infection lo onEself. Under these citcurr stances a^cholera hospital
was exiemporised out of 1 disused salt-woik ; still, difficulty remained in inducing
anyone lo lake charge of it. At length, s man and his wife were found witling (o
undertake ihe maiugemenl ; the man's duty was to fetch the palieni, lake him 10
Ihe hosjiilal/and prepare a hoihaih, and, ifa man, lo bathe him, and then lo put
him in bed ; and when a fatal result ocairred, 10 convey the body to the cemeleiy.
On ihe wife devolved the duly of nursing, administering medidoe and nourish-
ment, and bathing female patients. On one occasion, a pitjent being brought
during the uiehi, there Ha5 no hot water; under these circumslances the w-

I

530

The Gentlemans Magatin*.

Ll be I
new
hand!
thirty

/etched buckeli of boiling brine from a neiehbouriog »H work. The effce
the patient, was lo resusciiate liim ; Ihc skin became varia, the voice u
pulse relumed, and he rapidly recovered. Tlie result even amued the ni
itafT, and henceforlb during ihe epidemic the hot brine bsttb was used in
case and with ihe most favourable result. Sir Charles Hastings w»* at the ti
a constant visitor to Dcoitwich, and his attention being directed to the matvellq
results of Ihe brine bath, his philosophical mind savr how valuable Ihe a|
roiKhl prove in the Irealnicnt of many diseoics ; and with characteristic ei
advocated opening public balhs, with the result rhal in 1S36 the first were
These soon obtained great local celebrity, and considerable numbers of p
came from different parts of (he county. In 1855 the late M(. Gisbh, ui mW
prising tradesman in the town and a roan of great intelligence anil ene(gy,to
ihe Baibs. The Limited Liability Act had just come into eiUicoce, uid t
offered a great opporlunily to a joint sloclc company lo develop llie Ralhi.
scheme was approved of and supported by most of the neigbliouricig sentry t w
eligible site was selected for the erection of Balhs, together with a scheme lor a
handsome crescent of lodging and boaniing-bouses. Whether the ptovinonal
commillee was alarmed by the great pretensions of the scheme I know not, btf
the underlaking suddenly collapsed. Mr. Grabb, however, cor
capability oF the place, threw himself .<i]ngle- handed into the undertaking, ■
enlarged and improved Ihe existing Baths. He erected a number of addili<i
baihi, together with a well bath and douches, sank a deep pit ii
finding brine, erected a steam eogine, elevated the walls, and dug out the has
the present swimming bath, and he made arrangemeols with the Gie«t Wet
and Midland Railway Companies to iisue bathing tickets; unfortunatelf, I
resources did not suQice to carry out his plons lo Ihe fullest eiteni, and
letting go his favourite scheme, he turned bis talents in other dlrcctioru.
the late Mr. Bainbrigge took the Balhs over from Mr, Grabb, and eatAbllshed
company lo purchase Ihem and Ihe adjoining hotel and to convert thciD it
single eslablishment. A large sum was spent in enlarging and exleDdine d
bathing accommodation. One grave error was not preserving [he well ba '
douches put in by Mr. Grabb. The swimming bath was ihtB completed, «
since been one of Ihc greatest attractions of the town.''

Admirable accommodation, on a luxurious scale, has been 1
Tided for the large number of sufferers fltxking la the tow
Handsome private board ing-iiouses meet the eye at every turn, a
these provide, at moderate charges, every convenience and allentioi
while the town boasts of two large hotels : one, the Raven, fonnei
the Manor House of the quaint old town, is kept by Mr. Gci
Buddie ; it is extensive and attractive, with tastefully Uid out
grounds, exceedingly comfortable rooms, and cheerful surroundiRgt.
I have been all over the house several times, and liave been mw
pleased with the beautj'of the rooms and the adniinibic niaiiagcmei
The drawing-room is very pretty, and il has been enlarged, while I
new wing has been added to the hotel, which aoH coauiiu f
handsome dining-room and some good bedrooms; indeed,
thirty of the latter for visitors, a number which will not long e

The Progress and Future of Droitwick. 531

The other hotel, the Royal, managed by Miss Coghlan, I have not
been over, though one hears most satisfactory accounts of its internal
arrangements. Mr. Corbett, M.P. for the division, and a wise and
munificent benefactor of the town, has done much for Droitwich,
developing the salt industry and building the St. Andrew's Baths,
which have been fitted up with the latest and most luxurious appli-
ances for treatment and comfort. When at Droitwich, at the end of
September rSS;, I was much struck by Mr. Corbett's arrangements,
and the accommodation then seemed large enough for many years, but
the new baths have long ceased lo be sufficient to accommodate the
visitorswhom the growing fame of the place is attracting, and on revisit-
ingthem March 27, 1888, I found that considerable additions were
already being made. To prevent disappointment I must add that Mr.
Corbett's Brine Baths arc not a hotel. Three years ago, in my
earliest papers on Droitwich, I urged that large boarding-houses under
competent medical supervision were urgently needed, though I
believe that even at that time two or three local practitioners took
in boarders or regularly visited some of the boarding-houses. Some-
thing more than this was nevertheless needed, and I ventured to
point out a certain piece of land which it seemed to me would do
excellently for a huge sanatorium, like those that have made Malvern,
Buxton and Bournemouth famous. My suggestions did not at once
bear fruit; but on my recent visit to the town, the architect, Mr.
Nichols, of Coimore Row, Birmingham, took me over an immense
and imposing range of buildings rapidly approaching completion, which
I believe will accommodate i2oinmates:it stands near the St. Andrew's
Baths, and will be connected with the latter by a covered passage.
This is I hope only the commencement of a new order of things, and
before long, should the first sanatorium answer, as it can hardly fail
to do, we may have several others. The advantage to the town and
to invalids will be incalculable.

When the St, Andrew's Baths were first opened they were fitted
up with nine bathing places ; there was also, under the same roof, a
large swimming bath. The latter was set apart for ladies at certain
limes ; this was awkward, and often inconvenienced invalids and
strangers coming for a few hours. Now, two new magnificent wings
have increased the bathing places to twenty-four, of the most
sumptuous description ; many have capacious private dressing-rooms ;
and a second swimming bath has been buili, so that one swimming
bath will always be ready for ladies, the other for gentlemen. The price
of tickets is very reasonable, and Mr. Corbett allows me to mention
that the baths are always open, free of charge, to any medical prac-

532 The Gentleman's Magazine.

titioner who wishes to give them a trial, and sends in his card to the
manager.

As for the exact composition of the water, as it is not taken
internally it would not interest the reader ; enough that it is similar
to, though purer than sea water. It makes, as the Romans knew
perfectly well, table salt with little trouble, and of great purity, and
the refuse is small. It differs from the purest sea water in con-
taining many times as much salt The beds from which the brine is
pumped are only 200 feet beneath the surface, so that it is cold ; the
temperature is 52° Fah. Its specific gravity is so high that, like
Dead Sea water, it supports the human body, and some effort is
needed to sink in it — indeed, special contrivances are required,
while new-laid eggs float on its surface like empty walnut shells in a
horsepond.

At present the brine is pumped up from a depth of 140 to
200 feet; it has a density of 1*25, and contains upwards of 22,000
grains of solid matter in each gallon, or 5*5 ounces in a pint
The solid constitution is mainly chloride of sodium, combined in
small quantities with other salts, and with traces of bromine and
iodine. The salinity is so intense that the water cannot be used
as a beverage. It might be used diluted to perhaps one-sixth its
present strength, and this proportion would be an active aperient
For bathing, the brine has to be reduced from its original strength,
for the buoyancy of the fluid in its purity would be so great that the
body could not be submerged, but would float like a cork on the
surface, and in its full strength it would be likely to occasion irrita-
tion of the skin ; and, thirdly, the attempt to heat the brine to
the required temperature would lead to a precipitation of salt,
which would choke up the valves, angles, and orifices of the
pipes and taps, and occasion more or less constant disrepair. The
process adopted is to fill into the bath cold brine to one half the
quantity of fluid required, then to add boiling water to bring the
bath to a proper temperature ; even with this reduction the strength
of the brine is five or six times that of sea water, and difficulty is
experienced in keeping the entire surface covered in the bath.
To return to the question of temperature. The swimming bath is
kept at a temperature of So"* to 84** Fah., and is of great service in
general debility, particularly in convalescence after acute disease;
provided always that the power of reaction in the system of the
patient is good. This is of the greatest importance and should be
attended to in all cases, not alone for the swimming bath, but in
warm and hot baths ; here again the necessity for medical super-

»

The Progress and Future of Droilwick.

vision is obvious. The warm and hot balhs are given at tempera-
tures varying from 90° to 106°, or, in some cases, as high as no".
In the new baths, erected by Mr. Corbett, M.P., a veiy complete
arrangement of douches has been provided so that the force of the
waters may be fully utilised by local application to any region. This
is of the greatest value in the treatment of sti/Tened joints and in
many other local maladies.

To get the full benefit of treatment patients should stay some
time. Unfortunately it is now the fashion to rush from place to
place, stopping here a week and somewhere else three days. This
is not advisable in chronic gout, and in those cases of thickening of
the joints which perplex the doctor and cause the sufferer more
distress than he Ukes to confess. Many who have tried Droitwich
once have got so much good that they have returned again and
again ; and though it rarely happens that brine baths, or indeed any
other, can eradicate the tendency to disease, and, in addition, to
temporarily curing the patient, make him proof against the return of
his enemy, there is general agreement that, with some exceptions,
benefit is almost always derived. Constant attention to diet, and
leaving off spices, alcoholic stimulants, and animal food, might keep
the old enemy at bay. An intemperate cUent of mine fell with great
violence from a tree, five years ago, and injured his shoulder. He
was then over fifty, and thirty years before had had rheumatism
badly, having finally to go to the Mineral Waters Hospital at Bath
for treatment. He was then completely cured, and had no return
of the complaint till after the fall from the tree, when chronic, and I
feared intractable inflammation of the right shoulder set in, and there
was every prospect of his being permanently disabled. After six
months' unsuccessful treatment at his own house I sent him to
Droitwich, and began a correspondence with Dr. Bainbrigge, then
only known to me by fame. That gentleman promptly and cour-
teously answered, nay, he did more, he defrayed the expense of the
poor fellow's six weeks' residence at Droitwich. The man returned
home well, his shoulder painless, and of normal appearance and
size ; and since then he has worked hke a Trojan. This is my
solitary experience of the benefits of the baths to a patient of mine,
though an old friend found marked good from repeated visits to
them.

Although Dr. Percy Roden lells me that his father is on the
;nt of publishing a work on the Brine Treatment at Droitwich, I
Iventure to reproduce, with some compression, the following passage
im Dr. S, S. Roden's modest pamphlet :—

534 ^"^^ Gentleman s Magazine.

During the present year a new set of batbs has been erected by Mr. Cocbett,
always a great benefactor of the neighbourhood. In the new baths the latot
improvements have all been introduced for the treatment of stiffened and thickfirH
joints, in the way of douche, jet, steam, and vapour baths, and massage : and no
outlay which skill, experience, and knowledge could soggest, has been spared in
making these baths effectual for the relief of all forms of disease to which they
are applicable ; and as a source of pleasure and recreation to those in health.

One important feature of Droitwich is the atmosphere. To the eye so mndi
white steam, often blended with black smoke, such as usually, more or ksi,
overhangs the older part of the town where the salt-works exist, is not inviting,
nor does it convey a pleasing impression to visitors as they approach the railway
station from Birmingham. The railway is unfortunately reused to a level with
the top of the chimney stacks of the evaporating pans and their roofe. The
town being only perceptible on the remote side of the works, is seen to the
greatest possible disadvantage. Nevertheless the place is singularly healthy and
the inhabitants live long and enjoy vigorous health. The reason of this atmo-
spheric benefit is the presence of chlorine. The existence of this element so
widely and yet so scantily disseminated, is a great boon to the inhabitants, and
accounts for the remarkable freedom from epidemic and zymotic disease that
Droitwich enjoys. This power to resist infection is as true as remarkable.
When outbreaks of typhoid and scarlatina or measles occur in the surrounding
towns, a few scattered cases may happen here and there about Droitwich, hot
nothing to call an epidemic. Even small-pox when introduced, rarely extends
to half-a-dozen cases, but dies out.

11

Ordinarily, if the attack of illness,*' he continues —

is of some months* standing three to six weeks' treatment is a reasonable Ume
for the cure. It is sometimes very difficult to discriminate between sciatica and
rheumatoid arthritis of the hip. The distinction is of no great importance as far
as treatment is concerned, as the latter affection is also greatly benefited by the
brine baths : there is also no form of true gout that does not benefit, from podagra^
the old-fashioned acute great-toe gout, down to tophetic developments in the
knuckles and joints. The beneficial action of the brine is as marked in rheuma-
tism as in gout ; acute rheumatism with high inflammatory fever, commonly known
as rheumatic fever, does not come under observation, or at all events, not until
the febrile symptoms have subsided. Cases of sub-acute and general articular
rheumatism, with pain and swelling of the joints, and a moist sweating skin, but
with pulse and temperature not exceeding lOO, make rapid recovery, and not
infrequently a patient who has to be carried with great care to the bath on arrival,
is able after one or two baths to vralk with crutches, and very shortly with sticks ;
and finally, in three or four weeks to throw aside his sticks and return home
perfectly well.

Rheumatic gout, or rheumatoid arthritis, when affecting the whole frame, is
one of the most distressing afflictions to which the human frame b subject : it is
obstinate and intractable, and renders its victims' existence miserable to themselves
and distressing to their friends. Not a limb, not even a joint, in aggravated
cases, but is rendered useless, and many of them distorted ; the fingers being
bent and stiffened and more or less drawn to the little finger side, so that no
justifiable force even temporarily restores them to their natural shape ; the knees
and elbows are contracted and bent. Not only the joints but the surrounding
tissues and the sheaths of the tendons are swollen and filled with fluid* Under
these conditions no position is easy or comfortable to the lufferer for any leogtli

of time. At tlie same lime the sulTeiers have no power to auisi IhemselveE, and
cvety change of position is accompanied by pain. Such cases are too well known
not to be at once recognised. Whatever will alleviate such dincess is a great
blessing. It is in this fonn of Jisease, usually so unmanageable, that the great
efficacy and power of the Dioilwich waters are found. It is a disease intractable
to otilinary remedies, nnd one of a progressive downward tendency, but still in
the majority of instances it yields to the use of these waters ; not immediately
tnd rapidly, but ultimately. The more advanced conditions only gain a modified
relief during the first course of treatment ; but that relief is a distinct one, and
it is found that after the patient returns home improTement continues. It may
require a repetition of treatment for Ihree or four sueceisive years to ensure com-
plete recovery ; and so deeply rooted is the tendency lo recucrcnee that a return
for a short course of treatment from time to time is desirable. The thickening
*nd stiffness that so frequently remain in the joints and limbs after fracluies,
dislocations, or severe sprains derive great benefit from the baths or douchci.
Strumous enlargement of the glands of the neck and other parts also derives great
benefit from Ihe baths, and the atmospheric conditian of the locality appears
to be very favourable. Such strumous affections ore far less prevalent among Ihe
children of the town and in the Union Workhouse than in manufacturing towns.
In paralysis the tonic action of the baths is well seen, and, as a rule, in the
milder forms complete restoration of power follows their use.

Droitwich is not particularly attractive, but the country in the
immediate neighbourhood is exceedingly pretty and fertile. It is,
however, interesting, and abounds, says Dr. Roden, " in old half-
timbered houses of the izih and 13th centuries." The date ol
these handsome houses must surely be an error, and I know of few
more ancient than the isih and 16th centuries, and that in England
is very respectable aniiquily. Visitors from large towns, more
especially from London, are delighted with the district, and many
would become permanent residents could convenient houses only
be found. Near Droitwich there are many places of interest. Wor-
cester, with its majestic cathedral, is only six miles off; and the
trains, of which the service is excellent, cover the distance in ten
minutes ; Malvern, with its bold and picturcstjue hills and well laid-
out and prosperous streets. Is only fourteen miles away ; while the
rich district of which Ledbury is the centre is six miles beyond
Malvern. While few of free choice would choose Droitwich as a per-
manent residence, it is not worse than many other manufacttiring
towns, and it is far more attractive than some. Its small size— its
population is only 4.000, though rapidly increasing— makes it easy to
run off into the open country. A quarter of an hour is enough to
reach the fields and lanes, while a few minutes in the train takes the
visitor* into the loveliest districts of Worcestershire, or to Wyre
Forest near Bewdley, with its fine timber and long stretches of wood-
land scenery. The most pressing consideration with the invalid,

536 714^ Gentleman s Magazine.

however, is to get well, and feeling that good b being got would
reconcile him to longer journeys and less attractive places than the
Roman Salinae. All round the town fine timber abounds. The
Lickey Hills can be reached in half an hour, and some of the drives
far and near are lovely, and those who can afford them have nothing
to desire. The place is sheltered from keen winds, while the climate
is mild and calm.

Now that the Royal and the St. Andrew's Baths are connected,
or on the point of being connected by covered ways with the Royal
Hotel and the new boarding-house respectively, the strong objections
once urged to Droitwich as a winter resort are answered. Patients
will now be able to have their daily hot brine bath and to command
the most luxurious accommodation without the necessity of passing
into the open air or facing rain and wind, and so one may hope that
the winter will no longer find the town almost deserted by invalids.
Perhaps no expenditure is, in the long run, more productive than
that incurred in the improvement of health resorts. Hundreds of
thousands of people are possessed of fair means ; but they have no
ties connecting them with any place in particular. These people will
go wherever they can find good homes and healthy surroundings ;
but they demand, and not unnaturally, the conveniences, or rather
the luxuries of modem life. A few hundred persons of this class
make the fortune of a small town, and as their average expenditure
will hardly fall short of ;^5 a week per head — sometimes reaching
double that sum or more, it can easily be seen what 500 would do
for Droitwich or any other similar place during the winter. For
many years Droitwich will not have public parks, good society, and
superior amusements ; but it might well have several huge boarding-
houses, each one a complete community in itself, with concert hall,
billiard-room, and ladies' drawing-room. The new boarding esta-
blishment is a fresh departure, one I advocated three years ago in
my earliest papers on Droitwich, and I can only hope that before
long others on the same lines will follow ; indeed, I am of opinion,
from facts that have come under my own observation, and from
hints I have heard dropped, that there are good openings for the
right sort of people, and that more than one such establishment
might answer. At first, at any rate, good management and strict
economy would be needed, and the matter must be taken in hand
on sound commercial principles ; but given the proper people and
suitable establishments, much could be done, perhaps more than
some persons would believe.

A great future lies before Droitwich as a health resort, although

Kiot

The Progress and Future of Droitwick.

it is a question whether it yet ranks as high as it ought, Hereford
and Birmingham send contingents of patients, who usunlly return
greatly benefited ; and London is finding out that it is not necessary
to make a long and costly pilgrimage to Germany, with Droitwich so
much nearer and so easy of access. Foreigners are more energetic
in such matters than we, and they strive to make their health resorts
attractive and they generally succeed, so thai al present our home spas
are heavily weighted in the cotnpetition with their continental rivals.
The expenses of residence at Droitwich are not heavy, and those
most deeply interested in the prosperity of the ancient town of Wich
will surely not follow the evil example of some other health resorts
and drive away visitors by exorbitant charges.

Droitwich is now generally recognised as one of the health resorts
of the land : it has started on a career of prosperity which may lead
to fame far greater and to a population much larger than we can at
present see. Already the boarding-houses are full to overflowing,
and every addition to the accommodation brings large numbers of
fresh people ; indeed, there seems boundless scope for enterprise and
building operations. True, the older and lower parts of the town, as
I have in other papers shown, are not inviting and are subject to land
subsidences, which, though they do not threaten great catastrophes
and serious loss of life, do not improve the appearance of the older
streets ; but near the station matters are wholly different, and there the
amount of good land available for building purposes is large. The
recent visit of the British Medical Association — the second that body
has paid the place in eight years, its formervisit wasatthelimeof the
Worcester Meeting in i88a — cannot fail to be the commencement of
a new era of prosperity and fame, and before three years have sped
swiftly away the cry may be for still more lodging-houses and increased
bath accommodation.

No doubt all my readers are aware that salters, and colliers too,
were till recently little better than slaves or serfs. Fortunately
"lothing recalling these evil days remains in the appearance or
mdidon of the Droitwich saU-workers ; but though it can hardly
be news to anyone taking up these articles, I must give a passage
which will emphasise the difference between our fortunate age and
the times immediately preceding the great French Revolution, which,
in spite of all its horrors and atrocities, did much to emancipate the
working classes of Europe.

It is strange that in 1775, little more than a hundred years ago,
British Parliament found it necessary to pass the following

538 The Gentlemaris Magazine.

Wherefts many colliers, coalbearen, and salters in Scotland are in a state of
slavery or bondage, bound to the collieries and salt-works, where they work for
life and are sold with the mines : Be it enacted that —

(1) No person shall be bound to work in them in any way different from
common labourers.

(2) It shall be lawful for the owners and lessees of collieries and talt-woiks to
take apprentices for the legal term in Scotland.

(3) All persons under a given age now employed by them to be free after a
given day.

(4) Others of a given age not to be free till they have histiucted an
apprentice.

In conclusion, the salt-works are worth visiting and are interesting^
though the manufacture is simple. 200,000 tons of salt a year are
produced ; and though the recent wide-spread commercial depression
affected Droitwich in common with all other manufacturing centres,
the quality of its salt is too remarkable for it ever to be a drug in the
market. Stoke Prior, a few miles from the town, is also famous for
its wonderful salt workings, far surpassing those of Droitwich in the
abundance of their supplies, and in the depth to which the shafts
have been driven. Mr. Corbett, commonly known as the Salt King,
is a most charming and enlightened man, and has done more to
advance the best interests of the town than anyone else. While
Droitwich has his support and countenance, its fame must extend ;
more particularly as, while reading the proof, I have been informed
on the highest possible authority that it is not the intention of those
most interested to pause, but that many schemes are being discussed
which will, when carried out, as they certainly will be shortly, make
Droitwich equal to almost any other health resort in the world, and
superior in most matters to the most favoured in the United
Kingdom.

AN OLD OXONIAN.

TABLE TALK.

The Latest Amusement in Paris.
"^HE melancholy catalogue of evils that 1 foresaw as the result of
the establishment of the bull-fight in France is almost full, and
tiie new pastime of tlie Parisians is now scarcely distinguishable from
that of the Madrilisfio or the Gaditano. Most of the horrors are
there — the disembowelling of the horses, the massacre of men, In the
latter respect, indeed, things seem to be worse in Paris than in
Seville, seeing that, with the exception of the Toreador, the combatants
are less expert and necessarily more subject to disaster. Once and
again, accordingly, the most excitable and dangerous public in
Europe, and that most in need of sobering influences, has been ex-
tasied by the sight of human beings gored by the buU or trampled
by him out of recognition. The voice of protest has been raised in
Paris, where there is, of cour.'ie, a leaven of wisdom and mercy. In
the public excitement it passes unheard. The South, alwa)'S addicted
to the sports of the circus, lakes new heart, and the noble amphi-
theatre at Nismes sees spectacles that rival those exhibited in the
period of Roman occupation. Beyond the Alps even the contagion
has spread, and I read with dismay that the bull-fight has been estab-
lished in at least one Italian city. I have no fresh argument to advance
against amusements that appeal only to semi-enervate Latin races,
and have long been regarded with horror by the masculine North.
I con but repeat my declaration that there is in such spectacles a more
serious menace to the stability of France than can elsewhere be found.

The Latest Amusement in London.

IS London justified, however, it may be asked, in arraignment of
Paris, and is she not open to the retort that she should purge
herself of her own vices before posing as the advocate of decency
and humanity? Attempls to acclimatise in this country the bull-
fight haw been vain ; I have not heard of one since the seventeenth
century. During many centuries, however, such no less barbarous,
though less bloodthirsty, spectacles as bear-baiting, bull-bailing,
cock-fighting, and other similar sporls, the very memory ol some of
which is dead, were the delight alike of peer and peasant. I should
be sorry lo wager that, even now, " a main o' cocks " is not sometimes
seen. The national conscience long ago decided that these things
should no longer be tolerated. With them was relegated into darkness,
and, as was hoped, into oblivion, the prize-ring — the mostdete"

540 The GentlematCs Magazine.

ably cruel and obscene of English amusements. The old feudal
strain is, however, evident in our higher classes, at least as regards
their amusements,* and their constant endeavour has been to evade
the merciful provisions of the law. Changing the name of the enter-
tainment, and making some frivolous pretence of ameliorating the
conditions, they have re-introduced the prize-fight into our midst
Clubs for its encouragement are established, and for the sake o( seeing
two hired beings pummel each other out of recognition, our gilded
youth will pay sums such as are demanded for no other spectacle.
That there are in London amusements as degraded as can be found
in Paris I will grant, and I will also concede that those who pay
twenty guineas to assist at a glove-fight would gladly pay a fortieth
of that sum to see a bull-fight in Spain or France. I may point
out, however, that while the bull-fight in Paris is sanctioned by the
civic authorities, the amusements of our English Yahoos are no less
against the spirit of our English laws than against the moral sense of
our people.

Untrodden Ways.

AS a constant walker I protest against the course adopted by the
authorities of our parks and roads of supplying the pedestrian
with a path on which it is torture to walk. To well-shod travellers
the small stones of which paths are constantly made are intolerable^
to the poor the intrusion of the small stones through holes in the
shoes becomes an absolute torment. No doubt the material is the
cheapest obtainable, and economy within certain limits is to be com-
mended. Is there, however, any true economy here? In the parks,
beside the unused path, are two or three beaten tracks, off which the
authorities strive vainly to drive the pedestrian by putting up iron
hurdles or other obstructions. In the country roads near London
I continually see a footpath wholly unused, and the travellers, myself
included, plodding through the dust of the high road, constantly
attent for the sound of wheels or the clang of the cyclist's bell. I
decline to regard this as a minor evil. Paths are made to be used,
and the adoption of a plan which prevents them from being used is
a fraud upon those who are taxed for their construction and a wrong
to those for whom they are supposed to be made.

' I copy from the Pall Mall Gazelle of October i6 of this year, a passage
curiously confirmatory of this statement. "The lion, deorge Dundas, \'oungest
son of the Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland, who is only eight years of age, rode to his
first *kiir this week with the Zetland hounds, and, in addition to receiving tlie
brush, had his face washed in the blood of the fox I " This would arrest atteDtion
in a description of life on the Congo.

SYLVANUS URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

December 1890.
HUNTED.

By Ella Edersheim.
Chapter IV.

IN WHICH the hunt IS ENDED.

SINCE rebellion was useless and complaint was unmanly, Radley
concluded that the only course of behaviour open to him was
to make all preparations for his picnic party in the most complete
fashion, but with the firm resolve to show Miss Le Marchant clearly
enough, during the entertainment, that he was neither honoured by, nor
pleased with, her selection of himself as host. At one time he had
indeed thought of devolving his duties on Canning, and of finding some
pressing previous engagement elsewhere. But after much consideratiors
he persuaded himself that this plan was repugnant to his sense of
truth. Besides, he told himself that his resolution was well able to
stand in this its first real test ; that it would be cowardly for him to
turn his back on danger ; while at the same time it would be
singularly wholesome for the enchantress to encounter a decided pro-
test. Indeed, he argued on these lines for a length of time quite
out of proportion to the significance of the subject.

The day rose cloudless and serene. Each separate leaf of young
and tender green, oak, willow, and elm, stood clear against a calm
blue sky. The season was late, and the grass was even yet not nearly
ready to be cut ; but it bore along the edges of the fields gay fringes
of ox-eyed daisy and scarlet poppy, of waving plantains, sorrel and
cuckoo flowers ; and underneath lay round and fragrant masses of the
pink clover, of thyme and ground ivy, lady's slipper and money-in •
your-pocket

vou ccLxix. NO. 192 00

54- The Gentlonans Magazine.

The picnic parly was in the highest spirits. One large boat and
a Canadian canoe were to sene them as means of transit, and there
was much good-humoured wTangling and casting of lots before the
company could be divided and arranged. At last all were setded,
Mrs. Hawthorn having manceu\Ted Kitty and Sybil into the canoe
with Canning, while she and Professor Wheatley occupied the stem
of the dingey. Radley rowed stroke and (iraeme bow ; I^timer and
Bankes taking consecutively 2 and 3. Juanita lay on some cushions
which had been arranged in the bows of the boat

Up they swept against the stream, with slow, strong, rh}thmical
movement : past the scared and hurr>'ing water-rats, past the yellow
button water-lilies, through tangle of weeds and long cutting reeds,
round abrupt corners of mud-bank and over treacherous shallows,
where the unwary run aground, till at last they moored their boat not
far from a deserted manor-house. Mrs. Hawthorn's watchful eye had
noticed that at first Charles Graeme paid far more attention to his
neighbour in the bows than he did to his oar. Subsequently, how-
ever, his gentle face became overcast, and he relapsed into silence and
steady work ; whilst that Juanita, twisting herself round face down-
wards in the boat, effectually concealed her countenance from
observation, while seeming lost in contemplation of the wonders
and beauties of the river.

Cushions and rugs were soon spread on the grass, and the ladies
busied themselves in unpacking and arranging the good things.
Juanita offered to superintend the boiling of the kettle, and volunteers
to search for firing were not backward. Soon the leaping flames
roared high and strong. Juanita crouched on the grass fanning the
fire with an extended Japanese parasol. She wore a scarlet shirt that
opened low on her throat. She had thrown off her hat, and her
heavy dark hair, in which she had fantastically entwined bold daisies
and poppy- buds lorn open, was loosened and lay about her neck.
The fire cast a ruddy copper glow on her beautiful face : she looked
like some idealised gipsy-queen.

Mrs. Hawthorn was herself fascinated by the picture thus made.
Looking round she saw that Radley also seemed to share her interest ;
while beside her stood motionless Frederick Canning, his arms full
with a bundle of wraps, his gaze fixed in the same direction.

Then an inspiration, the birth of a gnawing despair, came to the
Warden's wife.

" I wish that Juanita were not so fond of theatrical effects," she
said, addressing the young men in a low voice. " I suppose she must
have inherited it : but it is an unfortunate as well as a dangerous
tendency."

Hunted. 543

No change was visible on Radley's face, but Canning immediately
started and looked down at the speaker. There was a perplexed
expression on his fine features.

" Inherited? What do you mean, Mrs. Hawthorn ? " he inquired.
"I thought that Miss Le Marchant was the daughter of a highly
respectable Professor, of good old Jersey family."

Mrs. Hawthorn laughed a little, the laugh concealing the boisterous
palpitation of her heart as she played her last, her trump card.

" About the good old Jersey family I am not capable of speaking,"
she said, " though I dare say her father's people were respectable
enough. But did you not know that he had made a mtsalliance^2i
most disastrous marriage? Some strolling singer or itinerant minstrel
who took his fancy — a very doubtful person, I believe. It must be from
her mother that Juanita inherits her tricks of manner and costume,
her guitar and mode of singing, and her love of effect. I hope she
may have inherited nothing worse. It is a thousand pities, poor girl ! "

Observing Canning closely, Mrs. Hawthorn saw his eyes once
more seek the kneeling, picturesque figure busy with the fire. Harry
Latimer was handing Juanita selected fragments of wood with which
she fed the flames. Geoffrey Bankes stood by holding forth on a more
rational mode of kindling wood out of doors. Professor Wheatley, a
little further off, was dangling grotesquely from a bough, to which he
had lent his weight in the hope of detaching it. The sun glinted through
the sparse shade of the young leaves overhead ; the trees stood
straight and close ; there was a fragrance of lingering blue bells in
the air. But all rapture in the beauty of the scene had died out of
Canning's face. He was no longer one of the group, but an outsider,
keenly conscious of its weak points, keenly critical too. Presently his
eyes fell back and turned on Kitty — pretty English Kitty — sitting on
a hamper at the other end of the white table-cloth, cutting and
spreading with butter thick slices of soft new bread. Canning went
round and dropped on to the grass beside Kitty, his back to the wood
and the kettle scene. He took up a spoon and laughed as he began
to dab largesse of jam on to the slices cut by her deft fingers.

Mrs. Hawthorn drew a long sigh of relief. Never had potion
worked so efficaciously, so instantaneously. Her reason applauded
her, and her conscience had long been in its regular service. Should
she not consider her own child ? Had she not besides but fulfilled
the duty which she owed to Canning himself and to his family. She
felt hungrier, happier, less careworn than she had been since Juanita
first darkened her horizon.

But in Radley's mind arose a storm of indignant protest against

00a

544 ^'^^ Gevtlenians Magazine.

the by-play be hau ju&l witnessed. Mrs. Hawthorn's words, saying
so little, implying so much, seemed to him as sharp and poisoned
arrows, and instinctively he placed himself on the side of the girl who
had been thus slighted. For the first time, too, he felt that there
was a bond of union between himself and Juanita. For how might
not the Warden s wife, with perhaps just the same warrant of infor-
mation, have referred to his own parentage had he not been present?
What, in very truth, would have been her feelings if she could have
seen the humble. God-fearing, hard-working mother whom he could
just remember, and the pious, talkative preacher, whose memory
served Radley, it is to be feared, more as a warning than as an
example in those paths of culture and refinement where, by the force
of sheer intellect, he now walked unchallenged? Radley's whole
soul rose in revolt against this unjust, petty tyranny of caste and
fate.

In spite of these fierce undercurrents the tea was a merry meal.
Kitty, aware that by some miraculous dispensation her lover had
suddenly been returned to her, was softly frisky and happy. Sybil
was too careless to grieve that Harry Latimer should no more plot to
sit beside her, so long as she was allowed to poke fun at the rest of
the party. Radley, according to his prearranged plan, but with
some conscious weariness, kept strictly by Mrs. Hawthorn's side,
attending solely to her wants and his own.

When tea was finished the young men called for music, and all
joined in madrigals and part songs. Then Juanita was asked to
sing. For long she refused : she had left her guitar behind her, she
pleaded. But at last, when they had ceased to hope for acquiescence,
she sprang to her feet, her dancing eyes directed on Mrs. Hawthorn,
her whole form seemingly possessed with the relish of some secret
merriment. Hastily she demanded and collected the penknives of
the company, including even that of the unwilling Radley, and
fashioning from them a species of castanettes, to the delight of all
she abruptly burst out into the wildest, most rollicking patois song ;
bobbing, curtseying, shaking back her hair, tossing her head, quiver-
ing the improvised instruments, her pretty feet twinkling in and out
— all in rhythm, all in unison with the gay fan-far-an of her singing.
Then, as suddenly as she had sprung up, she dropped down again
in a little heap on the grass, her eyes still on the impenetrable
countenance of Mrs. Hawthorn, while the young people shouted
applause and clamoured for an encore. Even Radley found himself
enthusiastically desiring a repetition of the song: its barbaric
grace and the exquisitely bizarre effect of the beautiful, fantastic

Hunted, 545

figure had completely carried him out of himself. Involuntarily he
joined his voice in the shout for more, and then immediately turned
away, ashamed of his momentary weakness. But Canning only
clapped his hands, nodding a gracious approval, while his eyes sought
those of Mrs. Hawthorn in a comprehensive glance.

Juanita, however, refused to sing again. Quietly she restored
the penknives to their respective owners, and obstinately she busied
herself in helping to pack up the tea-things. The party began to
scatter, some wandering off through the copse and others towards the
hay-fields. With- infinite satisfaction Mrs. Hawthorn marked Kitty
and Canning through a gap in the hedge standing together in what,
without undue sanguineness, might be considered as certainly a sug-
gestive attitude.

Juanita had drawn the flowers from her hair, and was preparing
to replace her hat, when Geoffrey Bankes approached her. He,
more than any other perhaps, had been enraptured by the wild,
natural grace of her song. Its effect was still on him as he looked
down on her now in a manner peculiarly his own : a combination of
protection and condescension.

" Why do you do that ? " he asked. " /infinitely prefer you as
you are — the child of Nature."

Juanita glanced up at him, pausing a moment, her wide straw hat
in her hand. It was one of the more immediate consequences of
her glances that the person on whom they were directed should
instantly become, as it were, bewitched. Though Juanita did not
speak now, nor fall in with his request, Geoffrey felt his usur.lly tem-
perate blood racing and chasing like the horsemen of the poem, and
his cool, clear head in a most unwonted whirl and maze. He had
left to himself only just sufficient presence of mind to cast a look
around him. There was no one within ear-shot, and he bent lower
over the girl.

"Juanita!" he whispered. " Beloved ! Adored ! Do you know
that you are the most beautiful woman in creation, and that you
have moved me, even me, to worship ? "

The girl stood leaning up against a young ash tree, slender and
graceful as herself. She kept her great dark eyes fixed on Geoffrey
Bankes's lace, as was her wont when she was puzzled — one of those
" tricks " to which Mrs. Hawthorn took such exception, but which
probably arose from the difficulty she still had in following a strange
language when rapidly spoken. She was surprised at hearing herself
addressed by her Christian name ; otherwise she did not at all grasp
the meaning of the words addressed to her, and she therefore made
no response.

546 714^ Gentlenuifis Magazine.

" Say that you too love mc ! " continued the in&tuated young
man, emboldened by her silence. '' Sometimes I have felt and
known that your eyes were on me, and I have striven to show
myself worthy of your regard. If you, my sweet Juanita, will but
confide to me your heart, I shall be the happiest, the proudest of
men."

Here he took possession of Juanitas slim little hand and sank on
one knee, with infinite self-satisfaction at his own felicity of expres-
sion.

His attitude revealed to Juanita a great deal more than did his
words. She was dismayed, alarmed, insulted. Charles Graeme, too,
had told her but that same afternoon that he loved her. But he
had worded his love so meekly, so despondently, that the girl had
been neither startled nor offended. What had she done now that this
bold Englishman should come thus and solicit her, face to face, for
the gift of herself — for what, according to her code, she had neither
right nor inclination to dispose of? If, in very truth, he desired her
in marriage, why had he not made the preliminary advances which
she believed to be customary ? Why had he not given her some
former hint of his intentions ; have instructed Mrs. Hawthorn to
warn her ; or spoken to the Warden, for the time being her natural
protector? But thus suddenly, without any previous courting or
even special attention, to fall on one knee and to ask her to bestow
her hand on him, was, in Juanita*s eyes, an outrage on propriety,
almost amounting to an outrage on decency. Since she had never
before found herself in a similar predicament she lacked words in
which to convey meetly her vexation and annoyance. She withdrew
her hand, indeed, sharply enough from Geoffrey's grasp, and her
face flushed painfully.

"Pray rise up, Mr. Bankes," she said. "Your attitude is alto-
gether very unbecoming."

He recognised that she had difficulty in giving proper expression
to her thoughts, but he mistook her displeasure for a modest bashful-
ness. Accordingly, though he stood up, fearful lest his attitude
should, after all, have been lacking in proper dignity, he continued
his suit with unabated confidence.

" Sweet one I " he said, " do not be alarmed. I would not hurt a
hair of your head I It shall be my dearest joy always to protect and
guard you."

He put out his arm to enwrap her slender figure, but she shrank
away from him with eyes of dumb terror.

" Frightened bird ! " he expostulated, " do you think I would

Hunted, 547

curtail your freedom? You shall be your own gaoler, and bring
yourself captive to me."

He stood holding both his arms straight out towards her, an in-
treating invitation on his confident, handsome young face.

Juanita was still steadfastly regarding him, but the fear in her
eyes was gone ; and if Geoffrey had not been blinded by the delusion
of his own vanity, he might have seen that instead there played there
a peculiar and dangerous light. She came a step nearer to him.
His arms trembled and his faced glowed. Then she lifted her small
lithe hand and struck him two stinging blows, one on each of his
smooth well-shaven cheeks. Each blow she accompanied by a
resolute stamp of her little foot.

"Impertinent !" she cried in a voice half-suffocated with anger.
" Impudent ! Atrocious ! " Then while he was still dumb from
astonishment and the tingling of the blood in his face, she drew her
shoulders together, sinking her head back between them, and con-
tracting her features into a grimace indicative of so much loathing
and scorn that she was for the moment transformed from a woodland
nymph into a perfect imp of hatred. Then she turned her indignan
back on her suitor and fled.

Geoffrey gathered himself together with a considerable effort.

"What a little she-devil!" he remarked, and sank on the
sward.

Juanita, boiling with rage and ignorant of the direction she took
fled swiftly back towards the spot where the boats lay moored
Emerging suddenly from the Avood on the bank she had the chagrin
to discover Harry Latimer, lying asleep full length among the
cushions of the canoe, his straw hat drawn flat down over his face
She would have retired again immediately had not the rustle of hei
dress, already aroused his attention. He sat up rubbing his eyes and
staring about him. Juanita was little more than a child, and she
was very easily distracted. Forgetting her recent wrath, she laughed
now at his bewildered air.

"Oh! Miss Le Marchant, is it you?" cried Harry at length,
flushing a healthy scarlet as he recognised the girl. " I was just
dreaming about you."

"Were you?" said Juanita, sitting contentedly down on the
grass, and beginning to pluck and chew sweet stalks. " And what
did you dream of me ? Something pleasant, I hope ? "

?* Oh, all sorts of things ! But I don't think you'd care to hear
them," the young fellow answered, regarding her wistfully. "I'm
afraid my dreams would only bore you."

548 Tlu GentUmans Magazine,

" No, no. Vou are so nice, you never bore me," Juanita replied
very graciously. ** Indeed, just now you se^^•e to distract me. Pray
go on and tell me your dream."

Thus encouraged, Harry drew himself well up in the canoe,
grasping one side with a strong brown hand, and twisting the other for
closer anchorage into the forget-me-nots and reeds of the muddy
bank. It was a good brave face that he turned on the girl, his
blue eyes somewhat graver and steadier than usual.

" I dreamed," he raid, " that one I knew had the courage to tell
you how he loved you." He drew a strong breath, and then added
in a lower tone : " And you were not unkind."

He stopped, his young blood swirling about his face and neck,
his bashful eyes downcast.

"Oh I" said Juanita quickly, " do not tell me any more of your
dream." She panted a little as she dropped one hand on to the arm
buried in the grasses just below her ; her voice was very soft and
sweet. " Tell your friend," she said, " that he has mistaken his own
heart ; that it is not Juanita whom he loves. Tell him " — for the
boyish face had sunk lower and the broad chest sent forth a quivering
sigh — "that life and love and all the future are still before him.
He is good and brave ; I do not think he will despair.''

There was a long silence. Through the quiet air there came
only the rustle of an occasional wagtail skimming the shining water,
the soft monotonous cooing of wood -pigeons in the copse behind.
Juanita sat gazing out over the boat, over the river, over the waving
hayfields ; and who can tell what were Latimer's thoughts?

The beautiful distance was at last broken for both by the ap-
proach of a somewhat heavy figure, now to be perceived hastening
towards them. The new-comer was soon recognised to be Pro-
fessor Wheatley. The Professor was nearing stoutness with nriddle
age; he wore rusty black, and a great-coat which floated out on
each side behind him as he rapidly approached them. He looked
like some cumbrous, respectable, middle-aged crow. On closer
inspection he was seen to be trailing after him the long slimy roots
of a magnificent white water-lily.

" There ! Miss Le Marchant," he cried triumphantly, laying his
trophy at Juanita's feet. "You said you had never seen one. I
have been searching for the last half-hour, and at last I was re-
warded."

His kind face beamed with good-nature, while a soaking gingham
umbrella, which had evidently assisted in the capture of his booty,
dripped placidly and steadily on the girl's shoulder.

Hunted, 549

" There are several more like it where I found this one, but they
were beyond my reach," continued the delighted Professor, as Juanita,
wriggling out of the shower of his umbrella, fingered the great white
flower in a rapture of delight. " If you— you — I forget your name,"
pointing the gingham at Latimer, " will take your canoe round the
corner yonder you will find a little cut, hardly more than a ditch.
About fifty yards up it, on the right-hand side . . ." Latimer was
already in motion and down the stream, but the Professor continued
to shout directions after him till he was well out of sight.

" Now I do call this nice," he said, sitting down by Juanita*s side
and chuckling joyously. " Those young fellows so monopolise you
that I never get a chance of a word with you alone ! And yet, you
know, my eldest brother, poor Constantine, was your good father^s
closest friend.*'

" Oh yes, I know, dear Professor Wheadey ! ** said the girl,
bringing to bear on him all the glowing interest of her lovely face and
softened lustrous eyes. " Do tell me now something about papa
when he was young and at college, and that which he did, and how
he looked, and all, and all about him."

And the Professor thus adjured entered on a long rambling
account of days past by, of adventure and hardship overcome, of
hard-won triumphs and steady friendship, supplementing memory
with happy invention, and always with the encouragement of the
girl's rapt eyes and ready sympathetic gesture of head and hand.

" Ah ! " she said, and took a deep breath, when at last not from
want of will, but from sheer lack of material, the Professor had ceased
to discourse; ** I cannot thank you enough. It is the first time since
I have been here that anyone has spoken to me of my dear father.
I fe^ that you are my very friend."

There was no mistaking the mournfulness of the young girl's voice.
The Professor -took up one of her small chilly hands, laying it on his
knee, smoothing it out and patting it.

" My poor little girl," he said tenderly, " I have seen you every
day, I believe, since you came over, and yet I have never once
thought of talking to you of your home. I thought the women
always did that kind of thing."

At his kindness her eye-lids quivered, and the lines about her
mouth trembled a little.

He went on : " Are you not happy, my dear ? Are you lonely,
my dear ? Tell nie."

" Not unhappy — but so alone," she answered, a world of pathos
in her dark eyes, " For Mrs. Hawthorn docs not care for me — she

550 The Gentleman s Magazine.

never has, that is certain. I am afraid that I offend her, and yet
often I do not know how it is done. Kitty also does not like me :
she avoids me always. There remains Sybil. She means to be kind,
but she is very young, and she follows the others. Now, too, I
cannot any more speak even with the young men, their friends."

** And why not ? " interrupted the Professor quickly.

Juanita coloured and made an expressive little motion of eyebrow
and shoulder.

" Vou need not care for the whole batch of them ! " cried the
Professor hotly. " They are not worth a brass farthing ! I'll look
after you ! Til stand up for you ! Fd like to see any one of them
dare to attack you when I am by ! "

" Ah ! you do not understand. How shall I make myself
understood ? " Juanita remonstrated. ** They do not attack me — nor
do they neglect me. They only . . ."

The Professor had laid his other big, warm hand over the chilly
fingers he still held captive on his knee.

" I tell you what it is, my child," he said, speaking very slowly
and distinctly. "If you could make up your mind not to look on me
as such an old, old fellow — I'm only forty-three after all — and I could
persuade your good father to give you over into my care, I would try
my very utmost, God helping me, to give you a happy home and to
be a good husband to you."

It seemed to Juanita, clearly following each word of his kind,
gentle voice, that this proposition was the last drop needed to fill
her cup of humiliation and misery. She bent her head till it fell upon
their joined hands, and her whole form shook in an agony of tears.

" There ! " exclaimed the Professor, much discomposed, " I have
only made things worse. Lord help us ! How am I to stop her?
Tut-tut, my dear ; never mind. Stop crying, there's a good girl
Come, come, come ! We won't say anything more about it. I ought
to have spoken to Le Marchant first. Dry your eyes, dry your eyes!
Gocd Lord ! If there isn't Mrs. Hawthorn coming ! "

His last exclamation had the effect of immediately quelling the
flood of Juanita's tears. In much alarm she raised her flushed
cheeks, on which the drops stood checked. Were they about to
return home, and had the time indeed come when for two good
hours and more she should have to sit face to face with Graeme in
his gentle grief, with the irate Bankes, with Harry Latimer's tell-tale
face of misery, and with this good blundering Professor ? Her blood
curdled at the mere thought. She brushed the tears from her face,
and the Professor noticed that they left no stain behind them.

Hunted.

551

I

Mrs. Hawthorn drew nearer, walking with the attentive Radky.

Now when Radley, in the far distance, had seen the Professor and
Juanita sitting together, apparently hand in hand, he had experienced
a strange shock, which, seeming to enter at the crown of his straw
hat and passing down his spine as down a lightning-conductor, had
not left him till it had swept his whole hody, emerging at his canvas
shoes. Far some time his self-imposed position as sole companion
to Mrs. Hawthorn had wearied him. To begin with, the well-
intentioned lady had displeased him on ihe subject of Juanita's
descent, and further, he had besides exhausted all possible topics of
conversation, and had fallen to wondering what the others, what
Juanita in especial, might be doing. Now as he stood beside this
strangely -assorted and strangely- moved couple he experienced again,
only more strongly, that curious sensation of repulsion and attraction
working simultaneously within him, with which Juanita's presence
had from the first inspired him.

" How flushed you look, my dear," said Mrs. Hawthorn, regarding
the girl curiously, " I am afraid you have been exciting yourself
too much,"

"Oh, not at all!" cried Juanita, springing to her feet, and
throwing off with instinctive defiance all traces of emotion, " Professor
Wheatley has been lellmg nie the most delightful stories of my dear
father, in the time when he was young. That is all."

" Where is the boat? — and the canoe?" inquired Mrs. Hawthorn,
Gtill searchingly regarding Juanita, almost as though she suspected
her of concealing these means of transit foe motives of her own.

" The canoe is down stream getting water-lilies. I saw her as
we passed," said Radley, with a renewed and vehement resentment
of Mrs, Hawthorn's tone. And then he turned to Juanita. " May
I take you home in her, Miss Le Marchant ? " he said.

How or why the words escaped him he could not tell. Certainly
he had had no intention of making such a request when he had first
approaclied her. But there was something in Mrs. Hawthorn's
civilly insolent store, in the Professor's dumb attitude of protection,
that confusedly irritated him, and urged him to articulate protest.
Or was it that he too longed for some share in the life and young
beauty of the day?

Juanita for the moment was greatly surprised. His offer came
as a godsend, yet she could not allow her full relief to appear. She
turned away, stooping to pick a long spray of forget- me. not, and an
imusual flush crept over her cheek.

Thank you," she said indifllerently, her face hidden from view

552 Tlie Gentlevians Magazine.

" That will be very pleasant." She turned again, and for a moment
her eyes rested on Radley. For the first time he fully returned her
gaze. It was a moment of subtlest intoxication.

" But where are the others ? Wherever can they be ? " cried Mrs.
Hawthorn, on whom this momentary episode was lost. " We ought
to have started at least an hour ago." She ran hither and thither
searching fresh points of view. " Has no one seen them ? " she
asked. " Does no one know where they are ? "

" Young Graeme walked home by the fields before tea," said the
Professor officiously. ** I believe he felt poorly. He looked
miserably ill."

Juanita looked faintly guilty.

" Ah ? " But the girl bore unflinchingly the elder woman's
skewer- like gaze.

" And I think Miss Hawthorn and Canning did the same after
tea," supplemented Radley meaningly, and flinging himself once
more into the breach. " At least I have not seen them since."

At this piece of information Mrs. Hawthorn smiled and nodded
contentedly. " Very likely, very likely," she said. " Come, Professor
Wheatley, you and I will get into the boat and pick up Sybil and
Geoffi-ey and Mr. I^timer, since Juanita will, I suppose, prefer to go
alone with Mr. Radley in the canoe."

With this parting thrust Mrs. Hawthorn was assisted to dispose
of her comely person in the swinging boat It was found, however,
necessary that after all Radley should accompany her and the Pro-
fessor as their boatman, till they could find and pick up the rest of
their crew.

"If you will wait here. Miss Le Marchant," Radley called to
Juanita as he pushed off" the boat, ** I will bring the canoe, when I
have found her, up to this willow for you."

The girl nodded assent, and followed the boat out of sight with
her eyes. Then, however, she wandered aimlessly off*, back towards
the darkening copse, where the wood-pigeons were already sleeping,
and the young leaves looked no longer green in the deepening twilight.
She was wearied and exhausted with the long day in the open air,
following on the revels of the night before, and with the varied and
trying emotions which she had exi^erienced. Her brain felt dull
and heavy, her eyelids burned, her limbs achad. In a slight hollow,
under the shelter of some crooked, straggling May trees, she found a
cosy spot. Here she curled herself wearily up. The events of the
day crossed her bram at first slowly, and then faster and more fast,
like the slides of a distracted magic-lantern. Her tired eyes closed \
htx head fell back on iVvt ouve of her arm ; she slept deeply.

Hunted. 553

How long she slept she did not know. She was awakened by
hearing her own name pronounced in accents of the deepest and
coldest displeasuTe. Again the unwonted blood rushed to her cheek.
She sat up, immediately wide-awake. It was so dark under the May
trees that she could distinguish nothing but the outline ofadark and
massive form.

" Who is it? "she asked feebly, "and where am I?"

" It is I, James Radlcy," replied a stern voice, " I have been
searching for you high and low. Why have you hidden yourself Lke
this?"

" I did not hide myself ; I fell asleep," Juanita expostulated.

" 1 don't care how it happened — I could not find you," Radley
replied angrily, but assisting her to rise. " You did not remain
where I told you, and that has made mischief enough. I cannot
find the canoe — some of the others must have taken her. We shall
be obliged to walk home."

"Alas!" cried Juanita. " It is impossible! So many miles;
so very many miles ! Oh I Mr. Kadley, we must find the canoe. I
will assist you "

She sprang forward eagerly, and soon they were out of the copse.
On the river bank there was cold gray light, and thick clouds of
rolling mist marked the course of the stream. Juanita peered
anxiously forward, and ran a little way, stumbling amongst the long
grass and mole-heaps, and crying out for Radley to follow her.

" It is not of the slightest use. Miss I.e Marchant," he answered
stiffly from behind. " I have already made the most careful search.
I am afraid there is no alternative but for you to walk home. We
are only losing time,"

" But I cannot," said Juanita. " I am so quite exhausted. Con-
sider only my fatigues of last night. I^t us try some other plan.
Could we not go up to that village whose tower we saw above the
trees ? I have not recollected its name, but it is surely quite near
by. We could there get some kind of carriage, or a cart"

" We can try that plan if you choose," Radley made answer. " But
you must consider that it is already very late, and that if we fail we
shall only have delayed ourselves still longer. If 1 could have found
you directly that I saw the canoe was missing, this trouble would
never have arisen. Then we could easily have overtaken the biif
boat and have gone home with them. As it is, I had to search for
you for more than half an hour,"

To this reproach Juanita answered nothing, feeling its justice but
resenting its insistence. In tiuth Radley, never £allantly inclined,

554 ^'^^ Gcntlematis Magazine.

was now deeply annoyed. His own rashness in ofifering to escort this
beautiful, wayward girl had led him into unknown quagmires and
difficulties. Her presence moved and excited him ; he could not
wholly trust himself nor be answerable for what he might be led
into saying when with her, and he resented on her his own loss of
self-control. One part of his nature led him on in leaps and bounds,
urging him to make the most of his time with the enchantress ; the
other and sterner part repelled what it condemned as the impulse of
the senses.

" We will go to the village, if you please," Juanita decided briefly
and with some dignity.

They moved on quickly together. The rolling ground-mist
caught about their feet and leaped up from thence like the smoke of
flames to wrap them round, chasing them and lingering behind them
in trailing clouds of vapour, now dense, now thin. Once or twice
Juanita stumbled and would have fallen but for Radley's ready hand.
It was not so dark but that they could discern the surrounding fields
and high hedges, though no glimpse of human abode was visible.
Radley was totally ignorant of the surrounding and apparently path-
less countr)' ; but his plan was to push on with the river as a guides
until they should reach some bridge or ferry from whence they should
strike into a road leading to the village. The thick damps which
lay heavily on the grass had soaked his shoes, and he knew that
Juanita's skirts were likewise drenched. But he offered her no word
of encouragement. A fire seemed to glow within him, and the way
to him was neither wet nor long. His mind was wholly possessed
with the idea of his companion. Nevertheless he choked down his
surging feelings by a reiterated blame.

Once they approached too near the river bank, and Radley's foot
sank down with an ominous swish into its ooze and mire. Juanita
caught his arm and uttered a little cry of relief at his safety. " My
Ood ! " she exclaimed, " I thought that you were drowned — here in
the cruel dark— in this dreadful creeping mist ! "

" It would not have mattered to you," Radley answered, not so
much from crass ungraciousness, perhaps, as from a secret desire for
a confirmatory iteration of such sweet solicitousness. But Juanita
answered never a word.

Still they pressed on. He knew by the girl's breathing, by her
frequent spurts and halts, how exhausted she must be. He would
have liked to offer to carry her. Her light weight would have been
as nothing to his strength ; but here again he desisted, judging the
prompting as nothing else but a fresh temptation of the evil one. It

Hunted. 555

must have been tiirough bj-gone generations of Puritan ancestors, as
well as more directly from the principles of his father, the Methodist
preacher, that Radley inherited so strong a belief in the actual exist-
ence of evi! and the deadly sin of self- gratification. He did not
speak, and it was Juanita who again broke the oppressive silence.

•' Do you not think that we must be verj- soon there, Mr. Radley?"
she asked timidly, as if she feared and deprecated his harshness.

" Probably," he answered, and had reopened his lips to add some
grudging, tardy comfort, when their way was suddenly barred by a
fresh obstacle. A broad stream, unseen till they were close on-it, at
this point sharply crossed their path on its way to join the river.
The discovery came so abruptly on them th.it Radley stretched out
his hand and laid it on Juanita's shoulder to stop her progress, fear-
ing ihai she might walk on into its waters. His hand once on her
shoulder rested there lingeringlj-. The poor gir! gave what sounded
like a little sob. A vehement desire to gather her into his arms, and
to comfort her with caresses and with southing words, almost over-
whelmed Radley. For a few moments a fierce battle raged within
him. Then what he look to be his nobler self, the self of habit, the
self of heredity, thcself of principle, conquered, and he dropped ihe
hand thai trembled on her. His voice sounded the sterner for his
inward struggle, though his words were kind enough.

" Don't despair, Miss I.e Marchant ! " he said. " We will go up
this stream a little way. I dare say we shall find a plank-bridge or
something further on thnl will take us safely across it."

He led the way and Juanita followed him submissively, trembling
and shivering, but making brave endeavour to keep up. They
wandered on thus for about a couple of hundred yards, and then
found that iheir way was once more blocked, this time by a towering
quick-set hedge, on the other side of which twinkled the stagnant
water of a broad, deep ditch. Radley himself, something dismayed,
turned to Juanita. The girl said nothing, but simply sank down in
Ihe meadow, a heap of draggled clothes and misery.

" It is not of any use, Mr. Radley," she said in a hoarse, unnatural
voice ; " I cannot go one step further."

" Oh, nonsense ! " said Radley. He did not in the least com-
prehend the utter exhaustion of his companion. He judged her
powers of endurance by those of himself and his friends. "Sit still
for a few minutes,'' he went on, '■ and you will feel heller. Il is, as I
thought, no good trying to get up to the village. When once we leave
the river we should only hopelessly lose our way in the fields. IVhen
you are more rested we must just turn round again, and walk back
to the city."

556 The Gentleman s Magazine.

Juanita said nothing.

Radlcy struck a match with sonic dit^culty and consulted his
watch.

** (iood heavens ! " he cried, " it is already eleven o'dcck. We
shall not be back till past midnight. Can't you manage to cume on
now, Miss Le Marchant ? We have a very long and difficult walk
before us."

The helpless figure before him, crouching on the wet cold grass,
bowed its head and answered nothing at first Then a faint dreary
voice came up to him :

"I cannot walk one step further. I must stop here all the
night."

A flood of mingled feelings swept Radley, carrying before it all
hardly-acquired gentleness of breeding, all compassion, all but the
notion of his own affronted respectability. It was of himself that he
thought, and not of Juanita. How would this story, when it should
get abroad, as it surely w*ould, affect him, making him the subject of
whispered comment, of joke or innuendo? He bent down and
shook the girl by the shoulder.

"Juanita," he said, and knew not what he said, ** Juanita, get up!
Vou cannot stay here ! You don't know what you want. Get up
and come back with me. Juanita ! (iet up I '*

He did not mean to be rough, hut his touch hurt her. The tears
came into her eyes, and she answered, looking up and sobbing : "I
cannot, I cannot, 1 cannot I "

Then the fury of the stream of Radlcy 's mingled passions tore
down the flood-gates of reserve, and the torrent rushed through un-
checked.

"Juanita I " he said, sinking on the grass beside her, and laying
his two hands on her shoulders, so as to bring her beautiful, piteous
face on a level with his own ; "Juanita ! Is it not enough for you
that you have torn from me, against my will, my heart, and my mind
and my whole soul ? Must you hunt me to the death ? Will you not
even leave to me the respect of other men ? I am your victim. ... I
own it with shame. . . . God knows I have made fight against the
temptation. . . . But you have conquered. . . . You hold me, body
and soul. . . . There is no need for you to compromise us both like
this. . . . I am vanquished. ... I will own your victory before all
men. ... I will do anything and ever}'thing that you may dictate.
Only, I beseech you, get up now, and if you will not walk, let me at
least carry you back home — for come you must"

His arm was already round her to lift her, but she repulsed bim
with a weak shaking hand.

Hunted. 557

" Go away," she said, her voice broken almost past control. " Go
back alone. Leave me ! I will not go with you."

For one moment he caught her to him and struggled to his feet
with his burden. But with surprising agility she freed herself from
his hold.

** How dare you touch me with but one finger ! " she cried,
steadying her voice at last, and starting far back from him. " I hate
you entirely. . . . I abhor you more than I do Satan. Infamous one I
l^ave me this instant moment ! Dare not to look on me . . . to
look towards me ! In the inmost of my heart lies my undying hate
of you. Were you to crawl on your knees all the way from here to
Rome, I would never, «t7'^r, nkver pardon you. I will not look on
you again. Go ! Go ! "

Radley hesitated and would have spoken. How could he go and
leave this girl solitary and unprotected in the lonely fields ? And yet
how could he venture to remain with so infuriated a creature ? Even
in the dark he could catch the glitter of her eyes, the contorted rage
of her face. Why was she so offended ? His mind, fixed on the
present difficulty, refused to recall what he had said. He recognised
indeed that he had deeply insulted her; but in fact, even at the
moment of utterance, his passion had prevented his being alive to the
full meaning of the words that had burst from him.

Juanita, however, did not give him much time for hesitation.

" I command you to go," she repeated, with a haughty dignity
that Radley had never before suspected in her. * ' Return to your
own home. I am no concern of yours."

She turned her back on him ; and Radiey, with wild notions of
a rescue-party and public reparation, plunged back into the darkness
alone.

But he had not proceeded far on his way towards the city when his
heart began to smite him so sorely, and the passion to which after so
long a silence he had at last given words struck him with so sharp a
spur, that he had perforce to turn round again once more and find
his way back to the spot where he had quitted Juanita. To his utter
dismay and astonishment she was no longer there. He called to her,
and he sought her, wandering up and down, and searching fruitlessly
in the darkness of the hedge. But he could not find her. Then an
awful fear seized on him. She had fallen into the river and was
drowned — perhaps, more awful still, stung to madness by his own
insane words she had flung herself into the cold black waters of the
river. Goaded by this terrible dread he wildly renewed his search.
He groped along the banks for some vestige of her clothing, but he

VOL. ccpcix. NO. 1920. p p

558 The Gentlentatis Magazine.

could find neither trace nor clue. Passionately he fell on the qx)t
where the crushed grasses showed that she had rested when they parted,
and repeatedly kissed the ground. He cried her name, at first sofdy,
but then louder and still more loudly. But no answer came. He ran
again along the hedge ; he renewed his search beside the river-bank,
but still without success. At last, having wandered up and down the
meadow, hither and thither, in a repeated but more and more hope-
less quest, he crept towards home, weary and broken-spirited, despair
and gnawing reproach in his heart.

It was two o'clock in the morning when the young don reached
St. Bede s. The sleepy porter wonderingly admitted him, and he
groped his way up his staircase. There was a light under Canning's
door, and without waiting to knock, Radley half-stumbled, half-fell
into the room.

Canning lay back in an arm-chair ; he was wrapped in a luxurious
dressing-gown, a cigarette was between his lips, and a photograph, which
he hastily placed face downwards, in his hand. A lamp burned beside
him on the table, and near him stood a glass of diluted water. He
was the very picture of comfort He leaped up in amazement, how-
ever, as Radley stood before him, his face haggard, aged and drawn,
his hair and clothes damp and sodden, his eyes wild and gloomy.

" Great heavens, man ! What's up ? " he cried, dragging Radley
down into a chair. " Drink some of that. Where have you been ?
Have you been chasing a ghost ? Speak, man I Don't sit there
like a dumb thing I "

Radley drank as he was bidden, and drew a long deep sigh.
Then at last he spoke. " She's dead, Canning," he said, slowly and
mournfullv. " Drowned . . . drowned and dead. I did it"
" Good God ! What do you mean ? "

But Radley did not answer. His head sank on his breast and he
groaned deeply. Canning grasped and shook him by the shoulder,
but he took no notice. At last he lifted his eyes again. Sitting
opposite to his friend he told him the story of his night's adventure,
not indeed as a connected whole, but in incidents and broken
sentences, separated by bitter curses and self-reproaches. Canning
did not interrupt him, hut followed the strange and fragmentar)'
narrative with grave attention. Only at the beginning he said : "It
was I who took the canoe. I found it empty, and I brought Kitty
home in it, thinking you others would understand."

When Radley had at last finished his disjointed tale he fixed his
miserable hollow eyes on his friend.

" Do you think that she is dead, Canning? ' he inquired hotndy:
"thatlbave\^\\\td\vt\r'

I

" No, I don't," Canning answered decisively, although in truth
he was very far from feeling the complete confidence that he ex-
pressed. " I tliink that Miss Le Marchant must have found some
means to get home safely. She is cleverer than you. After all,
there is nothing for you to do at the moment. Go and take off
yoVT wet things and get to bed. As soon as anyone is stirring in the
Warden's Lodgings I will go over and make inquiries and come back
and report to you."

Radley seized his hand while the moisture stood in his eyes.

" God bless you ! " he said fervently.

At last, his friend reflected with wonder and some joy, was the
impregnable Northerner thoroughly overcome. But at what cost?

In truth, however, Juanita had justified Canning's prognostica-
tions concerning her wisdom. When first Radley's indistinct figure
had faded from her view she had for some brief moments allowed
herself the full luxury of a secret, wordless grief. .Ml traces of anger,
defiance, and pride immediately forsook her. She flung herself once
more on the grass, wringing her hands together and making a low
moaning noise. Her buried face lay in her palms, and she bowed
herself slowly backwards and forwards, shedding no tear, shaken by
a grief too bitter for tears. But she did not permit this agony long
to dominate her. Slowly she straightened iierself and then stood up,

ihing back the damp masses oi hair that lay on her forehead, and
around her. Nor was she long inactive, though at first the
which she must puisue seemed more than doubtful. Quick

resource, however, she did not hesitate long. Approaching the

Ige she broke from it a long switch, and plunged it in!o the stream
which but lately had thwarted her own and her companion's progress.
Drawing it forth she learnt from it that the water, though rapid in
current and considerable in width, was but some two or three feet in
depth. In another instant she had gathered her skirts about her
and plunged into the stream. Always thrusting the stick in front
of her, she waded safely across, and stood at last triumphant in the
field at the other side. In the distance the white bars of a painted
gale had already caught her quick eye, and joyfully she made towards
iL The gate proved to lead into a cart-rut, and the cart-rut into a
lane. In another quarter of an hour Juanita found herself under
the lee of a commodious farm-house. With noise of knocker and
bel! she had soon aroused the sleeping family, and after but short
delay and parley was wrapped in dry clothes, safely tucked into the
farmer's market-gig, and rolling swiftly along the high-road towards
(he ciiy. At internals she held out W ihg seini-sonmolcnt farm^boy

560 The Gentleman s Maga:,ine.

who drove her golden promise should she arrive at St. Bede's before
the clock struck half-past twelve. These visions so worked on the
imaginations of both horse and driver that the road was covered
in the shortest time on record, and the plough-boy won his half-
sovereign. But even more remarkable was the fact that the ingenuity
of the young foreigner should have contrived a story so plausible as
even to satisfy the Warden's wife, without inculpation or mention of
the missing James Radley.

A severe rheumatic attack, accompanied by complete mental
prostration, confined James Radley to his rooms during the next
few days. It was in this interval that Juanita packed up her pos-
sessions, and quietly and sedately performed the duties of leave-
taking. If she were somewhat paler, more silent, and indifferent
now than on her first airival at St. Bede's. there was no one of the
inhabitants gf the Warden's Lodgings found to notice the change.
To Mrs. Hawthorn Juanita had always seemed listless and affected,
and she saw no reason to alter her opinion. Kitty's engagement to
Frederick Canning may have made that young lady more charitably
inclined towards others : certain it is that she embraced Juanita with
something like affection when they parted, while Sybil wept tears of
genuine sorrow. The good old Warden was profuse in his reissue of
invitation. But to all these protestations and professions Juanita
made no response. Gravely and gently she thanked them for their
hospitality, and gravely and gently she quitted the college. Only
once did she glance back upon the impressive buildings ; but her
eyes sought not the Warden's Lodgings. The hot flush mounted to
her cheek, for one moment her deep eyes glowed, and then her
countenance was once mote stil> and impassive.

"She has no heart," said Mrs. Hawthorn, turning back into the
comfortable square hall. " Come, girls ! Let us go over the trous-
seau list."

But Canning's opinion was different, and his influence with
Radley increased so rapidly that the latter was i>ersuaded to spend
his Long Vacation in Italy.

{The End.)

561

A BERKSHIRE TOWN AND ITS

REMINISCENCES.

MIDWAY between London and Bristol, nestling in the Kennet
Valley, lies the picturesque town of Newbury. Very proud
are its inhabitants of the historical associations interwoven with the
records of their ancient borougli. The long roll of mayors — whose
names are carefully preserved in one of the chambers of the muni-
cipal buildings— dates back to the time of "Gloriana." At the
period of the Norman survey, it was known as " Uluritone,'* or
Ulwardstown, from Ulward, its possessor, in the reign of Edward the
Confessor. It was then held by Ernulf de Hesdin. We next find
it in the possession of the Norman Earls cf Perche, after which it
passed to William of Pembroke, the Earl Marshal, and sub-
sequently to the Crown, and was frequently assigned as a jointure
to the Queens of England. Henry VIII. conferred it on Lady
Jane Seymour, and James I. on his Queen, Anne of Den-
mark. In the reign of Charles I. the manor of Newbury was granted
to the Corporation, in which body it remains to this day. In
the sixteenth century Newbury was one of the most flourishing
centres of the cloth trade, and produced the celebrated clothworker,
John Winchcombe, alias Smallwoode, more popularly known as
** Jack of Newbury." He lived during the reigns of Henry VII. and
Henry VIII. An old pamphlet, published in the sixteenth century,
gives the following sketch of his character : " In the dayes of King
Henry the Eighth, the most noble and victorious Prince, in the be-
ginning of his reigne, John Winchcombe, a broadcloth weaver, dwelt
in Newberie, a towne in Barkshire : who, for that he was a man of
merrie disposition, and honest conversation, was wondrous well
beloved of rich and poore, especially because in every place where
hee came, he would spend his money with the best, and was not any
time found a churl of his purse. Wherefore being so good a com-
panion he was called of old and young Jacke of Newberie : a man
so generally well knowne in all his countrye for his good fellowship,
that he could goe in no place but he found acquaintance ; by means

562 The Cent h mans Magazine.

whereof Jack could no sooner get a crowne, but straight hce found
meanes to spend it ; yet had he ever this care, that hee would always
keepe himselfe in comely and decent apparel, neither at any time
would hee be overcome in drinke, but so discreetly behave himselfe
with honest mirth, and pleasant conceits, that he was every gentle-
man's companion." Such is the quaint word-portrait of the renowned
Jack of Newbur)'. Little wonder that such qualities gained the heart
of his deceased master's wife. It seems, however, that " Jack " did
not jump at the rich widow's offer, but even recommended her to
seek another suitor. She being rich, she had several offers of
marriage, amongst whom were a " tanner," a " taylor," and a parson ;
but her affections were set on the worthy "Jack," and she ultimately
married him. Their married life does not appear to have been
altogether serene, for, according to the above-mentioned work, Jack's
wife was given to staying out late at night -bad enough in the male
order, but still worse in the opposite sex. On one occasion his wife
returned to her spouse at the chilly hour of midnight ; but he had
retired for the night, and bolted the door against her. She begged
and prayed to be let in, but Jack was inexorable, telling her that as
she had " stayed out all day for her own delight," she might ** lie
forth " all night for his pleasure. However, he was at last moved
with pity at his wife's entreaties, and slipping on his shoes, came
down in his shirt. The door being opened, in she went, quaking,
and as he was about to lock it again, in a very sorrowful manner she
said : " Alack, husband, what hap have I ? My wedding-ring was
even now in my hand, and I have let it fall about the door ; good,
sweet John, come forth with the candle and help me to seek it."
The man did so, and, while he sought for that which was not there
to be found, she locked her husband out, and treated him in the same
manner in which she had herself been serA^ed." Jack, however, scon
lost his wife, and was left once more a free man. Being " wondrous
wealthie," he might have chosen a second helpmate from amongst
the opulent ; but his choice fell on a poor damsel, who lived at
Aylesbur}'. A right glorious wedding it appears to have been, judging
from the old chronicler. We read that the bride was " attyred in a
gowne of sheepe's russet, and a kirtlc of fme woosted, her head
attyred with a billiment of gold, and her hair, as yellow as gold,
hanging downe behind her, which was curiously combed and pleated,
according to the manner in those days.*' Amongst the guests were
" divers merchants " from I-ondon, and the festivities lasted for ten
days ; Rhenish wine ran like water, for the merchants had sent a
copious supply from the " stilyard," London. The humble parents

A Berkshire Tow7t and its Reminiscences. 563

of the bride were presented with useful gifts on their departure,
including;^' 20, and broadcloth enough to make a coat for the father-
in-law, and sufficient stuff to m^ke a gown for the mother-in-law.
Such were the customs and large-heartedness of the good old days
of merrie England. " Jack of Newbury " had a hand in building
the magnificent old parish church of St. Nicholas, and a stained-
glass window in the south aisle is erected to the memory of its
munificent benefactor. His monogram, J. S., occurs frequently on
the ancient bosses of the roof of the nave. A brass on the north
wall of the tower bears the following inscription : " Off yo charite
pray for the soule of John Smalwode als Wynchcom & Alys hys
Wyfe, which John dyed the XV day of February, A^dm M«CCCCC«
XIX." In his will, dated January, 1519 — the year of his death — he
styles himself as " John Smalwoode, the elder, als John Wynch-
combe, of the parisshe of Seynt Nicholas, in Newbery." He
bequeaths " to the said parisshe churche of Newbery, towards the
buylding and edifying of the same," jQ^o, He also gives donations
to the " High Aulter, to " Our Lady Awter," and " to Saynt Thomas
Aulter, and to every " aulter besides in the said parisshe churche."
He also directs in his will that he should be buried " in our Lady
Chauncell, win the parisshe church of Newbery aforesaide, by Alice,
my wif, and a stone to be leyde upon us boothe." His first wife
Alice, as we have seen above, predeceased him, and his second wife,
Joan, the daughter of the " poor man of Aylesbury," survived him.
About 1 5 18 "Jack of Newbury" had the honour of entertaining
the " Bluff Monarch " and his Queen, Catherine of Arragon. We
are told that Henry was right royally and hospitably entertained
at the wealthy clothweaver's house in Northbrook Street The floor
was covered with expensive broadcloth, instead of rushes. It is said
he was offered knighthood by the King, but the worthy clothier pre-
ferred to remain in his present position, than to be dubbed " in all
the vaine titles of gentilitie." He was, however, a loyal subject, and
gave proof of his devotion to his king and country, by fully equipping
one hundred of his dependents, and sending them to aid Henry in
the memorable battle of Flodden Field. An old ballad alludes as
follows to the active part taken in the fight by the men of Newbury :

The Bonnie Laddes of Westmorelande,

And Chesshyre Laddes were there,
With glee theye took theyre bows in hande,

And wythe shoutes disturb'd the ayre.
Awaye they sent the grey goose wynge,

Eche kyll'd his two or three,
Yet none soe loude wythe fame dyd rynge

»As the Laddes of Newberrie.

564 The Gentleman s Magazine.

The descendants of this wealthy cloth merchant were equally
successful and prosperous. Henry Winchcombe died possessed of the
manor and castle of I)onningion, in 1642. He married the Lady
Frances Howard.cldestdaughter of Thomas, Earl of Berkshire, leaving
an only son, who was created a baronet by Charles II. The student
of history will not fail to remember the battles of Newbury. The first
contest took place, on a sjx>t called '* Wash Common," which is situated
on an eminence to the south of the town. Here a fierce encounter
took place between Charles I. and the Earl of Elssex. The latter
was on his way from Cirencester to Ix>ndon. His troops had
marched in a drenching rain, and were wear)' and without food ;
when they found themselves intercepted by the Royalists, they
determined to fight their way through, or die in the attempt. In
spite of their late fatiguing march, they were on the qui r-itr at early
dawn, after having spent the night without shelter or food. Charles
had posted his army in well chosen {>ositions ; but Elssex saw a
spwt unoccupied which would be advantageous to him. Accord-
ingly under cover of the darkness, he crept up to this little "rounded
spur,'" above Coj)e Hall, and placed a portion of his left wing there,
with two pieces of cannon. The battle seems to have been begun
by the Royalists in endeavouring to displace this portion of the Puritan
troops from their vantage ground. The battle, says Clarendon, "was
disputed on all points with great fierceness and courage. The king*s
horse, with a kind of contempt of the enemy, charged with wonder-
ful boldness on all grounds of ine(iuality, and were so far too hard
for the troops on the other side, that they routed them in most
places till they had IcK the greatest \>an of their foot without any
guard at all of horse. But then the foot behaved admirably on the
enemy's part, and gave the scattered horse time to rally. The
London trained bands behaved themselves to wonder, and were in
truth the preservation of the arniv on that dav.'' The whole day
long the battle raged, and when evening came it found the two
armies still fighting. As the niizht wore on, and darkness enveloped
them, it was found difficult to distinguish friend from foe ; nature,
too, demanded rest, and so the slaughter ceased, and the Royalists
withdrew their forces, and retired into the town. Essex bivouacked
with his army on the battle field. What a sad scene must that field
of carnage ha\e presented on that eventful night ! When morning
arrived Essex found the place deserted by the Royalists, who with-
drew all their troops the previous evening, and so pushed on towards
Reading, ^n route for London. There is one brave and good man,
whose memor)' is worth recording, and whose character stands out

A Berkshire Town and its Reminiscences. 565

prominently during that stormy and memorable period. On that
fatal September 20, 1643, I-ucius Gary, Viscount Falkland, Secre-
tary of State, a man of refined and liberal views, fell fighting for his
king. His life and aspirations were meant for brighter and happier
days ; but the cruel nemesis of warfare snatched him in the zenith
of his manhood, and deprived his country of one of its most pro-
mising and learned statesmen. His eulogy is well expressed by Pope

when he says :

See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just.

He saw the evil of the civil war, and seems to have had a presenti-
ment of his death, for on the morning of the battle he gave expression
to these words : " I am weary of the times, and foresee much misery
to my country ; but I believe that I shall be out of it ere night." An
obelisk, near the spot where this brave and valiant nobleman fell
commemorates his death. To the north of the town, approached by
a splendid avenue of elms, stands the historic Elizabethan mansion,
Shaw House, considered one of the finest structures of its kind in
Berkshire. It was built by Thomas Dolman, another great clothworker,
and the first, it is said, to introduce broadcloth. He appears to
have had the foresight to know that his great house would be much
and severely criticised by some of his less fortunate neighbours, and
being of a classical turn of mind, he had inscribed over the principal
door the following significant motto, <f>Oov€pb<: /[at/ScIs cio-tVa), which
being interpreted means, " Let no envious man enter here ; " and
above that, this Latin couplet :

Edentulus vescentium dentibus invidet,
£t oculos capreanim talpa contemnit.

The translation of which is, " The toothless man envies the teeth
of those who cat, and the mole despises the eyes of the roe." In
spite of the above pointed mottoes, he did not escape the sarcasm
of his envious neighbours, as these satirical and quaint verses indicate :

Lord have mercy upon us, miserable sinners,

Thomas Dolman has built a new house, and turn'd away all his spinners.

This wealthy and classical cloth merchant did not live to finish
his much envied mansion, but it was completed by his son, Thomas
Dolman. Sir Thomas Dolman, his descendant, Clerk of the Privy
Council and M.P. for Reading, garrisoned Shaw House for the king
during the civil war, and fought by his side in his own garden at
the second battle of Newbury, which event, we are told, gave rise to
the family motto :

King and law,

Shouts Dolman of Shaw.

566 The Gentleman s Magazine.

The halls of this historical old dwelling are hung with relics of
the ci\nl wars ; and one of the rooms contains portraits of the
Royalist and Parliamentar)' leaders. In the oak wainscot of the
cast bow-window in the drawing-room is a hole, which tradition says
was made by a cannon ball, aimed at the King (Charles I.) while
standing near the window. Over the hole is a brass plate thus
inscribed : ** Hanc juxta fenestram Rex Carolus primus, instinte
obsidione scloppo petrae ictu tantum non trajectus fuit Die Octob.
xxvii. MDCXLIV." As one gazes admiringly at this grand
house, with its mullioned windows and gabled roofs, its deeply
projecting wings, partly ivy-covered, and with its altogether old-
world aspect, we should scarce feel surprised to see some gay
cavalier, booted and spurred, issue from beneath its portals, or a
lank-visaged, brown-clad Roundhead, start up from behind one of
the old yew trees. It is difficult to imagine, that on the now fair
green lawns and terraces many fell in the agony of death, amidst the
tumult and clash of arms, or that the smiling meadows in its vicinfty
were blood-stained during those unfortunate wars, which in the end
led to the beheading of a king. To the north-west of Newbury, the
ruins of Donnington Castle crown the summit of a green-covered
hill. Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry, is said to have
resided here, and, mayhap, under the shade of its then sylvan
groves, composed some of those quaint lines which, after a lapse of
five centuries, still delight the English reader.

Looking down from the heights of Donnington, on a fine spring
day, with the sloping meadows sun-lit and clothed in their soft green
garments of spring; the perfume of the budding trees, now
beginning to unfold their fan-like leaves ; the melodious songs from
a thousand feathered throats, chanted beneath the aisles of
umbrageous elms and wide-spreading oaks, whose new-bom foliage
glistens like diamonds, after the frequent showers of sunny April ;
the murmur of some distant brooklet, mingling its low monotonous
song with the rest of nature^s music — one cannot help recalling the
immortal prologue to the " Canterbury Tales," which breathes all
the freshness and beauty of the surrounding arcadian scene.*
Donnington Castle was attacked by General Middleton during the
civil wars, who summoned its governor. Colonel John Boys, to
surrender on honourable terms. The answer of the sturdy com-
mandant read as follows : —

* That Geoffrey Chaucer o^iiied the estate is an error. It is a fact, howewr,
that his reputed son, Thomas Chaucer, chief butler to Richard II., purchased the
manor and castle of l)onnington, circa 14 14.

A Berkshire Toiv'n and ils Reminiscences.

KiR,^! nm inslroctcd b>- His Ma;esly'« npt»s ccitnmarxls, and have not yet
learneil 10 obey any nther Ihnn my sovcicign. To ipllc blood do as you pltate t
hut myuir, bnd ihose who arc wiilk itic, are fully molved 10 venture out) in main-
lainiiig whet weatecnlnislcd wilh, wliich is the answetot John Boys, Donninglon
Cn,lle,>IyiI. :644.

Al ihis spirited reply an attack was made upon tlie castle but
failed, with the loss of an officer and six prisoner?, with some slain.
The caslle underwent a second siege with a larger body of troops.
reinforced from Abingdon, \Vindsor, and Reading. The intrepid and
loyal Colonel Boys was once more ordered to surrender by his
Cromwellian antagonist, but with his characteristic firmness replied
as follows : "Neither your new addition of forces, nor jour high
threatening language shall deter me, or the rest of these honest men
with me, from our loyalty to our sovereign ; but we do resolve lo
maintain this place lo the uUermosl of our power; and for the mat
of quarter you may e^pcel ihc like on Wednesday, or Eooner if you
please. This is the answer of, sir. your servant, Jno. Boys."

The gallant governor withstood the Parliainentaiy army in such a
determined manner that it was found impossible to oust him from ,
his stronghold. I^ter on he received another order to surrender,
and being accustomed —as we have seen above — to these missives,
he replied that they might " carry away the caslle walls themselves if
they can, but with God's help, I am resolved to keep the ground they
stand on, till I have orders from the King, my master, to quit it, or
will die upon the spot." Thus did the brave Colonel hold out against
the enemy on behalf of his King, who knighted liim for his prowess
and bravery ; and never was soldier more worthy of knighthood than
the gallant and invincible Sir John Boys. From " Wash Common,"
or rather from the sloping ground near it, a charming view may be
obtained of Newburj- and the neighbouring countrj-. Beneath us,
verdant meadows — dotted here and there with clusters of trees —
slope down almost to the verge of the town, which reposes peacefully
in the plain below. The massive lower of the old parish church
stands out boldly and prominently against the rising background of
undulating hills, ever changing its a.spect as the various shadows flit
across the sky : sometimes it appears dark and grey as a black cloud
passes between it and the brilliant sunshine : but when lit up with
the " westering sun " at eventide, its turrets gleam with hues of gt
and purple, and it looks as if it had but yesterday left the hands of
the masons. Beyond, to the left of the town is the village of Speen,
— the Spins of the Romans — with its church-spiie peeping out from
amidst the sheltering foliage. Further on, on the right side of iho

568 The Gentleman s Magazine.

Kennet, is Bcnham House, once the favourite residence of the
Margravine of Anspach, and now in the possession of Sir Richard
Sutton. On the opix)site side of the river is Hampstead Park, one
of the seats of the Earls of Craven, and noted for its double avenue
of limes, which meet high over the head like the vaulting roof of
some mighty cathedral, and in whose branches "the feather'd choirs"
chant matins and vespers as regularly as the cloistered monk. Turning
our back on Newbury, a pleasant walk across the fir- clad common
brings us to the brow of the hill, from whence a splendid panorama
opens out before us. The densely-wooded vale of Woodhay lies
at our feet, and away in the distance, the clear outlines of the
Hampshire hills. From this point one catches a glimpse of High-
clere Castle, the seat of the Earl of Caman'cn, encircled with its
extensive and beautiful park ; and towering above all is Beacon Hill,
an ancient British encampment. Highclere Castle is a handsome
building, designed by Barry, and erected by the third Earl of
Carnarvon. Highclere was in Saxon times the property of the
Bishops of Winchester. Situated in a well-wooded domain, about a
mile south of Newbury, is Sandleford Prior}'. It was founded about
the year 1200 by Geoffrey, the fourth Count of Perche, and Matilda
his wife, being dedicated to SS. Mary and John the Baptist, and in-
habited by Canons regular of the order of St. Augustine. Ashmole
gives the following particulars of the church : — " Ujxjn the first
ascent of steps, towards the high altar, lyes a free-stone tombe of
a Knight in mail, cross-legged, with a deep shield on his left arm,
and seeming to draw his sword, his feet resting on a dragon."
This effigy was supposed to be that of the Earl of Perche, the
founder of the Priory. During the ecclesiastical troubles in England,
it passed like many others into the hands of lay owners. On the
walls of Sandleford church was this beautiful inscription : —

Lancea, crux, clavi, spinof, mors quam loleravi,
Demonstrant qua vi miserorum crimina lavi,
In cruce sum pro te ; qui peccas, desine pro me,
Desinc , do veniam, die culpam, corrigc vitam.

The church was converted into a dining-room by its new pro-
prietors ! Here lived the celebrated blue-stocking " charming Mary
Montague," who gathered around her all the chief literar)* spirits of
her age. In the dining-room — where in times of yore dark-cowled
figures knelt and prayed — probably sat such beaux esprits as
Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Reynolds, Beattie, and other celebrities
of the time ; and oft did this metamorphosed chamber re-echo with
laughter at the bon vwt of one or other of these learned guests.

A Berks/lire Town and its Reminiscences. 569

We read that the erudite Dr. Stillingfleet was a constant attendant at
her literary parties, attired in a full suit of cloth, with blue worsted
stockings, and rendered himself so entertaining that the ladies used
to delay their discussions until his arrival, declaring " We can do
nothing without our blue-stockings, from which circumstance, it is
said, the term bas bleu arose. Newbury was a busy town in the
old coaching days, as the number of its inns testify. A few of these
relics of other days still exist, but " Ichabod " is unmistakably
written over many of their portals. Their roomy inn-yards conjure
up hosts of bygone memories ; they vividly remind us of such quaint
characters as Dickens delighted to portray. As one peers into these
old hostelries, with their numerous passages, we almost expect to see
the shadowy forms of the immortal Pickwick and his servant man,
the irrepressible Weller, refreshing themselves, en route for their ever
memorable journey to Bath. In Speenhamland — the highway between
London and Bath — are the Pelican and Cross Keys. The renowned
actor Quin refers to the former in the following facetious lines :

The famous Inn at Speenhamland

That stands below the hill,
May well be cilled the Pel can

From its enormous bill.

Speaking of Quin recalls the days when Newbury had its theatre,

and on whose boards trod the great tragic actors John Philip Kemble

and Edmund Kean. Amongst others who acted on its stage were

Mrs. Kemble, Mrs. Jordan, whose charms led her into an alliance

with a royal Duke, John Banister, Incledon, of vocal celebrityi

William Henry West Betty, Mrs. Powell, Miss Foote, and many

others famous in their day, and on whose lives the mystic curtain

which divides the living from the dead has long since fallen. This

old temple of Thespis yet remains, but alas ! the mutability of human

affairs, it is now transformed into a stable or storehouse. O ye

shades of Kean and Kemble could ye but revisit ** the glimpses of

the moon! " Mais rcxenons i^ nos moutons^ as the French have it.

Another old inn, the White Hart, still survives, and is situated in the

spacious Market Place. This was a favourite starting-point in the

old coaching days between Newbury and London, the terminus being

the Saracen's Head, the rendezvous of the inimitable Squeers, head

master of that notorious academy, Dotheboys Hall. The King*s

Arms, the Globe, and many others, well-known in their day, have

been altered into dwelling-houses or shops. Mr. Money, in his

"History of Newbury," gives the following account of the "Newbury

Flying Stage Chaise " : --" Upon the projection of Messrs. Clark and

5/0 Tlic Gentleman s Magazine.

Co.'s fast coach, at a reduced rate of fares and increased celerity, the
proprietors of the Newbury Stage Coach announced that, in their own
defence, they intended running on September 19th, a week or two
before their opponents, the * Newbury Flying Stage Chaise * made
with steel springs, *and as easy as any Post Chaise,* to carry four
passengers at the same fare as the opposition fast Coach. To set out
from the Globe Inn, Newbur)% at six o'clock in the morning every
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and to be at the Belle Savage
Inn, Ludgate Hill, each evening by six o'clock, changing horses at
Mr. Smith's, the Golden Bear Inn, Reading, and at Mr. £nglefield*s,
the Ostrich Inn, at Colnbrook. * To be performed, if God permit,
by Elizabeth Pinnell and Co/" These flying coaches, say-s the
same writer, were the precursors of Palmer's new mail-coaches in
1784, which lasted up to the days of Railway's. Tempora mutantur
et nos mutamur in iliis. The rumble of wheels, cracking of whips,
and the hearty adicux of the jolly innkeeper, and his host of grooms,
no longer resound in the now deserted courtyards of the old inns.
The "iron horse " has superseded animal locomotion, and its shrill
whistle takes the place of the cheery blast of the coach-horn, which
reverberated through the air in the days of our grandfathers. It was
through Speenhamland poor Thomas Chatterton passed on his way to
his El Dorado — lx)ndon. How full of bright hopesfor a brilliant future,
and how buoyant the young heart of this unfortunate genius, as he
journeyed along through the sylvan scenery of the " Royal county."
Alas ! for human hopes ; how soon were all his golden visions
shattered. The story of his tragic death is too well-known to be
repeated here. The great political reformer, William Cobbett, once
dined at the Pelican, and delivered one of his stirring and charac-
teristic speeches to some of the neighbouring farmers, who happened
to be dining there on a market day. Numbers of gay equipages,
with tlicir equally gay occupants, must have whirled along Speenham-
land in the last century, bound for that most royal and fashionable of
watering-places — Bath. We cimnot omit to mention that the great
Chancellor and architect, William of Wykeham, often journeyed
through Newbury, on his way from Winchester to superintend and
watch the up-rearing of his famous College at Oxford. But what
rough travelling in those days ! The road between Winchester and
Oxford is exceedingly wearisome, on account of its ups and downs;
travellers even now find it irksome. What must it have been for an
aged Bishop, when most roads were merely ruts and quagmires *
There are many quaint nooks in and about Newbury for the artist's
pencil. A stroll along the " swift Kennet," which passes through the

A Berkshire Town and its Reminiscences. 571

centre of the town on its way to join the Thames near Reading, will
soon disclose ample material for sketch-book or canvas. Abutting
on the river are curious old-world looking houses with gable roofs ;
here too is the deep-roofed mill-house, wherein corn has been ground
for generations of Newburians. From this point one gets a view of
the bridge, and near it, an ancient looking bow-window, overhanging
and casting its dark shadow on the shining waters beneath, while the
background is made up of the dark foliage of a huge chestnut, the
tout ensemble remindin^^ one of some quaint old Flemish city. A most
pleasant walk may be had along the " willow veiFd " river towards
Hungerford. Waving meadows, silver and green-tinted, interspersed
with beautifully wooded landscapes, meet the eye on all sides. We
cannot conceive anything more charming than a voyage in a house-
boat through the rivers of rural England— especially with pleasant
companions. How delicious on a hot summer's day to float
peacefully past luscious meadows and yellow cornfields, the air filled
with the jubilant songs of happy birds, whose liquid music is such fit
accompaniment to the soft rippling noise of the water, as the boat
glides along. Then, when evening steals quietly on, how pleasant
it must be to moor alongside some grassy bank, and watch the
splendours of the sunset-glow on hill and dale ; to see the valley
bathed in that peculiar rich warm light — when the very river is trans-
formed into a golden pathway, leading to the flaming gates of the
west, and one longs, like the poet, " to tread that golden path of rays,"

And think 'twould lead to some bright isle of rest !

There is a mingled feeling of melancholy and peace in seeing all
the wondrous light and colour fade gradually away — slowly vanishing
into twilight Amidst the solemn silence of the vesper hour, there
may come, wafted on the gentle breeze, the mellow music of bells
from the grey tower of some distant village church — awakening
sweet memories of the dead and silent past. Then comes that
mysterious purple mist, creeping o'er hill and valley, enveloping the
landscape in ethereal, regal-like robes : but while the pale-green
light still lingers in the western sky, the fair goddess of night rises up
from out the dim east, and casts her celestial light over the erstwhile
golden Arcadia ; and the tall poplars fling their dark shadows across
the silver-bosomed river. " When the hours of day are numbered,"
there is an indescribable charm in beholding " the calm majestic "
presence of this night scene, when nought is heard save the leaves
murmuring among the gently flowing waters : a sweet, " holy, calm
delight " descends upon the soul, shutting out the strifes and sorrows

572 The Gentleman s Magazine.

of the tumultuous world, and whispering peace and repose to the
restless heart This night-picture may call up, perchance, the old
Greek and Roman mythologies, which loved to people the woods
and rivers with comely nymphs, who, led by the Cytherean Venus,
danced in sylvan glades beneath the silver sheen of fair Luna :

Jam Cytherea chores ducit, Venus, imminehte Luna,
Junctsequc Nymnhis Gralui: deccntcs
Alterao terrain qoatiunt |>ede.

This surely is the hour for some one " skilled in music and in
song," to awaken the echoes by some rich flowing melody, that makes
" woods hearken and the winds be mute," and thus

Scatter to the railing wind.

Each gloomy phantom of the mind.

A few short weeks of this Elysian existence must assuredly act
like balm on those, at least, whose destiny is to tread the weary paths
of life. When skies are no longer blue : when the flowers are faded
and withered, the remembrance of these halcyon days spent by sunny
rivers, will float back to us on the stream of time, brightening and
consoling the winter of our lives. Before closing these reminiscences,
we cannot help referring to another old house, around which centres
a host of literary memories. About ten miles from Newbury, on the
road between Padworth and Sulhamstead, not far from Aldermaston
— a station on the Great-Western Railway — midway between Reading
and Newbury, stands the ancient mansioh of Ufton Court The
view around this retired spot is very beautiful, disclosing charming
bits of undulating woodland scener>\ In this picturesque old
dwelling lived the heroine of Pope's "Rape of the Lock," the fasci-
nating Arabella Fermor, a relative of the Earl of Pomfret, and wife
of Francis Perkins, whose family dwelt here for generations. This
interesting structure, with its numerous gables and pinnacles, its tall
clusters of twisted chimneys, its curious porch, and massive oak
doors with their antique locks and hinges, its rambling passages
leading ** upstairs and downstairs, and in my lady's chamber" — takes
one back to the days of the Tudors. The approach to the house is
still imposing, but the double avenue of trees that once waved their
branches over the head of the visitor is no longer visible : the
woodman's axe felled them long ago. Miss Mitford, m her " Recol-
lections of a Literary Life," has left us a graphic account of this
stately old building and its charming environs. In the walls of the
mansion are concealed passages leading, it is supposed, to the cellar,
and from thence to the neighbouring woods. Miss Mitford tells us
there are " traces of the shifts to which the unhappy intolerance of

A Berkshire Town and its Reminiscences. 573

the times subjected those who adhered firmly to the proscribed faith,
as during two centuries, and until the race was extinct, was the proud
distinction of the family of Perkins." We are informed that some
years ago a hiding-place was discovered, being entered by a trap-
door, and in this dark chamber were found two petronels and a
crucifix. In close proximity to a room once used as a chapel, there
is another small apartment, in which was found an opening, and in
the troublous times of which Miss Mitford speaks above, used to be
concealed the vestments and sacred vessels appertaining to the
" Mass." These gloomy chambers forcibly recall the times when the
pursuivant searched its panelled rooms for the seminary priest, who
was accustomed to visit in various disguises the houses occupied
by the Catholic gentry, in order to celebrate Mass or administer
religious consolation to those gathered within their walls. As one
wanders through the devious passages of this quaint building, wherein
many a gay party congregated, clad in the gorgeous habiliments of a
bygone period, one would almost imagine that Tennyson must have
had such a house in his thoughts when he penned the following
lines : —

Come away, for Life and Thought

Here no longer dwell ;

But in a city glorious —

A great and distant city — have bought

A mansion incoi ruptible,

\Vould they could have stayed with us !

On its splendid terrace, in the rear of the house, many a beau and
belle promenaded in the days when wigs and gold-headed canes
were the order of the day, and in some retired corner, beneath the
whispering shade of the trees, defence from Phoebus', not from
Cupid's beams, perhaps Corydon breathed words of eternal love into
the ears of a coy and blushing Phyllis. Who knows ? As one stands
here, indulging in dreams of days that are no more, the insignificant
figure 6f Pope looms up before us, and we still seem to see his fair
hostess— the "Belinda" of his poem — chatting and laughing with
her witty and satirical companion, while

Fair nymphs and well-dressed youths around her shone.
But every eye was fixed on her alone,
On her while breast a sparkling cross she wore,
Which Jews might kiss and inhdels adore.

The distant shriek of the railway engine recalls us fiom our
reverie, and rudely chases the phantoms we had called up, back to
the dream-haunted past.

vou ccijcix. NO. 1920. g Q

574 ^^ Gentlemafis Magazine.

Reluctantly one leaves this old house, and its beautiful sur-
roundings, ''far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife ; ** but the
world is inexorable, and, willing or unwilliag, we must tear ourselves
away from the peaceful by-ways of rural life, carrying with us never-
theless bright scenes of pastoral beauty, interwoven with associations
that are not easily erased from the memory.

JAMES J. DOHERTW

575

A WHIFF OF TOBACCO.

FOUR hundred years ago, a boat's crew, despatched by
Columbus to explore the island of Guahani, saw some of the
islanders " carrying svc^a^ firebrands^ the smoke of which they from
time to time inhaled." Much amazed, the sailors returned to give
their capuin the first recorded tidings of a practice which has since
overspread the world— enslaved it, says the Anti-Tobacco League,
and weeps.

Note that " tobacco " is a gross misnomer. The Guahanitans
dubbed the plant itself colUba^ reserving the word " tabacca " for tha
little "firebrands" which so greatly astonished Columbus's men.
Thus we Europeans have transferred the name of the manufacture^**
article to the raw material. Tis as if a crew of Guahanitans haa
sailed to England, and gone home calling wheat loaves. By-the-bye,
sixty editions of the "Child's Guide to Knowledge " have promulgated
the error that tobacco takes its name from the island of Tobago.
But the name existed before that island was discovered, though
large crops of tobacco were afterwards raised there. Thus the island
derived its name from the plant, not the plant from the island.

To return from this digression— nearly fifty years after Columbus'a
voyage to Guahani — which he rechristened San Salvador — Jacques
Cartier sailed from St. Malo to explore the coast of Newfoundland.
His story of his expedition, including a voyage up the River St.
Lawrence, contains the following comical description ot how the
North American natives smoked tobacco : — " The Indians have a
certain herb of which they lay up a store every summer, having first
dried it in the sun. It is used only by the men." (Haven't we
recently " altered all that " ?) " They always carry some of it in a
small bag hanging from their necks. In this bag they also keep a
hollow tube of wood or stone. Before using the herb they pound it
to powder, which they cram into one end of the tube, and plug it
with red-hot charcoal. They then suck at the other end till they have
filled themselves so full of smoke that it oozes from their mouths and
noses like smoke from the flue of a chimney. They say the habit

QQ2

576 The Gentleman s Magazine.

is most wholesome. But when ive tried to use this smoke, we found
it bit our tongues like red pepper.*' From this account we gather
that the natives on the banks of the St, Lawrence, in 1535 — the date
of Cartier's voyage — were not nearly such " swells " as the Guahan-
itans half a century earlier. The former evidently smoked the
humble pipe ; the latter the lordly cigar. For so those little fire-
brands came to be called by the Spaniards, from their own verb
cigarar, to roll.

Cartier's narrative bears witness to another curious misnomer,
which custom has stereotyped and obscured. He calls the aborigines
of North America "Indians." Why? Because, when Columbus
first crossed the .Xtlantic, his head was full of India ; and he confi-
dently expected that his quest would lead him to the other side of
that peninsula, still virgin soil to European feet Knowing the earth
round, and that, had he steered eastwards, he would have reached
India's western shore, he naturally judged that, steering westwards,
he would reach the eastern. He could not foresee that the course
was blocked by that undiscovered country which we — by another,
and most unfair misnomer— still miscall America. Hence, when he
sighted "land at last," he dubbed it India, and its natives Indians.
Hence, too, the standing errors embalmed in the words of the old
song about tobacco, " The Indian weed doth slowly burn " ; in
" West IndUs " ; in Indian Corn," the duplicate title of maize,
which is undoubtedly indigenous to America ; in the French word
for turkey, difidi\ which is simply a contraction of poulct d'Inde,
that bird being a native of Central America ; in Lcs Indes Deci-
de n talcs ; in a hundred other forms of speech which have scattered
C'olumbus' delusions over the world that gave him birth and the
world which he discovered, and the several minor worlds discovered
since. Nor can there be a shadow of doubt that the " Man of
Inde " who figured in the jxigeant at the Princely Pleasures of KeniU
wDrth, in 1575, hailed from North America. Several years before
this date we read of " salvage men," brought over for show by the
I'.lizabethan adventurers, from that land whose civilised sons have
since so often sought to "astonish the Britisher." And one may
plausibly conjecture that the sight of the wonder excited by this very
"Man of Inde" among the bumpkins of Warwickshire may have
sabsequently inspired that passage in the "Tempest" where Trinculo
exclaims : " A strange fish ! Were I in England now — as once I was —
and had but this nsh painted, not a holiday-fool there but would ghre
a piece of silver. There would this monster makfe a num. Any
strange beast thcK makes a man. When they will not ghre a doit W

A Whiff of Tobacco. 577

relieve a lame beggar they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.'
For though Shakespeare was but eleven at the time of the Kenilworih
revels,and not yet— as Scott, in " Kenilworth," most unchronologic-
ally represents— ;lhe author of " The Midsummer Night's Dream,"
he might very well have strolled over from Stratford-on-Avon to
witness the grand festivities given by Lord Leicester in honour of the
Virgin Queen whom he aspired to wed. This is a monstrous digres-
sion, no doubt Yet, to trace this curious misnomer to its source
seemed well worth while, since many an intelligent lad has been
puzzled by the problem, why races so utterly unlike in aspect and
habits as the native tribes of India proper and the North American
Redskins should ever have borne the same name.

After 1535, we hear little or nothing of tobacco till 1559. In
that year a Spanish settler in South America, Hernandez de Toledo
by name, shipped some tobacco- plants to Jean Nicot, French am-
bassador at the Court of Lisbon. Nicot presented some of them to
Catharine of Medicis, the widowed mother of his sovereign, Francis II.
The exotic took her fancy — in the shape of snuff, or iabac en poudre^
as 'twas first termed ; afterwards, and still, tabac ci priser. Surely
"snuff," from the verb to "sniff" — pray admit this tempting
etymology ! — seems a less roundabout expression.

This reminds us that when the cholera paid iti first visit to Paris,
in 1 83 1, a certain tobacconist decked his window with a placard
bearing the punning and poetical inscription : —

Fumez et prcnez une prise,

Le cholera sur vous n*aura pas de prise.

(Would you *scape the cholera's pinch,
Smoke away, and take a pinch.)

This worthy clearly had an eye to business. So had his rival, the
druggist who proclaimed his famous cure for chilblains a sovereign
safeguard against cholera too.

But we have again wandered from our theme. No matter, ^tis
easily recovered. Queen Catharine's passion for snuff procured its
father-herb the proud title of Herbe de la Reine. This, however, it
soon lost ; thenceforth to be known as Nicotiana among the learned,
and as tobacco, iabac^ tabak^ iabacco^ iabacoy and tombeki\ in the
common speech of England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and
Turkey. Gradually, however, tombeki has become the special desig-
nation of a particular kind of tobacco noted for its strength, and
needing a thorough soaking ere it can be smoked with impunity,
even through the cooling rosewatcr and the multifold coils of the
oriental narghilly. By which token, in the noble art of pipe-lighting

578 Ttu Gentleman's Magazine.

the Turks have taken a hint from Cartier's Redskins. Call for a
narghilly in the cypress gardens of Constantinople or Smyrna, the
chibookji will bring you, along with the decanter-like apparatus with
its snake-hke folds of morocco-tubing, gleaming with purple and
gold, a charcoal ember which he deftly drops from a small pair of
tongs on the tan-coloured tombeki that fills the pipebowl. Indeed,
after dark, these favourite haunts of turbaned Turk and " Christian
dog " seem swarming with fireflies. No, 'tis the pipe-lighters flitting
hither and thither among the dark foliage, with their lumps of char-
coal all aglow.

The courtly craft of Nicot in currj'ing favour with the powerful
Queen-Mother of France, by presenting her with the plants con-
signed to him by Hernandez, secured him all the honours of its
nomenclature, classical and scientific. Under its Latin name, Nico-
tiana^ it is — or lately was — forbidden to Oxford undergraduates by the
University Statutes. And " nicotine ^ is the chemical appellation of one
of the two active principles of the plant ; the other being the essen-
tial oil, whose extreme activity is painfully familiar to the luckless
wight who has ever swallowed a drop of the black juice that lurks
in foul pipe-stems, and is known in smoker's slang as "jizzop."
Small wonder that it should prove so poisonous, when we remember
that the tobacco-plant is a near kinsman of the deadly nightshade,
or belladoima, which wreaths the summer hedgerows with its purple
blossoms eyed with yellow, and brightens them, in chill October,
with its crimson berries — a tempting bait to childhood ! But who
would dream that both these members of the vegetable kingdom—
the climbing nightshade, with its clinging tendrils, and the sturdy
tobacco-plant, which a careless eye might readily mistake for maize —
can claim kindred with the " harmless necessary " potato ? Vet all
these belong to the widespread Solatium family.

But when we interrupted this brief sketch of the early history of
tobacco, it had not yet found its way to England or Turkey. In
fact, we have been anticipating — a vice common with scribblers, so
says a treacherous member of the tribe, from their rooted tendency
to anticipate their revenues. Well, we can easily resume the broken
thread. On first gaining a footing in the Old World tobacco was
deemed one of the wonders of the New, credited with magic virtues,
and greeted with a chorus of enthusiastic praise. We read that in
1589 the Pope's nuncio, Cardinal Santa Croce, returned from the
Court of Lisbon to Rome with a packet of tobacco in his port-
manteau. Now, if we may trust Tasso, a forefather of this Cardinal,
and the founder of the family, had acquired distinction, and the

Whiff of Tobacco.

lonourjible surname wliich he beqtieatlied to his descendants, by
rescuing from ihe hands of the Infidels tlie "True Cross," first
found— so runs the legend— by Helena, the sainted mother of Con-
staijtine the Great, and confiscated by the Turks when they over-
threw the short-lived Kingdom of Jerusalem. Still, one cannot help
thinking that the Cardinal's exploit in bringing home the tobacco
scarcely justified the bold parallel instituted by the bard who hailed
him and his importation in the following high-flown strain :

Herb of undying fame.
Which hilher first with Sania Crocc came,
When he, his time of minciaiure expired,
Back from the Court of Porlugnl retired,
K'en OS hii picdcK&sot, great and good.
To Italy brought home the "Jloly Rood."

^ gered by that comparison. We only cite it to show to what a pitch

of audacity a poetaster could soar in praise of the weed that had

found such favour with the rulers of the earth. But though it had

risen like (he rocket, it was destined soon to descend like the slick.

^L The scene now shifts lo the British Isles. About this epoch

^B ^'589) Sir Walter Raleigh might have been seen " snatching a fearful

^B joy " from the genuine Virginia of his own importing, in the green

^K arbour of his home near \'oughal. Nay, according to Ihe well-known

^K xnecdote, he vas so seen, by his housemaid, who, like a brave kind-

^f" hearted lass, darted od for a pail of water, wherewith she drenched

her smoking master, " to put him out." {We wonder whether it put

him out of temper.) The girl evidently had no notion of men making

chimneys of their mouths. Neither had her future royal master,

King James, by the light of whose subsequent proceedings that pail

of water may be regarded as emblematically foreshowing the deluge

of monarchial denunciation about lo overwhelm the sediiciive weed

I The storm began when, in the second year of his reign, the nieddir-
■ome monarch laid a prohibitory tax on the consumption of tobacco
within his realms. This may perhaps sen-eto explain the Liliputian
«3;e of the Jacobean jiipes. Anyhow, pigmies they were — witness
■Ihe samples lately fished up from the mud of Father Thames— just
'fA to match the tiny teaspoons in vogue from the days of Queen
Anne till Waterloo ; when our forefathers took lo tea-drinking, and
the spoons had to be enlarged to suit their manly mouths. In 1619
James followed up his arbitrary check upon the liberty of the subject
. — to smoke — by forbidding any Virginian planter to grow more than
A hundred weight of the baneful weed. Meanwhile, his celebrated

580 The GcntUmaii s Magazine.

•* Counterblaste " may be deemed a kind of commentary on these
more practical measures. In this unsparing onslaught he complains
that many of his faithful lieges were spending ;^,5oo a-year on
tobacco — a sum virtually larger than ^3,000 now, since the purchas-
ing power of gold has sunk to less than a sixth of what it then was.
In the sequel he proceeds to brand smoking as '* a custom loathe-
some to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and, in
the blacke stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible
Stygian smoake of the pit that is bottomlesse." In his table talk, too,
his Majesty was wont to harp upon the same string, as we learn from
his "Apothegms," printed in 1671. From that storehouse of learned
folly we cull the following tit- bit : "His Majesty professed that, were
he to invite the devil to dinner, the bill of fare should consist of three
dishes : (i) a pig, (2) a poll of ling and mustard, (3) a pipe of tobacco
for digesture." Strange to say, Ben Jonson, who, like most of the
wits of the period, drank like a fish, joined in the outcry against
" taking tobacco " — for so the phrase then ran. Witness the burden
of the old ballad, already mentioned : ** Think of this as you take
tobacco ! '' Jonson*s works bristle with sarcasms against tobacco and
its votaries.

Meantime, other crowned heads — some triple-crowned — were
veering round to King James's views. In 1624, Pope Urban VIII.
launched a Bull of Excommunication against all who took snuff in
church. Ten years later the Tzar of Russia, at the dictation of his
clergy, forbade his subjects to smoke, under pain of forfeiting their
noses — a penalty seemingly more appropriate to snuff-takers. And
about this time (1634) the Crescent joined the Cross in this crusade
against tobacco : Sultan Amurath W, raised smoking to the dignity of
a capital crime. He foresaw that he or his successors might run short of
" food for powder " ; and he believed, rightly or wrongly, that oft-filled
pipes meant empty cradles. Republican Switzerland now followed
suit. In 1653, the council of the canton of Appenzel summoned
and severely punished all persons found smoking within its jurisdiction ;
while, in 1661, the authorities of Berne published a revised edition
of the Decalogue, in which they sandwiched a brand new command-
ment, " Thou shalt not smoke," between the seventh and eighth.
This new commandment they reiterated fourteen years later, and at
the same time created a special tribunal to enforce it, which, under
the style and title of ** The Tobacco Chamber," continued to exist, if
not actually to discharge its functions, down to the middle of the
eighteenth century. Meanwhile, in 1690, Pope Innocent XII.,
treading in the footsteps of his predecessor Urban, levelled the

A Whiff of Tobacco. 581

thunders c f the Vatican at all who should profane the sacred pre-
cincts of St. Peter's with tobacco-smoke or snuff.

Volumes might be written on the vicissitudes of tobacco — 'tis a
subject which naturally begets volumes ; though it seems to demand
a light touch, and may obviously be handled in a few leaves of the
flimsiest paper. As to its vicissitudes, one of the most striking is
furnished by Tzar Peter's reversal of the tobacco- policy of his priest-
ridden predecessor. Poinding himself short of cash during his sojourn
in London in 1698, he accepted a loan from the City merchants on
the express understanding that he should remove the embargo which
excluded tobacco from his dominions. He more than kept his word.
He, so to speak, cut off his subjects' beards with one hand while he
forced a pipe into their mouths with the other. " Smoke and shave,
or die ! " was the despotic order of the day.

Whatever the success of the Tzar Peter's method of creating a
nation of smokers. Sultan Amurath signally failed in his endeavour
to put out his people's pipes. A similar fate attended King James's
" Counterblaste " and the long series of diatribes against tobacco
of which his was the forerunner. They have all ended in smoke.
One of the least irrational of them— and by far the most amusing —
is that which Balzac tacked to the tail of his " Treatise on Modern
Stimulants." But, alas ! even his ingenious invective shows the risk
of prophesying unless you know. In the course of it, he solemnly
foretells the impending downfall of the German race through
excessive smoking. The " chain-smoker " Bismarck might possibly
instance his own (cigar) case and the upshot of the Franco-German
War as hardly bearing out Balzac's prediction, or his settled
conviction that smoking infallibly stupifies the brain. Th^ophile
Gautier, another " chain-smoker " — that is, one who begins to smoke
immediately after breakfast, and keeps it up till bedtime, lighting
each cigar from the butt end of its predecessor — Gautier once ven-
tured to combat Balzac's theory touching the cretinising influence of
tobacco, by adducing a formidable phalanx of authors, the brilliance
of whose writings seemed to vouch for that of their brains. " But
think," replied Balzac, "what they might have achieved had they
given those brains fair play." This reminds me that Balzac, sire,
also had his hobby, which he was wont to ride in the same ruthless
fashion. But his bugbear was supper-eating, not smoking. Supper,
according to him, was fatal to longevity. And when his daughter
slyly suggested that a hardened supper-eater among their friends
had contrived to struggle on to eighty-five, her father triumphantly
retorted, ''Ay, and had he not sapped his iron constitution by

582 The Genticmafis Magazine.

supping, he would have lived to thrice that age instead of dying
in the flower of his youth." Well, we also distrust suppers, or,
which comes to much the same thing, late dinners. But, as for
smoking, we are inclined to deem it as slow a poison as Voltaire's
proverbial black coffee.

PHILIP KENT.

f

i

58

^

GEORGE ELIOT
AND HER NEIGHBOURHOOD.

IF a stranger were wandering down the narrow and leafy Warwick-
shire lanes between Bedworth and Nuneaton, and were to halt,
say, in front of that well-looking house at Griff — the largest among
the nine or twelve that constitute the coal-bound parish — under the
rooftree of which till lately lived, in genial fellowship with the world
at large, Mr. Isaac Pearson Evans, brother to the late George Eliot ;
if this stranger were to stop one of those dark-skinned men he
might by chance meet there, though they spend most of their
waking and working hours in the sunless streets of a coal-mine, and
ask him the way to " Cheveral Manor,'' the man would take his pipe
from his mouth — for a collier will smoke in spite of all the legislators
in the world — look hard at the stranger, shake his woolly head,
and say, with a half-smile upon his face at the humour of a person
having missed his road, " Ney, you mun be cum the wrong road, I
doubt. 'Appen you ar* missed your way, sir. I hanna ever heered
on a place wi* that name."

But if the stranger should improve upon the mistake by saying
that he meant Arbury Hall, the miner's face would smile even
through its duskiness, and he would be sure to say, '* Oh ! you mean
Old Charley's place. Poor old Charley Newdigate, him as died two
or three years ago, as good a gaffer, sir, as 'appen I shall ever drive a
pick for, above ground or below ground either. O yes, sir, I can
show you the way to Harbury Hall, an' I shanna be long about it, I
reckon. But as for 'Chev'ral Manner,' or what you calls it, as you
just spoke on, why I hanna ever heered on that name i' these parts ;
and I've lived i' Griff and Beddorth boy an' man this forty-three year."

By the same token that a man is no hero to his valet, a mere
writer of books is a " poor critter " in the eyes of Strephon, even
when Strephon is covered with coal dust instead of the agricultural
loam. A writer bom in the midst of squalid and mral surroundings
may often be " monstrously clever " in the art of making books, but

584 The Gcntlema^is Magazine.

to his neighbours who know nothing of books, except the Bible, and
sometimes not much of that, he is a pitiful object indeed, and fair
game for the wit that is indigenous to the bucolic and the mining
mind. Those whose armour has been pierced by a jagged shaft of
humour shot from the broad mouth of a villager, be he miner,
ploughman, cowman, or village molecatcher, will know that sometimes
this wit, by its very rawness and crudeness, wounds more deeply than
the satiric arrow of a polished and cultivated mind.

And so (leorge Eliot, " a monstrously clever woman," as a friend
of mine, a former Bedworth coal-master and a man who knew Mary
Ann Evans in the flesh some eighteen years ago, is always fond of
repeating, is no heroine to her own countrymen. Some of the more
rough diamonds among them would look as confused at the name of
George Eliot as at Cheveral Manor ; and the stranger who had the
hardihood to ask for direction to " Shepperton Church *' would be
met with the reply that " Theer inna a church o' that name i* these
parts. Theer be Cotcn, Beddorth, Exhul, Astley, an' Corley, but I
donna mind hecrin* tell on such a place as Shep*ton. You mun
mean Coten I 'si)ect, or 'appen Beddorth wheer Muster Evans be
the parson."

Perhaps this, to the literary mind, painful lack of knowledge or
remembrance of a singularly gifted writer on the part of her own
immediate country people may be accounted for with two reasons ;
one, that many of the inhabitants of those little villages, clustered
together in small loving groups, from which George Eliot drew most
of her characters, have ceased to weave the warp and woof of life,
being long ago laid to rest under the chestnuts in the quaint little
graveyards ; and, two, because the average villager is no more bookish
now than in the days when "Adam Bede " found its way to Griff and
clove an entrance into the hermetically-sealed intellects there, and
this simply owing to the fact that so many of them knew for certain
that they were " put in '' th-j book.

Extended education makes little headway in small towns and
villages. The oldest mhabitant dies, perhaps, however, not before
having performed the duty of handing down to his children and
grandchildren the oral traditions of the place ; but, alas I his children
and grandchildren " inna given to the wr-'tin* o' things down," on
paper or in their memory ; and so, as one by one the old inhabitants
disappear, the oral traditions of the village disappear with them,
until there is but one left of all that there might have been, and that
so faintly remembered as to be almost a doubt

But the cadaverous and painfully careful historian, a man from

George Eliot and her Neighbour fiood. 585

the bricked-in square of a big city, who writes for the future at a
very small price per page, makes some amends for the forgetfulness
of the oldest inhabitant He writes everything down, prints every-
thing he has written, places his book in a library where it is never or
hardly ever opened, and then dies of a broken heart, accelerated by
long years of \vanton neglect and biting poverty.

Arbury Hall will in the ages to come be noted for its connection
with George Eliot, who has made it the ." Cheveral Manor " about
which the Griff miner " hanna ever heered on." In the far past,
however, that lean and pale man, the writer of contemporary history,
was busy there ; and there is also a glamour of romance associated
with a former owner of the hall, which has not even found its way
into George Eliot's books or the guide-books of the day, but which is
nevertheless a fact which greatly adds to the interest of this neigh-
bourhood, in the midst of which the famous Sir Roger Newdigate
raised his ecclesiastic and semi-Gothic pile.

A six-mile walk from the " city of three tall spires," along the
leafy and pleasant road that leads to Nuneaton, and on to Leicester,
brings the traveller to Griff and Bedworth, and close to the " Cheveral
Manor" of "Mr. Gilfil's Love Story." That South Farm, too, where
George Eliot was born on that dull November morning in 181 9, will be
within measurable distance of the traveller's survey. A very long
time ago, before the Newdigates became possessors of Arbury, there
was in existence, near the park, a farm known as Temple House. It
was an old building, surrounded by a moat, and belonged to the
principals of an ancient manor thereabouts, called the Manor of
St John of Jerusalem. Surely the South Farm, in which Mr. Robert
Evans used to reside, and in which his illustrious daughter first saw
the light, must have risen from the ruins of Temple House.

Before it was ecclesiastic — which it became under the hand of Sir
Roger Newdigate, the Gothic- loving baronet of "Cheveral Manor"
— Arbury Hall was monastic. It was called " Erebury Priory "
then, and was founded in the reign of Henry II. by Ralph de
Sudely as a home for the St Augustine Order of Canons. At the
dissolution of monasteries, in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of
Henry VIII., Erebury Priory was suppressed, and its possessions
granted by Royal Letters Patent to Charles Brandon, Duke of
Suffolk. It is at this point in the history of " Cheveral Manor " that
the romance comes in, which is not to be found in any of George
Eliot's books, and does not figure in the topographical prints of the
period.

A very rare pamphlet, of which it is supposed there are only two

586 The Gentleman s Magazine.

copies now extant, entitled " English Adventures," was printed and
published in 1667. It dealt with strange occurrences that had
befallen old and noble families of the time ; and no doubt, as many
of the adventures related were repugnant to the descendants of the
families concerned, being thus publicly promulgated, steps were taken
to suppress as many of the pamphlets as possible. One of the
adventures was connected with the life of Charles Brandon, one of
the early owners and occupiers of Arbury Hall, or "Cheveral
Manor," when in its more monastic form, and was as follows : —

" Upon the death of his lady, the father of Charles Brandon
retired to an estate on the borders of Hampshire. His family con-
sisted of two sons, and a young lady, the daughter of a friend lately
deceased, whom he adopted as his own child. This lady being
singularly beautiful, as well as amiable in her manners, attracted the
attention of both brothers. The elder, however, was the fiavourite,
and he privately married her ; which the younger not knowing, and
overhearing an appointment of the lovers the next night in her bed-
chamber, he, thinking it was a mere intrigue, contrived to get his
brother otherwise employed, and made the signal of admission him-
self His design, unfortunately, answered only too well

" On a discovery the lady lost her reason, and soon afterwards
died. The two brothers fought, and the elder fell, cut through the
heart. The father broke down, and went to his grave in a very short
time. Charles Brandon, the younger brother, and unintentional
author of all this misery, quitted England in despair, with a fixed
determination of never returning. Being abroad for several years,
his nearest relations supposed him to be dead, and began to take the
necessary stei)s for obtaining his estates. Aroused by this intelli-
gence, he returned j^rivately to England, and for a time took private
lodgings in the vicinity of his family mansion.

" While he was in this retreat, the young king, Henry VIII.,
who had just buried his father, was one day hunting on the
borders of Hampshire, when he heard the cries of a female in dis-
tress issuing from an adjoining wood. His gallantry immediately
summoned him to the place, though he then happened to be detached
from all his courtiers, when he saw two ruffians attempting to violate
the honour of a young lady. The king instantly drew hb sword
upon them ; a scuffie ensued, which roused the reverie of Charles
Brandon, who was taking his morning walk in an adjacent thicket
He immediately ranged himself on the side of the king, whom be
then did not know, and, by his dexterity, soon disarmed one of the
ruffians, while the other ded.

George Eliot and her Neighbourhood. 587

** The king, charmed with this act of gallantry, so congenial to
his own mind, inquired the name and family of the stranger ; and
not only repossessed him of his patrimonial estates, but took him
under his own immediate protection.

"It was this same Charles Brandon who afterwards privately
married King Henry's sister, Margaret, Queen Dowager of France ;
which marriage the King not only forgave, but created him Duke of
Suffolk, and continued his favour towards him to the last hour of the
Duke's life. He died before Henry ; and the latter showed in his
attachment to this nobleman that, notwithstanding his fits of caprice,
he was capable of a cordial and steady friendship. He was sitting
in Council when the news of Suffolk's death reached him, and he
publicly took that occasion, both to express his own sorrow, and to
celebrate the merits of the deceased. He declared that during the
whole course of their acquaintance his brother-in-law had not made
a single attempt to injure an adversary, and had never whispered a
word to the disadvantage of anyone ; * And are there any ofyou^ my
lords, who can say as much?* The king looked round in all their
faces, and saw that confusion which the consciousness of secret guilt
naturally drew upon them."

From the fact related in the early history of Charles Brandon,
who upon being created Duke of Suffolk, and having the estates of
Arbury granted to him by the king, came to live there, the poet,
Thomas Otway, took the plot of his tragedy, " The Orphan." To
avoid causing unnecessary pain, however, to descendants of the
families affected who were living at that time, Otway transferred the
scene of his tragedy from England to Bohemia. The character of
Antonio, which the dramatist would appear to have elaborated with
great pains into an old debauched senator, raving about plots and
political intrigues, is supposed to have been intended for that eminent
personage, Anthony, the first Earl of Shaftesbury.

So late ago as 1825 there was a large painting of the Brandon
incident at Woburn, the seat of His Grace the Duke of Bedford, and
the old Dowager Duchess, in showing this picture to a nobleman a
few years before her death, is said to have related all the particulars
of the story.

Associations like these serve to make the site of the " Chcveral
Manor " of George Eliot doubly interesting, and the marvel is that
the author of " Scenes of Clerical Life " did not make use of this
pretty romance in some way — either in describing the ancient history
of the place, or in a neatly woven story, such as she knew well how
10 weave ; but George Eliot was essentially a delineator of modern

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. - • ...... ... II ^^^ J ,t?U...

-' : '.- : -;::.■->■ r.e wa> electee

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r ' - -■' -" • : "~"ii:>.e rr.cs:c:s::r.::u:5hec

■ - -■ -" ::; ••:-;;-:^:. ■: .:' M:ic!e5€.\ for si.x years.

' ...-." :~ :-":::--. V r. •.:-?;:;-. a-d T.t.c, :he p^Dshion for

--■• - -■ "t: --"i"- :t:.:i re r.-.ice :he ■i:rar.d :our" already

-..- - . i.-- - - _- :: :-. ..:h .s.: Horace Walpole, to whom he

' ■- :..- 1::-. :_. V. .:..=i cr:-.rg:i:::.i".y to revive the beau-iesof

George Eliot and her Neighbourhood. 589

Scarcely a better building for the titled architect to try his hand
upon could have been found than the Arbury Hall of that period.
Some idea of the nature of the building may be gathered from a
survey of the present stablings, which form a considerable portion of
the '* fair structure " erected by Sir Edmund Anderson. From each
front of the house there were piles of projecting chimneys; and these,
together with the unsightly chambers and bare brick walls, could not
fail to offend the fastidiously cultivated eye of Sir Roger Newdigate,
Italianised as it was by many years of foreign travel So the
baronet set about converting the old and uncouth Arbury Hall into
the " Cheveral Manor " of to-day. He laboriously drew up his own
designs — which for an amateur architect were considered to be
extremely clever, in spite of the mixture of ecclesiastic and richly
ornate styles — and entered into a contract with a well-known builder
to carry out the scheme.

At that time, which would be about the year 1770, there was a
young man employed on the ground, evidently a sort of right-hand
man to Sir Roger, for in the renovation and remodelling of the Hall
he was eminently useful and constantly in request. This young
man's name was Robert Evans, the subsequent father of George Eliot;
and it was well for Sir Roger Newdigate, in more ways than one,
that he had so trusty a servant upon whom he could rely in his hour
of need. Before the unsightly chambers were hidden by turrets, the
beautiful mullioned windows put in, the outer walls cased with stone,
the vast courtyard environed with a cloister — in short, some time
before Arbury HaU was metamorphosed into its present attractive
shape, the man who had contracted to build the place became a
bankrupt, and brought a sudden cessation to the active work then in
progress. Sir Roger, for the moment, was in a state of great per-
turbation, but the remarkable tact and ability of Robert Evans stood
him in good stead, and the " Cheveral Manor" as it appears to-day
was finished under the watchful eyes of the titled architect and his
excellent steward.

Arbury Hall was probably finished in or about 1773, ^s in that
year Sir John Astley, of the adjoining Astley Castle, made Sir Roger
Newdigate a present of the famous painting depicting the celebrated
exploits of Sir John de Astley, who flourished in the early part of the
fifteenth century. The outside of the mansion with its castellated
grey- tinted front and mullioned windows is easily recognised by all
readers of " Mr. Gilfil's I^ve Story " ; it is in the inside, however, that
the descriptions of George Eliot force themselves upon the mind, as
the visitor looks with a curious eye upon the ecclesiastical and other
vou ccLxix. NO 1920. i^ 1;

590 The Gentlematis Magazine.

adornments, placed in their respective positions by the lavish hand
of Sir Roger. The saloon ornaments are copied from the fan tracery
in Henry VII/s Chapel at Westminster. In a similar manner
the ceiling of the drawing-room is elaborately carved with tracery,
in which are inserted different armorial bearings on small shields.
The room next to the saloon contains the picture before alluded ta
It commemorates the exploits of Sir John de Astley, a famous knight
who vanquished in a duel at Paris one Peter de Maise, and in the
thirtieth year of Henry VI.'s reign fought with, and defeated, at
Smithfield an Aragonian knight, named Sir Philip Boyle, who
seems to have been a kind of Don Quixotfe, anxious to cross lances
with some great fighter. A replica of this painting is preserved at
Patshull, the seat of the Earl of Dartmouth, a descendant of the
Astleys of Arbur}*.

Here and there, in the adjacent rooms, are many evidences of
Sir Roger Newdigate's classical tastes. There are niches filled with
casts from the antique, all breathing of the days when the Gothic-
loving baronet was drinking in the architectural inspirations of
Florence. You can see the Venus de' Medici under an elaborate
Oothic canopy ; and the top of a sarcophagus, brought from Rome
by Sir Roger, upon which is finely sculptured the marriage of Bacdios
and Ariadne.

George Eliot has herself well described the dining-room. In her
day it was so bare of furniture that it impressed one with its archi-
tectural beauty like a cathedral " The slight matting and a side-
board in a recess did not detain the eye for a moment from the
lofty groined ceiling, with its richly carved pendants, all of creamy
white, relieved here and there by touches of gold On one side
this lofty ceiling was supported by pillars and arches, beyond which
a lower ceiling, a miniature copy of the higher one, covered the square
projection which with its three pointed windows formed the central
feature of this building. The room looked less like a place to dine
in than a piece of space inclosed simply for the sake of beautiful
outline ; and the small dining table seemed a small and insignificant
accident, rather than anything connected with the original purpose
of the apartment" During the long lifetime of the late Charles N.
Newdigate, this room had an air of conservatism about it as rigid as
that possessed by its owner. It was, with the smallest variatiooSi
the same room as that so carefully described in " Mr. Gilfil's LofC
Stor>\"

Sir Roger Newdigate, the man of cultivated mind and exqaiste
taste, died in 1806 at the age of eighty-eight. With his deadi the

Geovire EHot and her Neighbourhood.

591

title became e.\tinct. In liis will Sir Roger bequeathed Arbur>' Hall
and the estates to Mr. Francis Parker, on condition that he adopted
the name of Newdigate ; and with a reversion 10 the father of the
late C. N. Newdigate, who had then come into possession again of
the estates at Harefield, and who was enjoined to add the old spell-
ing of the name of " Newdegate " to that of the Charles Newdigate
received at the baptismal font. The name of the late owner of
Arbury Hall therefore was Charles Newdegate Newdigate.

The little village of GritT, in the vicinity of which George Eiiot
was born, and in which, as already written, lived her brother, Isaac
Pearson Evans, late agent to Mr. Newdigate, to Lord Aylesford, and
to the Governors of Chamberlain's Charily at Bedworth, and after-
wardsagentto theDowagerCounlessof Aylesford, was at theConqiicst
survey involved with Chilvers Coten. In the third year of ihe reign
of Queen Elizabeth, Griff was purchased by John Giffard, whose
grandson, in Dugdale's time, passed it on to Sir John Newdigate,
father of Sir Roger ; it thus became the property of the Newdigates,
and the little parish has continued in their family to the present lime.
Mining has been the chief industry carried on at Griff. For
more than two centuries coal-mines have been known and worked
in this neighbourhood ; Bedwonh being spoken of by Dugdale as
"a place very well known with regard to the coal-mines there."
When Ihe father of the late Charles N. Newdigate settled at Arbury
he went energetically into the mining work, and appointed John Evans,
uncle to Geoi^e Eliot, as his colliery agent. That was a golden lime
for the \Varwickshire coalowners. Railways had not then stretched
their feelers into "the Heart of England," as Michael Drayton
calls Warwickshire ; indeed the onlyrailway near Griff or in the shire
was one known as the " Stratford and Moreton Railway," which ex-
tended from Slrat ford-on -Avon in Warwickshire to Moreton -in- the -
Marsh in Gloucestershire. Even this one was not for passengers; so
that our good ancestors, as can be seen in George Eliot's " Silas
Mamer," only a liiile more than half a century ago, were obliged 10
travel chiefly by stage coach and packhorse. The Stratford and
Morelon Railway Company was incorporated in i8zi. The length
of the main line was about sixteen miles, and the branch lines two
and a half miles. The capital embarked in this enterprise was
_;^SO,ooo. The principal use made of this railway was the supplying
with coal, brought from the Griff and Bedworth pits, of Moreton,
Stow-on-the Wold, and other parts of the country through which it
passed, and for conveying back to Stratford- on -Avon stone and
agricultural produce.

592 The Gentlemaris Magazine.

This was the only enterprise, in the shape of a railway, then m
use in Warwickshire. It is still to be seen, but it is now disused and
o\*ergrown with grass and weeds ; a striking instance of a work that
soon served its purpose and became obsolete.

Though taking a great interest in the work of railways as a means
of carrying the coal from his Griff collieries into the world in and
beyond the shire, Mr. Newdigate, father of the late member for
North Warwickshire, was also keenly alive to the importance of canals,
which at that time were being introduced The miles upon miles
of navigable watercourses that flow so placidly through this beautiful
and classic shire tell of the foresight, knowledge, and skilful engi-
neering abilities of our forefathers. Something may be said of a canal
that passes near George Eliot's neighbourhood, which was constructed
in 1830, and in which the old Mr. Newdigate took a large share of
interest. During the Parliamentary session of 1829 the Oxford
Canal Company obtained powers to improve that part of their canal
which lies between Braunston in Warwickshire and Longford in
Northamptonshire, and which communicated with the Grand Junc-
tion and Coventry canals. The construction of the works in this
canal was upon the most approved methods in the practice of dvil
engineering. The bridges and tunnels were made sufficiently
capacious to admit of a towing-path on either side, and two boats
to pass. The canal passed through the highlands at Brinklow— the
nearest point to Bedworth and (IrifT— and Newbold, by means of
tunnels twenty-four feet inside diameter, and over the turnpike
road from Rugby to historic Lutterworth upon an aqueduct of cast
iron. A considerable portion of these works was completed and
navigable in 1831.

Mr. Newdigate was so strongly impressed with the idea that canals
were to be the future travelling courses of the world that he had a
communication with the Grand Junction cut right up to his Hall at
Arbury ; and it is said that upon more than one occasion he has
travelled to and from London by boat. This was a piece of good
humour about which the late Charles N. Newdigate chose to be
silent as much as possible, and when he did speak of it he sought to
convey the impression that in cutting it his father had the diaimp
of his coal-mines in view ; but among those old Griff miners the stoiy
is still current of how " Old Charley's feyther went to Lunnon up the
cut" Perhaps Mr. Newdigate may only have been a few decades ii
advance of his time, though the incident at that period was certaialf
one worthy to be noted down by the hand of George Eliot ; M
having already described the foibles of one member of the UaS^

George Eliot and her Neighbourhood. 593

the gifted novelist probably deemed it prudent to stay her hand. To
the commercial interests of Warwickshire, however, canals are of the
greatest value, and one cannot think of the many advantages which
have been gained to mankind by the use of these well-planned water-
courses that glide through our fields and streets without thanking
their constructors, and wondering why the canals are not more
generally used.

If the Griff miner, or the Bedworth ribbon weaver, or the Astley
worker in bead and jet embroidery were at all bookish, and would
read George Eliot's " Scenes of Clerical Life," they would be disposed
to say, when next visiting Chilvers Coten Church, " Eh ! inna it
like " ; for during the tenure of the Rev. Mr. Chadwick, the present
vicar, the church is being " restored " back to something like the old
condition of Shepperton Church.

The little village of Chilvers Coten, in the parish of which
George Eliot was born, is about one mile from Griff. In the
Conquest survey it was rated at eight hides; the woods were
one mile and a half in length, and one mile in breadth ; the
whole parish being valued at fifty shillings. At the Dissolution
Chilvers Coten came to the Crown, and was sold to John Fisher and
Thomas Dalbridgecourt in the fouth year of Queen Elizabeth's
reign. These gentlemen, in 1630, obtained a grant of Court Leet to
be held there, so that in those days it must have been a somewhat
important parish. In course of time Chilvers Coten, along with the
village of Griff, came into the hands of the Newdigates. The Rev.
Henry Hake, who died at Leamington a few years ago, at a very
advanced age, became vicar of Chilvers Coten in 1844, when George
Eliot was in her twenty- fifth year, and he may have, in some particu-
lars, suggested Mr. Gilfil. At that time the population of Chilvers
Coten was 2,612, the patron of the living being the Lord Chancellor.
Mr. Hake buried his first wife in the little graveyard there, and
resigned the living in the spring of 1859.

That Bedworth coal- master who calls George Eliot "a monstrously
clever woman " one day met Mr. John Evans, first cousin to Mary
Ann, the novelist, and spoke to him to the following effect. Mr.
Evans, who was then foreman at the Griff collieries, the date
being some time in 1858, when returning from the pits one evening
met Mrs. Newdigate, mother of the late " Old Charley," as the miners
always called him, driving along in her carriage. She called to the
coachman to stop, and beckoned John Evans to her side. " Evans,"
^e said, " I have got a book here— it is called * Adam Bede * — and
^ take it home and read it to your father." John Evans

594 ^^ GentlematCs Magazine.

replied that his father " dinna tek much account o' books 'cept the
Bible," but if it was the lady's wish that he should read it to his
father, he would do so. He did take the book home and began to
read it, and so clearly had George Eliot drawn her characters that
the old man, even as his son read, perfectly identified the people in
his own neighbourhood, and every now and then called them out by
name. It was this book which the Griff, Bedworth, and Chilvers
Coten people made so much of at that time, and there is not the
shadow of a doubt but that all the characters in '* Adam Bede " lived,
moved, and had their being in this little circle.

At Corley, a pretty little village upon an elevation, close to Pack-
ington Magna, the ancient seat of the Aylesford family, is to be found
the " Hall Farm," in which Martin Poyser took such pride, and at
which Adam Bede was always a welcome guest Indeed eveiy
village within a six-mile ring of Griff is instinct with the life to be
found in the works of George Eliot. Which village is " Raveloe " it
would be difficult to say, as any one of the pretty cluster to be met
with there might pass for it ; and although linen weaving in cottages
is almost at an end, the ribbon weaver is still busy with his tireless
loom. But the stranger amid those interesting scenes, should he by
any chance be at fault concerning his next move, must not make the
mistake of inquiring for " Cheveral Manor " or ** Shepperton," or he
will be met with the truly George Eliot reply of ** You mun be cum
wrong ; I hanna heered o' them places."

GEORGE MORLEV.

595

THE DEPRAVATION OF IVORDS.

THERE are few more interesting and absorbing subjects of study
than the growth and evolution of language. A language still
spoken and written is a living organism, and its vital processes
resemble those which are constantly presented to the observation of
the student of natural phenomena. A language grows by accretion,
by developtnent in some special direction, like a tree putting forth
a fresh branch, and by absorption or adoption from the vocabulary
of other tongues. Simultaneously with the process of growth or
development, there is continually going on decay and removal.
Here a word or phrase is sloughed off, so to speak ; there are shed
a whole group of words or terms rendered obsolete by the advance
of science, by alterations in personal and in national habits and cus-
toms, and by a variety of other causes.

But apart from the words that have become obsolete, and those
that are still live and active elements of the language, there is a
considerable number in which the process of decay has been carried
to a certain extent, and has then been arrested, or, to abandon
metaphor, words which having once been standard or literary
English, have slipt from one cause or another out of literary use,
but still retain a certain vogue either as provincialisms or as members
of the great body of slang and colloquial expressions. These are the
words that have completely undergone the process of what may be
termed depravation. Another section consists of those terms which
have developed a downward tendency, but whose fate is not yet fixed.
These are the words and phrases which are so often used colloquially
and loosely in a non-natural sense, in a depraved extension and
widening of their proper significations.

Changes of this kind have always been taking place in the spoken
language, but it is only in comparatively recent times that, owing
chiefly to the hasty writing of journalists and slovenly book-makers,
such depravation has proceeded at an accelerated pace, and has
largely affected our written English. The loose construction, the
twisted or inverted meaning, the slan"« ••"•^ "

596 The Gentleman s Magazine.

current talk no one knows how ; it soon appears in print in hasty
article, smart leader, or in slipshod fiction, and forthwith it is trans-
ferred to the columns of the latest thing in the way of big dictionaries.
If after this it is challenged, reference is made to the latest diction-
ar)' ; its authority shelters the new coinage or new attribution, and
the vicious circle is complete.

A few months ago an able and popular journalist, writing in the
pages of a new Rti'iav on the undress of the soul, as exhibited in
Marie IJashkirtseffs Journal^ remarked, with figurative meaning, of
the author of that remarkable book, that "above all, she never really
leaves go of her dressing-gown." To " leave go ** of a dressing-gown,
or of anything else, is an expression that haste may explain, but which
cannot in any way be justified. The same writer, in an earlier
number of his periodical, declared that " the papistical power is
messing ever>thing in Canada." It is quite within the bounds of
possibility that both to " leave go," and " to mess," in this slangy
sense, may appear in the pages of some too comprehensive dictionary
with these sentences of the Reinew given as authorities. There are
many other degraded uses of words which, although not unfamiliar to
the ear, have hardly yet appeared in print without the guarding
inverted commas. The commas, however, are but a frail defence, and
the transition to ordinary print without any such marks of protest is
easy and very often rapid. The depraved applications of such words
as ** awful '' and " awfully " are really almost elbowing the legitimate
bignifications out of countenance and out of use. To ufe "awful"
in its proper sense is to lay oneself open, if not to misapprehension,
at least to bad puns and foolish jests. What, for instance, would
modern slangy talkers and degraders of words make of Keats*s line

in " Isabel " :

His heart beat awfully against hb side,

or Keblc's :

Towards the East our awful greetings
Arc wafted.

There are some poor words that have become so familiar to
newspaper readers in their depraved significations, that they are now
hardly noticed. The verb " transpire " is the best known of these.
" Ovation " is another word daily degraded from its proper place in
the language ; and although the verb " to ovate " is not yet naturalised
among us, its introduction is only too probably, alas, a mere question
of time. In sensational descriptions of great disasters we too often
read of a " holocaust " of victims in cases where the devouring
element has had no share whatever in the catastrophe described.

The Depravation of Words. 597

It is in the manufacture of new and unnecessary verbs, by the
mangling or twisting of innocent substantives that some writers do most
offend. A contributor to " Bentley's Miscellany," nearly thirty years
ago, wrote of someone whom, " as men said, the Nonconformists ambi-
tionedto send into Parliament." This ugly verb, although it also occurs
earlier in a letter of Horace Walpole's, has happily not yet become
popularised. A journalist wishing to state that some important
personage was waited on by a deputation, has been known to write
that the said personage was " deputated " by his visitors. In the
favourite newspaper of a certain religious body, local leaders of the
organisation are constantly said to be "fare welling," when they are
transferred from one sphere of work to another. But the list need
hardly be prolonged. This form of the depravation of words is too
common to have escaped the notice of any reader who preserves
some respect for his native tongue —

The tongue
That Shakespeare spake.

More interesting are those words that have fallen from their
former high estate, and which, while no longer heard from mouths
polite, yet enjoy a vigorous existence either in dialect or among the
humbler ranks of society. The young lady in Dickens who " couldn't
abear the men, they were such deceivers," Tennyson's Northern
Farmer, who " couldn abear to see it," and the old lady who " can't
abide these newfangled ways," might all be said to speak vulgarly,
as fashion of speech now goes. But " abear " and ** abide," although
not now generally used by educated people, are words that have seen
better days. It is only in comparatively recent years that they have
been condemned as vulgar. " Abear," in the sense of to endure or
to suffer, was good English in the days of King Alfred, and for
centuries after. Like many other good old English words, exiled by
culture from London, it has found a home in the dialects ; and
there are few provincial forms of English speech in which " abear "
is not a familiar element. To ** abide," in its now vulgar sense, is
not quite so old as " abear," but is still of respectable antiquity.
A character in " Faire Em," one of the plays of doubtful authorship
sometimes attributed to Shakespeare, says " I cannot abide physic"
Drayton makes a curious past tense of it : " He would not have
aboad it." The word can hardly yet be said to have entirely dropped
out of literary use, for Sir Arthur Helps, in the first chapter of his
book on " Animals and their Masters," remarks that " People can't
abide pamphlets in these days.'*

598 The Gentlemans Magazine.

" To ax," for ask, is undoubtedly nowadays degraded to the rank
ol a vulgarism, but it really represents the earliest form of the word,
and was in regular literary use for centuries, until it was supplanted
by " ask," which had formerly been simply a current form in the
northern dialect. To "ax" still survives in the dialects of midland
and southern England. So that when a lady of the Sairey Gamp
school " axes yer pardon for makin* so bold," she is using a verb that
was literary English from the days of Chaucer and earlier to nearly
the end of the sixteenth century. Coverdale's translation of the
Gospel according to St Matthew, published in 1535, has "Axe and
it shal be given you." Wiclif, earlier, has the same spelling. By
Shakespeare^s time "ask "had become the recognised form, and "axe"
does not appear in any of the earlier editions of his plays.

Another example of the survival in dialect of a word or phrase
once in literary use is to be found in the expression to be " shut of,"
meaning to be rid of. This is still very commonly heard in the
northern parts of England, but could hardly now be used in either
prose or verse having any pretension to literary form. It is to be
found in a variety of our older writers ; in the pamphlets of Nashe
and in the " Holy War " of Bunyan. An example may be given from
Massinger's " Unnatural Combat " :

We are shut of him,
He will be seen no more here.

Yet another word that has undergone depravation is to "square"
in the sense of to quarrel. In the newspaper reports of police-court
cases one may read how some offender "squared up" at a companion
or at the police, but the phrase is pretty certain to be marked off as
slangy by the use of inverted commas. But " to square " in a
quarrelsome sense is very old and respectable English. An excellent
example of its literary use is to be found in the exquisite poetry of
the "Midsummer Night's Dream." In the second act of that delight-
ful play. Puck, describing the quarrel between Oberon and Titania,
says :

And now they never meet in grove or green,
]iy fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
But they do square, that all their elves for fear
Creep into acorn-cups and hide them there.

" On the square " is a phrase now seldom heard save amongst
those who, in their own language, live or work "on the cross." They
know and use the phrase, but take care not to put it into practice,
for, as Freeman says in the old play of the " Plain Dealer " : "Telling
truth is a quality as prejudicial to a man that would thrive in the world

The Depravation oj Woras. 599

as square play to a cheat" The cheat likes to have the "square
play " on the side of his pigeons, for the process of plucking is greatly
facilitated by conduct like that of Ingoldsby's " Black Mousquetaire,"
who

When gambling his worst, always played on the square.

This modern limitation of the phrase is simply a depravation of
an older and wider meaning which was long current in literature.
Udairs sixteenth century translation of the " Apophthegms " of
Erasmus has " out of square." The sense of a certain passage, says
the translator, will not be out of square if one particular signification
of a Greek vocable be preferred to another. In Chapman's version
of the Odyssey are the lines :

I see, the gods to all men give not all
Manly addiction ; wisedome ; words that fall
(Like dice) upon the square still.

Here the words seem to have a slight flavour of the later restricted
meaning. But the earlier and better signification is more
plainly seen in UdalFs use of the phrase. The reference was obviously
to proportion and a sense of what was fitting and appropriate,
derived by analogy from the operations of a builder or designer.

In the course of its downhill career a word often undergoes some
slight change of form as well as of meaning. Occasionally it casts a
syllable. A curious instance of this is the word " peach." This is
an aphetised form of the verb " appeach." The latter word was in
use from the fifteenth till about the middle of the seventeenth
century ; and side by side with it there existed the now familiar form
" peach." Both meant to accuse or charge : —

Now, by mine honour, by my life, by my troth,
I will appeach the villain,

cries York in the last act of *• Richard II." As " appeach " went out
of use " peach " began to undergo depravation.

A curious example of the word in its transition state is to be
found in " Hudibras," a great repertory of seventeenth century
vulgarisms. In the lines : —

Make Mercury confesse and peach
Those thieves which he himself did teach,

although its primary signification is evidently to accuse, yet the word
seems to have a half reference to its modern colloquial sense. In
another fifty years "peach" had almost descended to its present
level, and was used much as it is to-day. Arbuthnot, in the appendix
to his satire of "John Bull," 1712^ a work which contains a great many

6co The Gentleman s Magazine.

colloquialisms, sa)'s that a certain euphoniously named Ptschirnsooker
'* came off, as rogues usually do upon such occasions, by peaching
his partner; and being extremely fonnard to bring him to the gallows,
Jack was accused as the contriver of all the roguer>\" Another
remarkable feature in the history of this word is that with "appeach"
and " peach " a third form was simultaneously in use. Caxton, in his
translations, introduced the word "empeche,*' a much better repre-
sentative than "appeach" of the old French original ^w/^r-^Vr, although
Caxton took his word not from this but from the contemporary
French verb empescher. In the altered form of " impeach " the
word is still retained in use. It is a case of the survival of the
fittest. Of the three rival forms, one died out altogether, another
underwent depravation and is now a familiar item in the slang of the
criminal classes, while the third still flourishes and retains its
original meaning.

Many other instances of the decline and fall of words might
be given. Such expressions as to "make bones of," to " fadge,"
to "knock off," to "cut," in the sense of "to run off," and
" along of," meaning " on account of," were all formerly in constant
literary use. The process is a natural one, and depravation of
this kind will always be going on. It is not possible to prevent
it, but it is possible, unfortunately, to hasten it ; and this is con-
stantly being done by the slangy tone, the loose habit of colloquially
twisting and misapplying words, that pervade so much of modem
speech. It is a case of " giving a dog a bad name." If once a slang
meaning or application be tacked on to an innocent word, the
tendency is for the looser and more depraved meaning to oust the
original and correct signification out of colloquial use, and
finally out of both spoken and written language.

It is, of course, possible to go too far in the opposite direction,
and by too great a conser\'atism to impede the natural progress of the
language, to restrict its growth and stunt its development. This was
the tendency during the greater part of the eighteenth centur}\ But
there is little fear nowadays, and indeed but little possibility, of thus
hindering the free play of the language. The danger lies, as has
been pointed out, in the opposite direction. Englishmen are justly
proud of their noble literature, a literature second to none that the
world has seen, and it is surely not unreasonable to protest against
wanton and unnecessary depravation of the vehicle by which that
literary heritage has been handed down to us, and through which
many and glorious additions are being and will be made thereto,
*Qt the instruction and delight of future ages.

QflQILGE L. APPERSOK.

6oi

NOSTRADAMUS.

thi¥ Bdifarov hipov filov Kp§lrroyos &pxV vofi'ifimts, — Epicurus,

Death is a better way to live, . . .
For that it slays all prejudice of earth. — Atton,

WHEREVER man has congregated upon the earth's surface
a religion of some sort has prevailed. Indeed, so universal
is this fact as almost to present a basis for the definition of man as
" the religious animal." An appreciation of the supernatural
seems to be as cognate with human nature as any appreciation of the
physical universe can be, with which man becomes acquainted
through the medium of his five senses. If this be so, and it is not
easy to maintain the contrary, the immortality of the soul is as much
an inherent part of it as its present life can be. We have no proof
of the reality of present existence beyond what the somI feels. What
it thinks of the future and of the non-physical, though far less
definite, is no less real on that account, so far as it extends, and
as it is prompted by this/r///«^of the soul, than is the other. The
blue mountain in the distance is no less a part of the prospect
than the garden hedge at hand ; both are the result of physical sight
equally. Feeling and thought are the mind's eye. With these
limitations, the feeling of the future and of the present are one ; what
sees the one, sees the other also.

In this sense every man of awakened powers is a kind of prophet
and has to do with that future which has been called " eternity." What
is commonly designated a prophet, however, is a man who can pre-
figure events that are to happen, not in eternity but in coming time.
In both cases the soul deals with the supernatural. But, as regards
time to come, all forecasting of its events is, in our day, reckoned to
be imposture, and as lying quite out of human power. It forms no
part of our present purpose to establish this view or the contrary of
it, though it is desirable to point out that such a thorough-going
and almost universal scepticism is quite modem. Ancient nations.

6o2 TJie Gentleman s Magazine.

barbarous and civilised, seem all to have admitted that exceptional
individuals could forecast events. Amongst the Hebrews espedallv
and early Christians it was regarded as divine inspiration. Among
the Druids both men and women were supposed to possess the gift.
In Greece there were the oracles, augurs, soothsayers, and astrologers.
Revelations from all these sources the Christians attributed to
the operation of devils. But the Christians in their turn took up
with astrology in the middle ages, and John Varley, the painter, at
the beginning of this century made numerous and very strange fore-
casts by astrologic processes in the old forms. He shot so near
that he frightened his friends, and gave up shooting.

It is no matter how groundless scientific thinkers may pronounce
all these superstitions to have been ; it is enough for us to state the
prevalence of the feeling. What the soul of men has widely felt, and
almost universally acted upon, constitutes a part of human nature,
and that is enough to admit for our present purpose. -We esteem a
prologue such as this somewhat necessary before we enter on the
forecasts of Nostradamus, just to secure for the facts a momentary
attention, and to forestall the prejudices, which are innumerable.
We intend to construct no theory and to offer no explanation. The
facts are most curious when arrived at, but it is difficult to get at
them, so as to form a solid judgment, for two reasons, the Quatrains
are written in very old French, sometimes even in the langue iPoc, and,
besides that, the author distinctly aims, by borrowing words from many
languages, by introducing anagrams, analogies, and mythological and
classic allusions, to further darken his meaning and protect himself
from the persecution of the Church and times in which his lot was
cast. Our business will be merely to translate these obsolete expres-
sions, to interpret a few of the anagrams and strange allusions, as far
as may be, and to apply the sense so sifted out to some of the
many historic events foreshadowed. The correspondence between
some of the Quatrains and the events realising them, two or three
centuries later on, is very extraordinary-, but we shall not try to eluci-
date the cause. The reader will choose his own method of proce-
dure. He will test the translation, he will try the interpretation,
perhaps refute the coincidence of the words with the facts. But, as he
will not be able to dispute the authority of the copy or its date of issue,
unless he can confute our version of the meaning he must accept
it, and either explain it his own way or admit that it is too wonderful
for that, and that it lies quite beyond his processes of elucidation.

Without further preamble, it will be well now to set forth a few of
the Quatrains of Michael Nostradamus, applying them to the events

Nostradamus, 603

of which they were anticip;^tory, and so leave them to make their
own impression upon the reader's mind, whilst, if space can be spared,
a few words may be devoted to the remarkable man who wrote them
Even in his lifetime Nostradamus enjoyed a European celebrity, and
the name is still universally known, but it survives only as repre-
sentative of a higher order of impostor than Cagliostro — a name for
occultists, perhaps, to conjure with on occasion, though its mention
has, in England at least, long ceased to awaken in the mind any
definite idea as to fact, action, or thought. It is a name, and little else.
One may call it a disembodied reputation. Syllabically it is famous,
but all solidity belonging to it lies bobbing with oblivion " at
Lethe's wharf." That of Ronsard is a kindred name — echoing still,
but dead ; yet Ronsard was a great poet Surely of all the vanities
this is the greatest vanity : a deathless name, whose owner in the
slide of the universe has himself become dead to fame. He is a
pyramid builder with no pyramid to show for it. He has fame with-
out an idea attached to it.

There is a round thousand of quatrains to pick and choose from :
all thrown together purposely in hopeless disorder, and in utter dis-
regard of the chronological sequence of the events. Had the chrono-
logical order been preserved to us, doubtless many more of the
Quatrains could be rendered intelligible ; that clue, however, has for
the writer's security been purposely, though silently, withdrawn. Out
of so large a number only a very few examples can be selected. We
will open with one which is not especially striking : when first read it
even seems to be mere jargon, but yet when explained it takes a
form and coherency that point clearly to Henri Quaire as the sub-
ject of it It would task an ingenious mind to adapt it with equal
force to any other historical character existing. It runs :

Mandosus tost viendra ^ son haut r^gne,
Mettant arriere un peu les Norlaris :
Le rouge blesme, le masle ^ Tinterr^gne,
Le jeune crainte, et frayeur Barbaris.

{Century ix., quatrain 50.)
7ra»j/ii/f(t7ff.— Mendosus shall soon attain to his high dominion, setting back
those of Lorraine a little ; the pale old Cardinal, the male of the interregnum,
the timid youth, and the alarmed barbarian.

This at a first glance resembles unmitigated blague. But when you
take mendosus, full of faults, reading « for z; in the old fashion, it con-
verts into the anagram of Vendosme, or Vendome. Again Norlaris is
the anagrammatic transposition of Lorrains, the patronymic of the
Guise family. Michel de Nostredame was a Romaiust, and heretics
are heavily disparaged by him throoffHi

6o4 Tlu Gentleman s Magazine.

work. To him, therefore, Henri IV., the heretic Vendome, furnishing
the anagram mendosus, or full of faults, would seem to be providen-
tially so named — a man who changed his religion thrice. His mother,
Jeanne d*Albert, brought him up as a Protestant. To escape St.
Bartholomew's massacre, Aug. 24, 1572, he professed Catholicism.
In 1576, that he might head the Calvinist party, he relapsed to
Protestantism. But in order to ascend the throne of France it
became necessary to proclaim himself Catholic. By this change,
and by the Salic law, he excluded the Lorraine princes from the
throne of France. He no less shut out the old Cardinal de Bourbon—
h rouge biesme^ the red pale one, or white with age ; the Due de
Mayenne, also, who was Lieutenant-General of the kingdom during
the interregnum. Lejeune crainte stands for the young Due de Guise;
whilst the Barbaris seems to be the savage Philip II. of Spain, whose
pretension to the crown was derived to him through Elizabeth his
wife, the daughter of Henri II. Philip allied himself with the Guises
in support of the Catholic League. This explanatory elaboration,
referring to merely four lines of the original text, may convey some
idea to the reader of the difficulty attending the interpretation of a
writer such as Nostradamus. There are stanzas by the hundred like
this, so that a busy and sceptical world may be very well excused for
dropping the whole volume into oblivion, for ridiculing it as jargon,
or if, going farther still, it should condemn it as imposture. Ridicule,
abuse and slander have their uses, but they are not arguments. The
above should suffice to prove that such lines contain a good deal
more than at a first glance meets the eye.

Quatrain 18, century x., will be found to amplify on the same theme,
a little less obscurely perhaps. We have not room to enlarge upon
Presage 76, but Henri le Grande is there called Le Grande Cape^ or
Capet, and his abjuring of Protestantism and assent to the Papal
conditions (July 21, 1593,) amid the silence of his enemies, is very
intelligibly forecast.

Sixiain vi. relates to the treason of Biron under the anagram of
Robin, and is a phenomenal piece of work. It even mentions the
name oiLafin, who bttra\s him to the king. But we have no room to
indulge curiosity on this point. In century vi., quatrain 70, there
occurs a perfectly distinct prophecy touching Henry the Great, as
Le Grand Chyren (Chyren being the anagram of Henri). It says that
he will be chief of the world, and may be rendered thus :

Chief of the world Henri le Grand shall be,
More loved in death than life, more honoured he ;
His name and praise shall rise above the skies,
And men shall call him victor wheh he dies.

A'asiraiiamus.

iHjs of him in the " Henriade " :

II ful ie les sti'cU \e vam<]iiciir <;( le pi-x

Thai Henri IV, had the Quatrains of Nostradamus presented to

him we know as a matter of history. We also know that he aspired

lo a European monarchy. It might form an interesting subject of

Kjuiry for some historical essayist lo handle, how much that line

f Nostradamus had to do with suj^gesiing the germ-thought lo the

Atj <Jncl ila di<idJc Ic ginnd Chyccn scia.

rot we must pass on, for this is no lime to pursue ihe theme ; though

K be one s'lrely not unworthy of siudy to watch prophecy, noi only

" recasting events, but converting from a vision inlo a fact of history,

from a forecast lo a cause.

One more passage we propose to examine of hislorical detail,

but of minor importance, before we open up two or three thai relate

to epoch-making events. It is desirable to furnish specimens of

both kinds, for ihe minuter details will best illustrate the personal

^idiosyncrasy of Ihc prophet, whilst the greater topics, which refer to

^Bbtown events, will most interest the world at large as to the possibility,

^^blheot icily, and value of prophecy itself.

^F The punishment of the great Montmorency (October 30, 1631,
in the reign of Louis XIII.), shall be the next taken, because il sheds
a sudden and as il were accidental light upon a private individual,
and discloses a name that history seems only to have inscribed once
»on her page, and that once by an off-chance, as one may say.
I.e lys DaiiHuiii porlem doni Nanci
Tusqires en Klanilrcs ^kcleui de Tempiie ;
Neufvi obturee an grand Montmorency
Ilorii lieux prouv^, delivrc a Clercpaync.
[ The Dituphin thall cury hn lily standsid inlo Is'sncy, ju<it as in Ftandcs ilie
leiot of Treves shoU hecanicd pmoner of the Spaniaidi into Urussels. A new
<n will be given lo ihc grCDI Monlmoiency ; who will lie delivered for exccu-
o the hands of Clerepayne. This man will behead him jn a, place not

Ohturie is from the Lalin ebiiirare, to shut up closely. Prom'fs
is to be taken as apfiromts. Louis XIII., il may be remarked, was
Ihe first who bore the title of Dauphin of France-and since the

publication, be it obsen-ed, in 1566, of Nostradamus's work ^hc

entered Nancy on September 35, 1633, one day later than the entry

of his army. In 1635 he crossed into Flanders in aid of the Elector

D had been carried a prisoner into Brussels by the Spaniards on

irch a6 of that year. Our prophet then reverts 10 October 30

ki, when the execution of Montmorency, for rebellion, occurr

6o6 The Gentleman s Magazine.

j>

He was first confined {obturee) in the Hotel de Ville at Toulouse,
then just neiivly built {ncufvt\ In the courtyard of this building he
was executed by a common soldier of the name of Clerepa)Tie, and
not, as was customar>% at the spot appointed for public executions,
such as was I^ Grijve at Paris, or Tower Hill in London.

It so chances that in two contemporary records the name of Clere-
payne is attested : Etienne Joubert is one, and the Chevalier de Jant
another. By the researches of M. Motret it has been shown further
that the family, by solicitation, obtained two formal concessions
from the king in deviation from the official order, which would have
named ih^ place publique or marche for the ceremony. The first con-
cession was that it should be with closed doors, and the other that
a soldier should be substituted for the common headsman.

When the reader has familiarised himself with the obsolete
language and verbal contortions of this oracular Frenchman, and has
quietly realised in his Inind the all -but -forgotten historical details above
repieced, the solemn scene of great local importance, and of intense
though but temporary interest, will come to life before his eyes
again, and the vivid historical picture will startle him when compared
with the prophetic distich which the event interprets for him. He
will become aware strangely that the picture of that event, that has
just reshaped itself in his mind two hundred years after its occurrence,
must, one hundred years before it occurred, have similarly visited
the mental retina of him who could pen the lines. We cannot call
it poetr}', but it is brimful of imagination, and Tacitus himself grows
wordy when set against the brevity of its utterance. It seems from
this that to anticipate is, though less common, as hum.an as to look
back. It is incredible, yet how can you disbelieve it ? There it
stood in type in the Royal Library the very day the thing was
enacting ; it had stood there for eighty long years before, and the
same volume stands upon the shelves of the same library to-day. It
is not to be understood, but it must be accepted ; you may refuse
the prophecy, but incredulity incarnate can never change the facts.
Adequate explanation will be acceptable, and we invite ingenuity
to attempt it. There were more things in the earth and heaven
than entered, we know, into Horatio's philosophy ; there may also be
more things, perhaps, than were ever dreamt of in philosophy itself.
We believe nothing either way ourselves, but we cannot deny seeing
a strange apparition before our eyes, and we shall not deny it because
our ignorance prevents an explanation that is adequate. In the
presence of some things the Seven Sages are no wiser than the lob-
worm thai the plough breaks out of a furrow. Man is but a worm

Nostradamus. 607

of more device ; the earth is for one, and humility (or earthifttbs) is
for the other. Darwin did well to write upon worms. Science
should go back to mother earth sometimes.

All this wants a book ; we feel we cannot do justice to our theme
in the space allotted to us. But we will now pass on to a very
remarkable quatrain, No. 40 of century x., though we should have
liked to place before the reader quatrain 49 of century ix., which
contains perhaps the only prophecy of our author that has attained
any real publicity in England, viz. :

Senat de Londres metlront i mort leur Roy.

The number of the quatrain, 49, gives, curiously enough, the year of
the occurrence in the 17th century. This may be merely accidental,
and is sure to be called so, but if intended where so much is strange
it would be nothing specially remarkable. We are not aware that
the coincidence has ever attracted comment before, even in France.
Every line of this quatrain admits of a fairly clear interpretation in
our opinion, and in the Quarterly Review^ vol. xxvi., the above-quoted
line is allowed to be a startling announcement of Charles I.'s death ;
but the writer, F. Cohen (afterwards Sir F. Palgrave), says that "CEdipus
himself could not give the sense of the whole verse." Of course not,
if CEdipus be in so great a hurry that he will not give himself time
enough to read the riddle that has been clothed under a form more
or less obscure, for solid reasons aforethought.

Let us now revert to our specimen. No. 40 of century x. :

Le jeune nay au r^gne Britannique,
Qu'aura le p6re mourant recommande,
Jceluy mort Lonole donra topique,
£t a son tils le regne demand^.

The new-born Prince of the kingdom of Britain, whose dying father will have
recommended him, this one being dead, Lonole will perorate and snatch the
kingdom from his very son.

James the First of England and Sixth of Scotland was born
June 19, 1566 — the year of the publication of the Quatrains —
the son of Mary Stuart and Henry, Lord Darnley, who had com-
mended the child to the Scottish lords before his assassination
by Boswell. In 1603 he mounted the throne of England, and it
was under him that England and Scotland were first denomi-
nated Great Britain. This conveys a great propriety to the words
selected by Nostradamus. When this king dies Lonole is to seduce
England with artificial rhetoric, and to demand the kingdom,
together with the life of his son, Charles L

For Lonoh Garenciires readr

6o8 The Gentleman s Magazine.

Lonole. It is rather curious that Lonole should yield the anagram
Oileon or *0\\vwr, as Napoleon does that of NairoXXwwi' and
Apollyon. Cromwell and he show numerous points of contact,
whether we seek them in history, character, or prophecy. But a further
anagram, still more startling, has hitherto we believe escaped all the
commentators : Ole Noll in the form of Old Noll^ has always been the
nick-name of the Protector, and OU Nol is letter for letter Lonole, It
may stand for Apollyon also, and as such for ** Old Nick " too.

James I. was born June 19, 1566, and thirteen days later, July 2,
1566, Nostradamus breathed his last. This quatrain, once understood,
is one of the clearest and most extraordinary of the forecasts of Nostra-
damus. Quatrain 80, of century iii., contains a remarkable announce-
ment of the overthrow of Charles I., the sacrifice of Strafford, and
the bastard kingship of Cromwell. Century viii., quatrain 76, points
very clearly to Cromwell, and is interesting ; but we must pass
it by, together with much more that appears to have relation to
English affairs, including the very clear prophecy that England is to
command the sea for 300 years (century x., 100), a period that ran
out two years since, if we date the commencement of English
supremacy from the defeat of the Spanish Armada, 1588.

We can only treat of three more quatrains, two of which mar\'ellously
point to Louis XVI., and the third to Napoleon as unmistakably.
We may here and there glance at some striking line in passing, if
only to indicate the rich mine that might be worked, did time and
space permit. Pregnant hints abound, such as this (century iii.,

quaira n 59; . Barba-e empire par Ic tiers usurpc.

What could better foreshadow the assault made upon government
and good order in 1789, when the third estate swallowed up the
other tv o by usurpation ? Here is another graphic distich (century* L,

quatram 57; : IJouche sanglante dans le sang nagera,

Au sol la face ointe de laict et miel.

The bleeding mouth swims in a tide of blood,
The face anoint drops to the crimsoned turf.

The milk and honey, wine and oil, is clearly allusive to the oil of Id

sainte ampoule^ with which the kings of PVance were consecrated and

anointed at Reims. But we will confine ourselves to one difficult

quatrain (century ix., quatrain 20), and endeavour by means of a

close examination to establish its intelligibility.

l)e nuict viendra par la forest de Reines
Deux pars, vaultorte, Ilerne la picrre blanche,
Le moyne noir en gris dedans Varennej!,
Ilslcu Cap. cause tcmpesto, feu, sang, tranche.

Nostradamus. 609

By night shall come through the forest of Reines
Two parts, face about, the Queen a white stone,
The black monk in gray within Varennes.
Chosen Cap. causes tempest, fire, blood, slice.

The bewildered reader may perhaps exclaim, " Surely gibberish
can no further go." Well, now, let us see. The Forest of Reines is
on the way to Nzrennes ; we place in italics the two latter syllables,
for they appear to constitute a variant of the same word. Henu is
the anagram of Reine by metaplasm of h for /. The reader will see by
referring to the "Diet de Tr^voux," article "Anagramme," that this is
permissible by the structural rules of the anagram. Vaultorte is an
obsolete word for face-about, as we have translated it. Deux pars
stands for husband and wife. The queen is Marie Antoinette. Le
moynt noir en gris is Louis XVI. ; and the subject of the stanza is
obviously the famous flight of the king and queen from Paris on
June 20, 1 79 1, which terminated in their arrest at Varennes, and
their re-entry as captives into Paris. There are fourteen pages
octavo, in small print, giving details of this tragical journey, in the
Marquis de Bouill^'s Memoires^ full of interesting particulars admirably
narrated by that grand and gallant soldier. Had Bouill^ found a
Turgot to co-operate with him, instead of the egotistic and irresolute
Lafayette, the whole of the affairs of Europe might have taken a very
different channel. His memoirs disclose him to have been a great
patriot, but scarcely ever is his name now breathed. It is a book to
read if you desire to know the period and to study the fate of the
French king. Prudhomme ('* R^vol. de Paris," No. 102, p. 542), if
referred to, will establish the singular propriety of the expression vaul-
torte to describe the king's irresolution at the divergence of the cross
roads— taking, contrary to previous arrangement, the way to Varennes.
Prudhomme further relates at the above passage that the king was
on this occasion attired in gray; he had on an iron-gray coat (gris de fer)^
and wore a round slouch-hat that hid the face, so that he would appear
a good deal like a Franciscan (Z^ moyne noir en gris). The queen
was dressed in white, and Madame Campan, in her " Memoires dr
Marie Antoinette" (ii. 150), relates that after the arrest the queen's
hair grew white in a single night, and that she had a lock of this
white hair mounted in a ring for the Princesse de Lamballe, inscribed
" blanchis par le malheur^ She was, like Niobe, turned to white stone
— ia pierre I'lanche mdo^d.. £s/eu Cap. inyolves a propriety most
peculiar, which demands a slight insistencCy lest ti- Ka o« a<l

The title of King of the French, in8t<^
established since October ti

6io The Gentle^ians Magazine.

following the above arrest, that the decree was passed forcing the
king to surrender to the will of the people and become a constitu-
tional monarch. This he submitted to and signed on Sept 14, and
thus he became EsUu Cap. Finally, the word tranche is most ex-
pressive for the slice, or what is now called the cauperet of the
guillotine. Thus painfully disentangled by us, the gibberish has
grown quite fearfully intelligible, and one or two of the words become
so singularly select, and so pregnant with meaning, as to suggest
pages of history in the condensation of a syllable. Here again we
find a dark record flashing upon us with all the certainty of an eye-
witness, and we find it to have been unmistakably in type more than
200 years before the realisation took place.

The next we cite is even still more astonishing. After troublesome
investigation, it enables us to lift the veil and clear away the multi-
form obscurities that the indolent have heretofore presumed to be
but the empty jargon of a fortune-teller.

I^ part soluz, roary sera mitr^

Retour : conflict passera sur le thnille,

Par cinq cents : un trahyr sera tiltr^

Narbon : et Saulce par couteaux avons d*huille.

{Century ix., qiuUrain 34.)

The husband, alone, afflicted, will be mitred on his return ; a conflict will take
place at the Tuilcries by five hundred men. One traitor will be tilled, Narbonne,
and (the other) Saulce, grandfather, oilman, will (hand him orer) to the soldiery.

This has to be filled in as follows : Louis XVI., now alone, that
is to say, without his wife, will suffer the indignity of being crowned
with the red cap of Liberty. A revival this was of the Phrygian bonnet
or head-gear of the priests of Mithras, hence the word mitre. The
500 Marseillais brought from the southern city attack the Tuileries.
The titled traitor is the Count de Narbonne, the minister of war.
The other name, glimmering suddenly out of the obscurity, as a star
through the storm -wrack of a dark night, is that of Saulce (father,
son and grandson) the elder, tradesman of Varennes, chandler,
grocer, oilman. The elder was proaireur-syndic of his commune.
This man betrayed the king to the populace, so that he was arrested
par couteaux by the guards. Some read this,/^r custodes ; or it may
mean coustiller, armed with a coustille^ a short straight cutlass.
Avons is the old French for grandfather, avus.

Madame Campan (ii., 155) gives an account of their majesties
alighting at this grocery-shop of the Mayor of Varennes, Saulce^ who
could, had he wished it, have saved the king. But this false-weight

Nostradamus, 6 1 1

parody of classic heroism^ in reply to the tears of the queen, striking
an attitude, ejaculated, " J'aime mon roi, mais je resterai fidele \ ma
patrie." For this the assembly voted him, some two months later,
20,000 livres, and, with these two scintillations illuminating him,
Saulce quits distinction and the public eye for ever. Un Brute
Franfais, qui aime Cesar bien^ mais plus encore le sang,

Thiers, in his account of the attack on the Tuileries, June 20,
1792 (**Rdvol. France.," ii. 15 2), draws a pathetic picture of the afflicted
king {mary mitre) in his sad day-dream and red night-cap. The palace,
of which he was no longer master, was evacuated about seven in the
evening by the populace peaceably and in good order. Then the
king, the queen, his sister, and the children, all met together, shed-
ding a torrent of tears. The king seemed stunned by what had
occurred, and now for the first time noticed that the red cap was
still upon his head : he seized it and flung it aside with indignation.

Carlyle, in his "French Revolution" (ii. 373, 1837), speaks of
Barbaroux's " six hundred Marsellese who know how to die," and a
few lines lower down he calls them "517 able men." Now Thiers
says ("R^vol. France.," ii. 235), they arrived on June 30, 1792, and
were five hundred men ("//y etaient cinq centT) We indicate this
for the benefit of such as desire to find Nostradamus wrong, and we
care nothing for Nostradamus, we only wish to find out what is right.
Those who like to examine the conduct of the Count de Narbonne,
we refer to Bertrand de Molleville's " Hist, de la Revolution."

We think this quatrain might lie dormant for centuries after
realisation — in fact, it practically has done so, since 1792 is little
short now of its centenary. It necessarily slept for more than 200
years before the event ; for, who could tell anything about the chance
rocket Saulce before it had risen parabolically and fallen back again ?
Or who could impart meaning to the part soluz^ to the mysterious
500, or the titled Narbonne ? Six miraculous historical details lay
perdus till time in two centuries should localise them, and, a hun-
dred years after that, ingenuity should bring them to light. That is
a patient way of prophesying, if you think about it. If a knave were
at work, his short wisdom would seek a nimbler return than 300
years would give him. "Now or never" is his maxim; a knave
knows he is quite a fool at long wisdom.

The thing is so crowded with compressed interest that we have
even now omitted a marvellous item : conflict passera sur U thuiile.
When Nostradamus wrote this ip
was occupied by extem
sprang. Catberin

6i2 The Gentle mans Magazine.

years before the mason had laid the first stone our prophet is writing
about it as a place to be stormed by a Marseilles mob two centuries
later.

Multiplying pages warn us that we must soon have done, not for
want of matter, for that might fill volumes with ample interest, though
possibly less intense than what we now pick out ; but space will fail
us, for a review can only shadow forth a work, not convey one.

Napoleon said he would have a page of history all to himself, and
it is true, like a great deal else that he said, though it proceed from
the mouth of the greatest falsifier that ever existed. Should any-
body think this too plain spoken, let him suspend condemnation
until he has read KMber^s letter, Napoleon's counter statement, and
Lanfrey*s comments on them both. The two first are given in full
m the nine- volume edition of the Memoires of Naix>leon dictated by
himself. Well, he has a p>age of history all to himself, and a precious
figure he cuts in it ; yet in historical proportion, as it is meet and
right it should be, he has a good many quatrains in Nostradamus " all
to himself;" for the reason above named we propose to give but one :

De soldat simple parviendra en empire,
De robbe courte parviendra k la longue :
Variant aux arroes, en eglise ou plus pire,
Vexer les prestres comme leau fait Tesponge.

{Cent, viii., piartain 57.)

From a simple soldier he will rise to empire,

From a short robe he will attain the long ;
Able in war, he shows to less advantage in Church government.

He vexes the priesthood like water in a sponge.

The French universally explain this of Napoleon, and it fits him
very well. But so analogous are the lives and career of Napoleon
and Cromwell that it might be applied to Cromwell, and Garenci^res
does so apply it Napoleon was plain lieutenant in 1785, consul
for life in 1799, emperor from 1804 to 1814. The short robe and
long are by Le Pelletier understood to be the consular robe and the
imperial. The broader interpretation is perhaps the better : the
girt-up military garb of action as contrasted with the long imperial
robe, typical of order, leisure and direction. We should observe
here that Nostradamus does not say parviendra d regner^ ascendra
sur le trdne^ but with felicity chooses the very word that will convey
the hint required ; kingship is over, but an empire is begun. He is
valiant in arms, but something out of his depth in theology and
church government : witness his ridiculous catechism, where school-
boys were taught to love, respect, and obey the emperor— that to
serve the emperor was to honour and serve God bimseU (" il e^

Nosiradamus. 6 1 3

devenu I'oint du Seigneur^). Lanfrey remarks here (iii. 456) that
he makes God useful as gendarme. This is as ridiculous as his
ideas were upon literature. He once wrote to Crete!, " de faire faire
^ Paris des chansons '' to rouse enthusiasm, as the claque at a theatre
would. Risum teneatis ? When he said to Goethe, " Vous etes un
homme," how truly might not the poet have rejoined " Vraiment !
c*est ce que vous n'etes pas, Sire." Fancy Burns receiving an order
from the Home Office to write " Bannockburn,*' and send it back by
return on a halfpenny post-card. It would not have resulted in " Do
or die " — the sole alternative being to die, and not to do it.

But, though far from successful in ecclesiastical direction, he
thoroughly vexes the priesthood, penetrating into every hole and
corner, as water does into a sponge.

In century L, quatrain 88, we get a wonderful passage.
Nostradamus says, Le divin mal surprendra le grand Prince a little
before his marriage. We take this to mean the Austrian marriage,
which was preceded by the divorce of Josephine. His prop and credit,
it runs on, shall fall into a sudden weakness and then comes this
tremendous sentence :

CoDseil mourra pour la teste rasee.
Counsel shall perish from this shaven poll.

Garenciferes (who was a doctor, and admitted of our College of
Physicians, then in Warwick Lane, or in the original stone house of
Knightrider Street before that) could have, of course, no conception
of the historical fulfilment, but he renders le divin mal as " the
falling sickness, called by the Greeks epilepsia^ and by the Latins
morbus sacer'^ Nobody else, perhaps, has rendered it " epilepsy,"
but, thus put, the forecast becomes miraculous. It is a point to
rewrite history upon, for history has failed to see this great fact.
Herod was smitten, rejoicing to be called a god. Napoleon the
same in his concocted catechism.

Napoleon, Cromwell, Mahomet, Caesar, and probably Alexander,
were all epileptic. Ihe moral crime, and the blasphemous egotism
of this idolator de mon Uoile^ have now convulsed the mighty Leyden
jar, or electric battery, of this brain and demon- force that has so
mercilessly dealt torpedo shocks to Europe. The Corsican cerebral
pap is a weakened centre now ; the inner prop is gone ; phantasms
huger than ever visit the big brain, which itself is readier than ever
to entertain them, but with a terribly diminished ^
them to any practical evolution. Tb''
Byron's "little Pagod." Bcr»*

6i4 The Gentleman s Magazine,

logical sense of the word, here was the sentence of le divin w<7/ quietly
jotted down in Salon de Craux, and recorded two hundred and fifty
years before against the name of the epileptic bandit of Corsica
Apollyon — or Napoleon, for those who like the recent form better.

This brings us to the end, not of what has to be said, but of
the space to say it in, and there is no room left to give the life of our
seer, nor to vindicate him from the baseless charges of imposture that,
from the issue of his first almanac till now, have from time to time
been hurled at him. Whether a vindication be now needed or not,
after the little we have here exhibited, is a question. Probably it is,
for folly dies hard, but that will be seen later on. We have no
theory about this man, we leave it to better hands to supply one.
What we do say is : here are facts so far as we can, after no stint of
drudgery, either see or arrive at them, and there are thousands more
producible as startling as these — very many more, less so, but still
inexplicable. These very facts, first of all, we hope to see disputed,
or better interj^reted, for we feci sure, from the trouble we have taken
already, that wider research will only end in establishing our oracle
the more by giving data that may help to open up the Quatrains
whose sense is latent still.

We have now a word to say that may at first sight appear
irrelevant, but we intend to wind up with it. The Rev. Richard
Warner ('* Lit. Recol." i. 212) asked Warren Hastings, touching the
jugglers in India, whether he had ever witnessed any of their feats
which he could not account for on the principles usually employed to
explain them. Warner referred to their extraordinary performances,
sleights of hand, and general deceptive skill. Mr. Hastings replied
by telling one very remarkable story of a conjurer who brought in a
large empty wicker basket, which he showed to be perfectly empty ; he
inverted it with the opening to the ground ; after incantations " and
jabberings " he raised it : a little black woman was seen sitting. She
rose, danced, rushed out of the tent and was seen no more. He
added that he would not relate such matters in general society, lest he
should be suspected oi credulity. This is a brave man for the Governor-
( General of India ! What credulity ? we ask. Believing his own eyes?
Then seeing is not believing— and there we leave it aH. Had the
Apostles gone upon the principle of testifying only to what mankind
were willing to accept as credible, we suppose — why, that St. Peter's
and St. Paul's would never have been built.

C A. WARD.

6i5

THE G ROACH: A LEGEND OF

BRITTANY.

GEOLOGISTS tell us that, when the rigour of the Glacial age
first began to give way beneath the influence of a more genial
temperature, and the Fauna and Flora of the earlier period were
driven ever more and more northward by the advancing flood of
wannth and light, some tribes retreated, like the conquered clans of
a savage race, to the mountain tops and lofty plateaux and rugged
places of the earth, where their descendants yet remain, in spots
separated from one another by hundreds or even thousands of miles,
but testifying, by their common form and structure, to the days when
their ancestors bore undisputed sway over the vast tracts now occupied
by the more successful invaders. So, too, in the intellectual world,
while the beliefs and superstitions of early man have ever been
gradually retreating before the rising tide of progress and civilisation,
many of the primaeval faiths and traditions of the human race
have found a refuge in spots lying out of the Stunn und Drang oi
modem life, and there survive, even to the present day, bearing
witness, by the remarkable resemblance which they bear alike to one
another and to the beliefs and thought of the more backward
peoples, to the essential unity which pervades the constituent
elements of human thought throughout the world.

In yet another respect does the parallel hold good, which we have
attempted to draw between the physical and intellectual kingdoms.
As, in the former, relics of the bygone order of things are found,
ever and anon, imbedded in the later drift, or protected by the
superincumbent strata of more recent formations, akin to some of
the species yet existing in the isolated corners of the earth, so, too,
in the realm of thought, we find, in the very heart of civilised society,
rites and customs and superstitions which can evidently claim a
common origin both with the present day mythologies of the savage
races and with the Pagan systems of antiquitir.
ancient literature and in the traditioDA '
sophisticated districts of the mar

6i6 T/ie Gentleman s Magazine.

We have compared the march of progress and enlightenment to
that of a genial warmth ; such, in the main, it has indisputably been.
No good, however, is altogether unmixed; the sun himself parches as
well as nourishes, and draws up, not only fertilising moisture, but also
noxious vapours. And so, while it is to the sun of culture that we
owe the stately forests, resonant with song, the brilliant flowers, and
the luxuriant vegetation of religion, philosophy, literature and the
arts, this same sun has likewise given birth to the poisonous weeds
which flourish so rankly in our great cities, and has scorched up vast
tracts of our daily life into an arid desert of mechanism and conven-
tionality, and has, at the same time, killed off many of the fresh
growths which flourished in the shade of calmer and more restful, if
colder and poorer, times. And when we come across the abodes of
old-world myth and legend which yet exist in some out-of-the-way
nooks of Europe, it is with something of the feelings of exhilaration
and refreshment which the traveller experiences who ascends out of
a dry and sandy waste, or rank and stifling swamp, into the bracing
air of the ancient hills, whose sides are clothed with fresh green
mosses and fragrant heather.

None of these patches of old world vegetation are brighter and
greener than those which are yet to be found, though rapidly be-
coming more circumscribed in extent, in the lands peopled by the
Celtic race. The mountains and islands of western Ireland, the
Scottish Highlands, and the rocky sea-board of Brittany, have not
yet wholly succumbed to the prosaic influence of the steam engine
and Elementary Education Acts, but still preserve a considerable
wealth of picturesque fable and tradition. These popular literatures
differ among themselves, according to the genius of the various
peoples inhabiting the localities in which they flourish. Thus, the
Irish legends are sometimes characterised by a bright and pkivful
humour, sometimes animated by a deep and touching jxithos, but
nearly always possess a refined and truly artistic beauty of their own;
the Highland superstitions are generally of a wild and weird, some-
times of a gloomy and savage, cast. Welsh literature is marked by
boldness and vividness of conception, and a luxuriant and even ex-
travagant wealth of fancy and invention ; while the gruesome element
frequently predominates in Breton folk-lore, which is also deeply
tinged by the superstitious, though sincere, devotion of the people.
Still, among all these various groups a strong family likeness is dis-
cernible; and not only so, but the ancient Celtic traditions as a whole
are full of striking, even startling, resemblances to the myths of other
^\aU0V\s of the East a^nd of the West, civilised and savag;ey andoit

The Groach : a Legend of Brittany. 6 1 7

aiid modern. To trace and classify these resemblances and affinities
even in the most superficial manner would require, not an article, but
a volume, and that a bulky one ; nevertheless, a single specimen will
enable us to form some idea of the manner in which the myths and
Mdrchen of the world touch and overlap each other. Accordingly,
we propose first to relate in its entirety the naive and graceful Breton
legend of the " Groac'h of the lie du Lok," following the version of
M. Emile Souvestre, and then to attempt to trace its pedigree through
the various lines, so to speak, and to prove its kinship with sundry
legendary families of world-wide diffusion.

In the first place, however, it may not be superfluous to state what
manner of being a Groac'h is, as possibly she is not familiar to all
our readers. The word Groac'h^ or Grachy signifies, according to
M. Souvestre, an old woman, and was applied originally to the druid-
esses who had a college in an island off" the Breton coast, and then
came to designate any fairy dwelling amid the waters. In the follow-
ing story, as will be seen, the Groac'h appears as a young and beautiful
water-sprite, of malignant disposition — a siren without the feathers, or
a mermaid without the scaly appendage. This much being premised,
to our story.

Once upon a time, when miracles were of every-day occurrence,
there dwelt in the parish of Lanillis — where have ever flourished,
besides hay and corn, orchards which bear apples sweeter than the
honey of Sizun, and plum-trees, all of whose blossoms come to fruit,
while all the marriageable girls are virtuous, and good housekeepers,
if we may believe what their parents say — in this favoured parish of
Lanillis, we repeat, dwelt a young man called Houarn Pogamm, and
a young girl called Bellah Postik. In their earliest infancy their
mothers had brought them up in the same cradle, as is the custom
of the country to do with such children as are intended some day to
become, with God's permission, man and wife, and, as they grew up,
they loved one another with all their hearts. But their parents came
to die, leaving the two orphans destitute ; so these, to earn their
bread, entered into the service of the same master, where they might
have been happy, but that the hearts of lovers are like the sea, which
makes perpetual moan.

" If only we had the money to buy a little cow, and a lean pig to
fatten," said Houarn, " I would rent a bit of land of the master, and
the priest should marry us, and we would go and live together."

" Ah," said Bellah, with a deep sigh, " but the times are so hard !
Pigs and cows went up at the last fair of ^'' »"! For

certain, God no longer troubles 1

6i8 Tlu Gentleman s Magazine,

**rm afraid we shall have to wait a long time," the yotmg
fellow went on \ *' it*s never my luck to finish the bottles, when
Fm drinking with my friends at the inn.'

*'A very long time," replied Bellah, **for I have not once been
able to hear the cuckoo sing."

Now, he whose turn it is to finish a bottle will be married before
the year is out, and the maiden who hears the cuckoo will be married
before the next winter.

This state of things went on, until at length Houam lost all
patience, and, going to Bellah, who was winnowing com on the
threshing floor, announced his intention of setting out in the world
to seek his fortune. Bellah was sorely grieved by these tidings, and
did her best to dissuade him, but Houam had a will of his own and
would not listen to her.

"The birds," he said, " fly straight before them until they reach
a corn-field, and the bees until they come to a flower-bed, and shall
a man have less reason than these winged creatures? I, too, will go
on until I come across the money to buy a little cow and a lean pig.
If you love me, Bellah, do not oppose a plan which must hasten our
marriage."

Bellah comprehended that a wilful man must go his own way, so
she submitted, although her heart failed her, and she said —

**(lo, then, in God's keeping, since go you must, but I will first
share with you the best part of my inheritance."

So she took the young man to an old chest that belonged to her,
and took out a bell which had belonged to St Kol^dok,* and
sounded of its own accord whenever its possessor was in peril, so as to
give his friends warning thereof; and a knife once worn by St Coren-
tin,2 which possessed the property of releasing all persons and things
from the spells of evil spirits ; and a staff which St Vouga' used

• It is also slated of the bell of St. Kolcdok, or St. Kc, that it rang of its
own accord at the spot where the saint was to establish his hermitage.

' St. Corentin was another hermit, near whose al>ode was a fountain, wherein
lived a fish endowed with the marvellous property of becoming whole again,
however much the magic knife of the saint might cut away from him. This story
seems akin to the Irish legends attached to the Holy Wells, many of which arc
inhabited by a trout which is under the special protection of the patron saint of
the well. I am not aware that any of these trout served as food to their respective
saints, as did St. Corcntin's fish, but several of them appear to have shared the
latter's tenacity of life ; for when caught and wounded, and even half-grilled,
they have succeeded in cflfccting their escape and getting back to their well.

* St. Vouga appears to have been addicted to rather eccentric modes of loco-
motion. He crossed the sea upon a rock, as St. Brandon did upon an icebeig,
in Matthew Arnold's beautiful poem. So, too, the Algonquin culture-deity,
Glooskap, crossed the ocean on a floating island, or in a stone canoe. The stOM
canoe is o( (itqutuV. occvrntti^ vol North- American Indian vytlu

The Groach : a Legend of Brittayty, 6 1 9

to carry, and which would bear its owner whithersoever he would,
fiellah gave her over the* knife for his protection, and the bell to
give her warning of any evil that might befall, but herself kept the
staff, that she might have the means of coming to him in time of
need.

Houarn thanked her for her gifts, and the two wept together for
a while, after the manner of parting lovers, but neither exhorted each
other to constancy, for each had faith in the other's truth. Houarn
then set out for the mountains, but, in every village through which he
passed, he was assailed by a crowd of beggars, who took him for a
lord, because he boasted a sound pair of breeches.

" Faith 1 " said he to himself, " in this country Til sooner be
spending than making a fortune ; I must go farther afield."

At length he reached the coast, and came to Pontaven, a pretty town,
standing upon a river, whose banks are planted with poplars. There,
as he was sitting at the inn-door, he heard two salt-makers conversing,
as they loaded their mules. They were speaking of the " Groac'h of
the tie du Lok," and in reply to Houarn's question, they told him
that she was a fairy, who dwelt in a lake in the largest of the Gl^nans,
and was said to be as rich as all the kings in the world put together ;
but, though many people had repaired to her abode in search of her
treasures, none had ever returned.

Houarn straightway resolved to go thither himself, and try his
luck. The muleteers did all they could to dissuade him, but in vain ;
they then raised the neighbourhood upon him, calling upon all good
Christians to restrain the hot-headed young man, who was bent upon
running to his ruin. Houarn thanked the good people for the interest
they took in his safety, and readily consented to abandon his enter-
prise if only they would find him the wherewithal to buy a little cow
and a lean pig. This immediately cooled the ardour of the worthy
people, who suffered him to proceed, muttering that a wilful man
must have his own way.

Houarn went down to the shore and got a boatman to ferry him
over to the lie du Lok, in the middle of which he found a pool, sur-
rounded by marish plants covered with rosy blooms. At the end of
this little lake he espied, beneath a clump of broom, a little sea-green
skiff in the form of a sleeping swan, with its head under its wing,
floating upon the placid waters.

Houarn wondered at this sight, the like of which he had never
beheld ; he stepped on board the skiff, the better to examine it, when
lo ! the swan suddenly awoke, raised its head, \^
vigorously with its broad feet| and d»v<

620 The Gcntlemaii s Magazine.

uttered a cry of terror, and was about to jump off and swim for his
life, when the swan plunged his beak into the water and dived, drag-
ging the young man with him. Houarn, unable to open his mouth,
for fear of letting in the stagnant water of the pool, suffered himself
to be borne along in silence, until he reached the dwelling of the
Groac'h.

This was a palace, built of pearly shells, fairer than the mind can
fancy. In front of it was a flight of cr>'stal stairs, made in such won-
drous fashion that each one, as the foot touched it, sang like a wood-
lark. All round stretched vast gardens, where grew forests of ocean
plants, and lawns of green sea-weed, pied with diamonds and rubies
instead of flowers. In the first apartment the Groac'h lay, reclined
upon a golden couch. She was clad in a robe of sea-green silk,
floating and undulating like a wave ; her black hair, entwined with
sprays of coral, fell to her feet ; her eyes were like two dark rock-pools,
wherein the moon is mirrored, and in her face the delicate white and
rose were mingled as in the inside of a sea-shell.

Houarn stopped short, dazzled by so much beauty, but the Groac'h
rose and advanced towards him with a smile, and her step was as
light and graceful as a white-topped billow coursing towards the land.

" Welcome ! " said she, making a sign to the young j)easant to
enter ; " there is always room for strangers, especially for such hand-
some youths as you. What is your name, whence come you, and
what do you want ?" resumed the (Iroac'h, as the young man entered
somewhat reassured.

" My name is Houarn ; I come from Tanillis, and I am seeking
the wherewithal to buy a little cow and a lean pig."

" Very well, Houarn," replied the fairy, " come in and trouble
yourself no more, for you shall have all your henrt can desire."

She then led him into a second hall, wainscoted with pearls,
where he was served with eight kinds of wine, in eight goblets of
embossed silver. Houarn tasted the eight kinds of wine, and found
them so good that he drank eight goblets of each kind, and at every
draught the Groac'h appeared lovelier than at the preceding. She
encouraged him to drink, telling him that he need not be afraid of
ruining her, for the pool communicated with the sea, and all the
shipwrecked treasures were borne to her palace by a magic current.

"By my soul ! " said Houarn, who was getting elatd by the wine,
" I don't wonder the folk speaking ill of you ; such great riches
always excite jealousy. For my part, I should be satisfied with half
your wealth."

" It is yours, if you choose," said the fairy ; " my husband, the

The Groac'h: a Legend of Brittany. 621

korandon,' has left me a widow, and, if I am to your liking, I am
ready to many you."

Houam was dumbfounded. He, a peasant, whose life had hither-
to been spent in tending the pigs and following the plough, whose
diet had been black bread and sour cider, and whose bed was on the
Straw, to wed this lovely spirit, who dwelt in so magnificent a palace,
and was so rich that she could treat her guests to eight kinds
of wine, without limit as to quantity ! His troth, no doubt, was
plighted to Bellah ; but then men so easily forget details of this
kind, wherein they strongly resemble women, so he politely replied
that it was impossible to refuse the fairy anything, and that he would
be proud and happy to become her husband.

The Groac'h then said that she would get supper ready, and
straightway spread a table with all manner of viands that Houarn had
ever heard of, and many more beside. She then went to a fish-pond
at the bottom of the garden, and there began to call out, " Ho, there !
notary 1 miller ! tailor ! chorister ! " and at each summons a fish
swam up, which she caught in a net of steel, until the net was full,
and then she went into an adjoining room and cast all the fish into
a golden frying-pan.

Now Houarn bethought him that, amid the crackling of the fry,
he could hear little voices whispering. " ^Vho's that whispering under
the golden frying-pan ? " he asked.

" It's only the wood cracking," replied the fairy, poking the fire.

But a moment afterwards, the murmuring of little voices again
arose. " What's that murmuring ? " he asked.

" Only the fry caught," she said, turning the fish. But next instant,
the little voices cried out louder than ever.

" Who is it that keeps on crying out ? " he demanded.

" The cricket on the hearth," replied the fair>', and began to sing
so loud, that nothing more could be heard.

But all that he had heard caused the young man to reflect ; he
felt a thrill of fear, and fear gave rise to remorse. " Holy Mary ! "
he thought, "can I already have forgotten Bellah for a Groac'h, who
must be a child of the devil ! With her, I shall never dare to say
my prayers, and 1 am bound for hell, as sure as a pig-wormer."'

While these melancholy reflections were passing through his mind
the fairy had set the fry om. the table and pressed him to eat, while

' The Kwandan U a liuie dwufith iprile, like the G«niiui AdAhV, or (he
Irish Ltpnthaun or Fear Derri^.

' The Bision legendj arc MnenliiTy uninimeioi In »i«igning 0,;^ unpl«un(
fcle lo the unforlunaie inemhl" '" ' ■■.--—.

VOL. CCLXIX. JK>. I

622 The Gentleman s Magazine*

she went for a dozen fresh kinds of wine. Houam drew out his knife
with a sigh, and addressed himself to the meal, for it is only in novels
and romances that people in love or in sorrow can do without eating,
and ours is a plain unvarnished statement of facts. No sooner, how-
ever, had he touched the fish with the knife that dissolved all en-
chantments, than they all stood upright, and assumed the form of
little men, each in the costume of his condition. There was a notary
in his bands, a tailor in violet stockings, a miller all over flour, and a
chorister in his surplice, and they all cried out at once, as they swam
about in the grease, "Save us, Houam, if you would be saved
yourself"

" Holy Virgin ! " exclaimed the astounded peasant, " who are
these little men floundering in the melted butter?"

" We are Christians, like yourself," they replied ; " we, too, came
to the isle to seek our fortunes ; we, too, married the Groacli, and,
on the morrow of our nuptials, she treated us as she had treated our
predecessors, who are in the great fish-pond."

"Wliat!" cried Houam, "can a woman who looks so young
already be the widow of so many fishes ? "

" Yes, and you will soon be in the same plight, ready to be
cooked and eaten by the next comers."

Houam gave a bound, as though he already felt himself in the
golden frying-pan, and mshed towards the door, only bent on effect-
ing his escape before the Groac'h returned. But she had come in,
meanwhile, and heard all. She cast her steel net over the young
man's head, and straightway he became a frog. The fairy then took
him to the fish pond, where were assembled all her former husbands.

At this moment, St. Kol^dok's bell, which Houam wore about his

neck, rang of its own accord. Bellah heard it as she was skimming

the evening's milk ; her heart stopped its beating for a moment, but

she soon regained courage. Without stopping to ask aid or advice

of anyone, she hastily put on her Sunday clothes, her new shoes and

silver cross, took the magic staff of St. Vouga and sallied forth.

Arrived at the cross-roads, she planted the staff in the earth, and

said :

Now bethink thee of St. Vouga ;

Guide me, crabstick, guide me onward.

O'er earth, through air, across the waters,

Till I come to where my love is.

Straightway the staff was changed into a red mule, cuny-combed,
saddled and bridled, with a bow of ribbon over each ear, and a Uue
plume in his ftontlet Bdlah mounted without hesitatioiL The

The Groach : a Legend of Brittany. 623

mule started ofT, first at a walk, then at a trot, then at a gallop, until
hedges and ditches, rocks and trees, houses and steeples, flew past
the young girl swift as a weaver's reel. Yet she kept on repeating to
the mule : " The swallow outstrips the horse, the wind outstrips the
swallow, the lightning outstrips the wind ; but thou, my mule, must
outstrip them all, for 'tis a part of my heart that is in pain, the best
part of my heart is in danger."

The mule understood and flew on, like a straw borne by the
hurricane, until he reached the foot of a rock in Arhbs, known as the
Stag's Leap, and there he stopped, for never horse or man had
mounted this rock. But Bellah again said :

Now bethink thee of St. Vouga ;
Guide me, crabstick, guide me onward,
O'er earth, through air, across the waters,
TiU I come to where my love is.

Whereupon two wings issued from the sides of her steed, who
became a great bird and carried her to the top of the rock. Here
she found a nest built of potter's clay and covered with moss,
wherein crouched a little black wrinkled korandon, who cried on
seeing her, " Here's the pretty girl that must save me."

" Save you ! " said Bellah ; " and who are you, my little man ? "

" I am Jeannik, the husband of the Groac'h of the tie du Lok,
who has banished me to this spot, whence I cannot escape until I
have hatched six stone eggs upon which I am sitting."

Bellah could not help laughing. " Poor dear little cock," she
said, " how can I deliver you ? "

" By delivering Houam from the power of the Groac'h."

"Oh ! tell me how I can do that," she cried, "and though I had
to go a pilgrimage on my knees through the four bishoprics, I would
begin at once."

" Well," said the korandon, " you must do two things ; first appear
before the Groac'h disguised as a young man ; then take away the
steel net which hangs at her girdle, and shut her up in it until the day
of judgment"

" But where can I get a suit of man's clothes to fit me, korandon,
dear ? "

" You shall soon know, my pretty maid."

So saying, the elf plucked off four of his red hairs and blew them
into the air, when they became four tailors ; the first bore a cabbage,
the second a pair of scissors, the third a needle, and the fourth a
goose. They all sat them down with their legs crossed, about
the nest, and set to work. Of one cabbage leaf they made a fine

624 The Gentleman s Magazine.

coat, quilted upon all the seams ; a second furnished a waistcoat, but
it took two to make a pair of wide Breton breeches. Finally, of the
heart of the cabbage they made a hat, and of the stem a pair of
shoes.

Bellah donned her new clothes --in which you would have taken
her for a nobleman, clad in a suit of green velvet, lined with white
satin— thanked the korandon, received his final instructions and
mounted her great bird, who carried her straight to the enchanted
island, and there resumed his original form of a crabstick. There
she found the magic bark, which bore her to the palace of the
Groac'h.

The latter was enraptured at the sight of her gaily-dressed visitor,
and exclaimed, " By Satan, my cousin, here is the handsomest fellow
that ever visited me, and I thmk I shall love him for thrice three
days." She then lavished a thousand caresses on Bellah, calling her
darling, and sweetheart, and offered her refreshments.

The girl found St. Corentin's knife upon the table, where Houara
had dropped it, and, picking it up for time of need, she followed
the Groac'h into the garden. Her hostess showed her the lawns
studded with the jewelled flowers, the fountains of lavender-water,
and, above all, the fishpond, wherein were swimming fishes of a
thousand hues.

Bellah pretended to be so delighted with the latter, that she sat
down on the edge of the pond, the better to observe them. The
Groac^h seized this opportunity of asking whether Bellah was willing
to abide with her for evermore. ** Indeed," said Bellah, "I ask
nothing better, if only I may fish for one of these pretty fish, with
that net you carry."

The Groac'h, who suspected nothing, handed her the net with a
smile, saying, " There, my handsome fisherman, let's see what you
will catch."

" I will catch the devil," cried Bellah, throwing the net over the
fairy's head ; "in the name of the Saviour of men, accursed sorceress
become in body even that which you are in soul ; " and the Groac'h,
unable to resist this puissant conjuration, was transformed from the
fairest of water-spirits into the most hideous queen of the toadstools.*
Bellah speedily disposed of her, by throwing her, net and all, into a
well, which she closed with a great stone, whereon she made the sign
of the cross, that the wicked witch might be unable to get out until
the day of judgment.

She then hastened back towards the fish-pond, but all the fish

' The Bretons call loa'lstools, ir*na d^'s crapauds.

The Groach: a Legend of Brittany. 625

came to meet her walking in procession like a company of speckled
monks, crying in their little hoarse voices, ** Hail to our lord and
master, who has rescued us from the steel net and golden frying-pan ! "

" And who will restore you to the form of Christians," said Bellah ;
and she drew forth the knife of St Corentin, when she espied a green
frog, with the magic bell about his neck, who knelt before her, sobbing
bitterly and clasping his little hands over his little heart.

" Is it thou, my poor Houarn, king of my joy and of my grief? "
she cried, and touched him with the magic knife. Houarn imme-
diately resumed his proper form, and the two embraced, weeping with
one eye for past sorrows and laughing with the other for the present
joy.

Bellah then restored all the other fishes to their own shape, which
was no sooner done than the little korandonofthe Stag's Rock appeared,
seated in his nest as in a chariot, and drawn by six cockchafers,
which he had hatched from the six stone eggs. When he saw Bellah,
he cried, " Thanks to you, my pretty maid, the spell is broken ; a
man again, and a cock no longer, I am come to prove my gratitude
to you."

He then led the lovers into the treasure rooms of the Groac*h,
which were filled with precious stones, and bade them help them-
selves. They did not need to be told twice, but filled their pockets,
their girdles, their hats, and even their wide Breton breeches. At
length, when they could slow away no more, Bellah ordered her staff
to become a winged car, large enough to take them back to Lanillis,
with all those whom she had rescued.

Arrived there, their banns were published^ and in due time they
were married, and all w^ent according to their original plans, except
that, instead of buying a little cow and a lean pig, they bought up
all the lands of the parish, and settled there, as farmers, the people
whom they had brought from the lie du Lok.

The foregoing legend may be compared to a triple rope, whose
three strands are represented by three of those world-myths, which
recur with such persistence in the traditions of every age and race ;
with each of these strands, again, other threads, of diverse colour
and texture, twine and mingle.

First of all comes the Circe myth, the story of an enchantress who
inveigles men into her power by her irresistible beauty, and then, by
her magic arts, changes them into some bestial form. A pendant
to the Grecian Circe is found in the Eastern Queen
Arabian Nights story of *' King Beder aM
She, it will be remembered, was to «

626

The GettlUmans Magi

every handsome stranger who visited her real
of him, when she transformed him into some :
morphoses play, as all are aware, a large
mythology. The power of the deities, sprites
form themselves or others into whatever shap
implicit credence among all uncivilised people;
even in Europe. The terrestrial, or rather aqi
the Groac'h dwelt, resembles the seducing
fascinating, but malignant, beings, both in
generally represented as inhabiting, and whicl
passed out of the Volismarcktn to find a pbo
such as the garden of Ariosto's Alcina, the bo'
Acrasia, the palace of Milton's Comus, and the
is the manner in which the spells of the Groac'h
lesponding dinouement in the other stories to
and to othersofthe same class. Bellah destn
securing her net, as the brothers in "Comus '
the magician's cup and wand. The sudden
lovely Groac'h into a hideous toad recalls
Alcina, in the "Orlando Furioso," from a bea
some hag, under the eflect of the magic rinj
Melissa. Bellah achieved her success undt
like most of the heroes and heroines in a sir
certainly, the little korandon is rather a grc
stately Hermes, who warned Odysseus against
ihe Fata Melissa, or the spirit in Milton's " G

The episode of the (ish talking in the fryir
similar mcident in the "Story of the Young H
in the Arabian Nights, where the inhabitants <
transformed Into fishes by a malignant encha
tish, being caught, were sold to the Sultan,
frying-pan, demeaned themselves in somewha
of the lie du Lok.

The second strand of our rope consists of
Parizadc myth, after the heroine ofanother.\r;
namely, of " The Two Sisters who were je;
Sister," In it, two brothers set out, one after
the talking bird, the singing tree, and the go
their neglect of the instructions they had re
were turned into stones. Their sister, the P
set out, achieved the object of the quest, and

p

I

The Groac'h : a Legend of Brillany

together with many other adventurers who had likewise fallen victims
to the enchantment.

There are many variants of this storj-. Sometimes, as in the
I'aiizade story, it is a sister who goes to the assistance of her brother;
sometimes, as in "The GroacTi," and the Gtrman story of " Jorinda
:ftnd Joringel " (Grimm), one lover rescues the other ; sometimes, as
the German stories of " The Two Brothers " and " The Gold
Children," it is a brother who succours his brother. It will be
noticed that the hero of this class ai Aliirchen is often, if we may so
speak, a heroine, the sterner sex frequently, though by no means in-
variably, preferring to fulfil their mission viet artnis.

The I'arizade myth resembles the Circe myth in its denouemtnt,
which is brought about by the last, and successful, adventurer van-
quishing the powers of evil, and setting free his, or her, less fortunate
predecessors.

The heroine of our story, as is usual with mythical adventurers,
was aided by the possession of various objects endowed with super-
natural virtue. In like manner similar magic properties were bestowed
by the gods upon several of the ancient Greek heroes, such as
Perseus and Jason. Indeed, the hero of myth, legend, or romance, is
seldom without some such token of the favour of a friendly deity,
mage, or fairy. This, no doubt, is a special development of the
ubiquitous belief in the efficacy of talismans and fetishes, which
ascribes to any object connected in some way or other with the higher
powers, a miraculous faculty of protecting its owner from malignant
influences, spiritual and lempmal. Such beliefs are siil! flourishing
in the very heart of civilised society. Few of us, probably, are un-
acquainted with someone who regards a stolen potato, a cork, or the
cramp- bone of a sheep as a prophylactic against rheumatism.or attaches
some mysterious importance to a rusty horse-shoe, a scrap of iron
which he, or, more probably, she, has picked up, or the like. The
innumerable, and, apparently, capricious superstitions of gamblers
are notorious. In our story, the ecclesiastical proclivities of the
Bretons are characteristically shown, by the fact of the magical articles
of which Bellah was possessed being the relics of three different
saints.

The bell of St. KoWdok, which gave warning to one lover of any
danger happening to the other, resembles the lurtjuoises, rubies,
opals, &c. of innumerable stories, which turn pale when their owner
is in jeopardy. In the Parijtade story, one brother gave his sister b
knife which showed spots of blood, the other a si*'
;uck together, in the like case, The safetv

628 TJie Gentleman s Magazine.

indicated by a ring, or a knife, in the Mdrchen of many countries ; a
flower, or a tree, answers the same purpose in German, Indian,
Persian, Italian, and Central American stories. Professor Max Miiller
(*• Chips from a German Workshop ") gives instances of a similar
belief existing at the present day. " When a Maori war party " he
says, '* is about to start, the priests set up sticks in the ground to
represent the warriors, and he whose stick is blown down is to fall in
the battle. In British Guiana, when young children are betrothed,
trees arc planted by the respective parties in witness of the contract,
and if either tree should happen to wither, the child it belongs to is
sure to die." In one aspect, however, the bell of St. Koledok differs
from articles endowed with a similar virtue in any story I have ever
met with. In all other cases, the departing one leaves the object
with his friend, to testify to his safety during his absence ; in our
story, however, Houarn took the bell with him, and it was by a
certain telegraphic process that it conveyed to Bellah the fact of her
lover's danger.

The knife of St. Corentin, which possessed the power of dissolv-
ing all enchantments, resembles the ring given by Melissa to Ruggiero
in Ariosto, to which allusion has already been made.

The staff of St. Vouga, which changed into a mule, may, possibly,
be co'.mected with the wooden horse in the Arabian Nights story of
the " Enchanted Horse." Moreover, in its successive transformations
into a mule and a bird, in the service of the heroine, it reminds us of
the friendly animals who so often assist the heroes of fairy tales.

The last of the three world-myths which furnish the main subject
of our story is that of the descent into Hades, to bring up thence a
lover or a friend : a class of which the stories of Orpheus and Eury-
dice, Psyche and Eros, Heracles and Theseus, are the best known
examples. Now there seems, at first sight, little to differentiate the
present story from the innumerable others, both in popular tradition
and chivalric romance, which hinge upon the deliverance of the
victims to some malignant spirit or enchanter, while the parallel between
the dive through the lagoon to the subaqueous jxilace of the Groac^h,
and the descents of Orpheus, Psyche, and Heracles to the shades,
may appear somewhat forced. I think, however, that it will not be
impossible to find certain connecting links, which will go far towards
establishing the relationship between these ver)' dissimilar traditions.
In the first place, there are very strong reasons for supposing that
the belief in the fairy folk is based upon a survival of ancestor-
worship ; Celtic legend, in particular, teems with instances which tend
to identify the fairies with the spirits of the dead, or with the powers
of the underworld, vfhilc a descent into the subterranean abodes of the

The Groac'h; a Legend of Brittany. 629

fairies by a husband or a lover, to recover the bride whom they had
stolen from him, is not of unfrequent occurrence.*

Passing now to a series of stories which bear more directly uix)n
our hypothesis, we read, in the Irish tale of " The Soul Cages," of a
fisherman, who, being invited to the submarine abode of a " merrow,"
or merman, saw there a number of lobster-pots, wherein were im-
prisoned the souls of shipwrecked mariners. Struck with compassion
for these unfortunate spirits, the fisherman gave his entertainer a
return invitation, made him drunk with potheen^ and then repaired
to his abode and released the imprisoned souls, who escaped, whist-
ling and squeaking like the ghosts of Penelope's suitors in the Odyssey.
Indeed, whistling seems to be the universal language among the
ghosts ; it is thus that the medicine men of many savage nations
discourse with the spirits raised by their incantations.^

Returning to our subject, we find, it is true, nothing in the Irish
story to clearly identify the abodes of these water-spirits with the
infernal regions. A Magdeburg story supplies the missing link. The
hero, one of the typical dreadnought class, goes to hell and enters
into the service of the devil, who sets him to work in the kitchen,
where he sees many pans in which souls are stewing. He, too, lets
out the captive souls, thereby incurring dismissal from the deviFs
service.

The connection of the German and Irish stories with one another,
and of both with the Breton legend of the Groac'h, is obvious. They
belong, moreover, to a large class of stories, which, in various forms,
were highly popular in the Middle Ages. A German story from '
Miinster tells how the Lord and St. Peter once visited a man named
Hans Lustig, who had once been rich, but had gambled away all his
fortune. In return for his hospitality, he was allowed the usual three
wishes, one of which was for a pack of cards which would enable

* One feature in the Theseus myth possesses a curious parallel in Irish legend.
Once the Fenian knights, with the exception of Finn and his son Oscar, were
entrapped by a magician, who by virtue of his arts, fixed them to their seats.
They were rescued from this predicament by Oscar, who, however, in the case
of one of the knights, neglected the proper form of disenchantment, so that the
unfortunate knight had to be dragged away by main force, leaving the skin of his
thighs, &c., behind him, as did Theseus when Heracles dragged him from the
stone in Hades, to which he had been fastened in punishment of bis attempted
rape of Persephone.

' As is well known, one of ihe chief functions of the savage sorcerer is *' rain-
making," or otherwise exerting an influence over the weather. Possibly, then,
the nautical superstition of whistling for a wind took its rise from a practice of
conversing in this manner with the spirits of the elements. It is, however, more
probable that the cusom originated in the common notion of like being magictlljr
produced by like.

630 The Gentleniafis Magazine.

him always to win. After many adventures which belong to a differ-
ent class oiMdrchen from that which we are now considering, he died.
He first went to heaven, where he was refused admittance. He
then went to hell, where he challenged the devil to play with him for
souls. His lucky cards stood him in good stead ; he won a hundred
souls, with whom he returned to the gate of heaven, but was still
refused admittance. He then went back to hell, where he won yet
another hundred souls, and yet again tried his luck at heaven's gate.
He met with no better success than before, but, in compliance with
his entreaties, St Peter opened the door, that Hans might catch a
glimpse of the glory within, whereupon Hans immediately threw in his
pack of cards. He then asked leave of St Peter to go in and fetch
them, but no sooner was he inside, than he sat down upon his cards,
whence, being upon his own property, he could not rightfully be
removed, so that he was perforce allowed to remain.

There is an old French fabliau of a very similiar description.
The hero of it, a troux^cur^ died and went to hell. One day all the
devils were away from home, except one who was left in charge.
To him the trouveur proposed a game at dice, to while away the time,
the stakes being the souls of the damned. Of course the trouveur
won, and escaped to heaven with his cortege of rescued souls.
Unless I am mistaken, iinoihtT fabliau tells of a /rt?«7^«r who carried
off the souls by fraud, a variation which draws still closer the con-
nection between these stories and the Breton, Irish, and Magdeburg
talcs before mentioned.

This third class of stories has points in common with the other
two, inasmuch as they all turn upon the deliverance of a brother,
lover, or friend from the wiles of some sort of ghostly enemy.

Thus we have seen how, in a simple Breton story, there are to be
found elements which it shares in common with the folk-tales of the
ancient Greeks, Hindus, and Persians, the French of the Middle
Ages, and the Irish and German peasantry, as also with the contem-
porary superstitions of the savages of America and New Zealand.
Nor is it only in the more general and widely diffused beliefs in
beings and powers of a superhuman, but subdivine nature ; nor yet,
again, in the broader ethical features of the story — the punishment
of intemperance and inconstancy, and the reward of courage and
enterprise, fidelity and devotion — that these marvellous resemblances
manifest themselves, but even in the subordinate and, apparently,
capricious play of fancy and invention, we find innumerable traces of
the workings of that common mind which bears so strong a testimonj
to the essential unity of the human race, at all times and in all
places. c s. boswell.

6u

OUR LAST BOOK-FIRES.

THE eighteenth century, which saw the abolition, or the be-
ginning of the abolition, of so many bad customs of the most
respectable lineage and antiquity, saw also the hangman employed
for the last time for the punishment of books. The custom of book-
burning, never formally abolished, died out at last from a gradual
decline of public belief in its efficacy, just as tortures died out, and
judicial ordeals died out, and, as we may hope, even war will die out,
before the silent disintegrating forces of increasing intelligence. As
our history goes on, one becomes more struck by the many books
which escape burning than by the few which incur it. The tale of
some of those which were publicly burnt during the eighteenth cen-
tury has already been told ; so that it only remains to bring together,
under their various heads, the different literary productions which
complete the record of British works thus associated with the memory
of the hangman.

After the beginning of the Long Parliamentthe House of Commons
constituted itself the chief book-burning authority ; but the House
of Lords also, of its own motion, occasionally ordered the burning
of offensive literary productions. Thus, on March 29, 1642, they
sentenced John Bond, for forging a letter purporting to be addressed
to Charles I. at York from the Queen in Holland, to stand on the
pillory at Westminster Hail door and in Cheapside with a paper on
his head inscribed with " A contriver of false and scandalous libels,"
the said letter to be called in and burnt near him as he stood
there.

On December 18, 1667, they sentenced William Carr, for dis-
persing scandalous papers against Lord Gerrard, of Brandon, to a fine
of ;^i,ooo to the King, and imprisonment in the Fleet, and ordered
the said papers to be burnt.

On March 17, 1697, a sentence of burning was voted by them
against a libel called " Mr. Bertie's Case, with some Remarks on the
Judgment Given Therein."

Sometimes they thought in this way to safeguard no^

632 The Gentleman s Magazine.

in general, or the honour of their House, but also the interests of
religion ; as when, on December 8, 1693, they ordered to be
burnt by the hangman the very next day a pamphlet that had been
sent to several of them, entitled "A Brief but Clear Confutation of the
Trinity," a copy of which possibly still lies hid in some private
libraries, but about which, not having seen it, I can offer no judg-
ment. At that time Lords and Commons alike disquieted themselves
much over religious heresy, for in 1698 the Commons petitioned
William III. to suppress pernicious books and pamphlets directed
against the Trinity and other articles of the Faith, and gave ready
assent to a Bill from the Lords " for the more effectual suppressing
of'atheism, blasphemy, and profaneness." But it would seem that
these efforts had but a qualified success, for on February 12, 1720,
the Lords condemned a work which, 'Mna daring, impious manner,
ridiculed the doctrine of the Trinity and all revealed religion," and
was called " A Sober Reply to Mr. Higgs' Merry Arguments from the
Light of Nature for the Tritheistic Doctrine of the Trinity, with a Post-
script relating to the Rev. Dr. Waterland." This work, which was the
last to be burnt as an offence against religion, was the work of one
Joseph Hall, who was a gentleman and a serjeant-in-arms to the
King, and in this way won his small title to fame.

By the beginning of the eighteenth centur}' the House of Lords
had come to assume a more active jurisdiction over the Press, Thus
in 1702 within a few days we find them severely censuring the
notorious Dr. Drake's " History of the last Parliament, begun 1700";
somebody*s "Tom Double, returned out of the Country ; or, The True
Picture of a modern Whig " ; Dr. Binke's violent sermon preached on
January 30, 1701, before the Lower House of Convocation; and a
pamphlet inviting over the Elector of Hanover. In the same month
they condemned to be burnt by the hangman a book entitled
" Animadversions upon the two last 30th of January Sermons : one
preached to the Honourable House of Commons, the other to the
Ix>wer House of Convocation. In a letter." They resolved that it
was **a malicious, villainous libel, containing very many reflections
on King Charles I., of ever blessed memory, and tending to the
subversion of the Monarchy.'

But the more general practice was for the House of Lords to seek
the concurrence of the other House in the consignment of printed
matter to the flames ; a concurrence which in those days was of far
more easy attainment over book-burning or anything else than it is
in our own time, or is ever likely to be in the future. It would also
seem that during the eighteenth century it was generally the House

Our Last Book-Fires. 633

of Ia)rds that took the initiative in the time-honoured practice of
condemning disagreeable opinions to the care of the hangman.

The unanimity alluded to between our two Houses was displayed
in several instances. Thus on November 16, 1722, the Commons
agreed with the resolution of the Peers to have burnt at the Exchange
the Declaration of the Pretender, beginning : ** Declaration of
James III., King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, to all his
loving Subjects of the three Nations, and to all Foreign Princes and
States, to serve as a Foundation for a Lasting Peace in Europe," and
signed "James Rex." In this interesting document George I. was
invited to quietly deliver up his possession of the British throne in
return for James' bestowal on him of the title of king in his native
dominions, and the ultimate succession to the same title in England.
The indignation of the Peers raised their effusive loyalty to fever
point, and they promptly voted this singular document **a false,
insolent, and traitorous libel, the highest indignity to his most sacred
Majesty King George, our lawful and undoubted sovereign, full of
arrogance and presumption, in supposing the Pretender in a condition
to offer terms to his Majesty ; and injurious to the honour of the
British nation, in imagining that a free Protestant people, happy
under the government of the best of princes, can be so infatuated as,
without the utmost contempt and indignation, to hear of any terms
from a Popish bigoted Pretender." But was it loyalty or sycophancy
that could thus transmute even George I. into "the best of princes"?

A less serious cause of alarm to their loyalty occurred in 1750,
when certain " Constitutional Queries " were " earnestly recommended
to the serious consideration of every true Briton." This was directed
against the Duke of Cumberland, of Culloden fame, who was in it
compared to the crook-backed Richard III. ; and it was generally
attributed to Lord Egmont, M.P., as spokesman of the opposition to
the government of George II., then headed by the Prince of Wales,
who died the year following. It caused a great sensation in both
Houses, though several members in the Commons defended it But
at a conference both houses voted it " a false, malicious, scandalous,
infamous, and seditious libel, containing the most false, audacious,
and abominable calumnies and indignities against his Majesty, and
the most presumptuous and wicked insinuations that our laws,
liberties, and properties, and the excellent constitution of this king-
dom, were in danger under his Majesty's legal, mild, and gracious
government "... and " that in abhorrence and detestation of such
abominable and seditious practices," it should be burnt in New Palace
Yard by the hangman on Januar}' 35. Even a reward

634 ^^ Gentleman s Magazine.

failed to discover the author, printer, or publisher of this paper, the
condemnation of which rather whets the curiosity than satisfies the
reason. I would shrink from saying that a paper so widely dis-
seminated no longer exists ; but even if it does not, its non-existence
affords no proof that in its time it lacked justification.

But what justification was there for George King, the bookseller,
who a few years later did a very curious thing, actually forging and
publishing a Royal speech — " His Majesty's most gracious Speech to
both Houses of Parliament on Thursday, December 2, 1756"?
Surely never since the giants of old assaulted heaven was there such
an invasion of sanctity, or so profane a scaling of the heights of
intellect ! What could the Lords do, being a patriotic body, but
vote such an attempt, without even waiting for a conference with
the Commons, " an audacious forgery and high contempt of his
Majesty, his crown and dignity," and condemn the forgery to be
burnt on the 8th at Westminster, andthree days later at the Exchange?
How could they sentence King to less than six months of Newgate
and a fine of ^50, though, in their gentleness or fickleness, they
ultimately released him from some of the former and all the latter
penalty ? Happy those who possess this political curiosity, and can
compare it with the speech which the King really did make on the
same day, and which, perhaps, did not differ remarkably from the
forged imitation.

The next book-fire to which history brings us is associated with
one of the most important and singular episodes in the annals of the
British Constitution. I allude to the famous North Briton^
No. 45, for which, as constituting a seditious libel, Wilkes, then
member for Aylesbury, was, in spite of his privilege as a member,
seized and imprisoned in the Tower (1763). We know from the ex-
periences of recent times how ready the House of Commons is to throw
Parliamentary or popular privileges to the winds whenever they stand
in the way of political resentment, and so it was in our fathers'
times. For, in spite of a vigorous speech from Pitt against a
surrender of privilege which placed Parliament entirely at the mercy
of the Crown, the Commons voted by 258 to 133 that such privilege
afforded no protection against the publication of seditious libels.
The House of I^rds, of course, concurred, but not without a protest
from the dissentient minority, headed by Lord Temple, which has
the true ring of political wisdom, and, like so many similar protests,
is so instinct with zeal for public liberty as to atone in some measure
lor the fundamental injustice of the existence of an hereditaij
chamber. They held it " highly unbecoming the dignity, giravitji

Our Last Book-Fires. 635

and wisdom of the House of Peers as well as of their justice, thus
judicially to explain away and diminish the privileges of their
persons," &c.

A few days later (December i) a second conference between the
two Houses condemned No. 45 to be burnt at the Royal Exchange
by the common hangman. And so it was on the 3rd, but not with-
out a riot, which conveys a vivid picture of those " good old " or
turbulent days ; for the mob, encouraged by well-dressed people from
the shops and balconies, who cried out, ■* Well done, boys ! bravely
done, boys ! " set up such a hissing, that the sheriflTs horses were
frightened, and brave Alderman Hurley with difficulty reached the
place where the paper was to be burnt. The mob seized what they
could of the paper from the burning torch of the executioner, and
finally thrashed the officials from the field. Practically, too, they
had thrashed the custom out of existence, for there were very few
such burnings afterwards.

Wilkes was then expelled from the House of Commons ; and the
same House, becoming suddenly as tender of its privileges as it had
previously been indifferent to them, passed a resolution, to which the
Attorney-General, Sir Fletcher Norton, was said to have declared
that he would pay no more regard than " to the oaths of so many
drtmken porters in Covent Garden," to the effect that a general
warrant for apprehending and seizing the authors, printers, and pub-
lishers of a seditious and treasonable libel was not warranted by law.
Such was the vaunted wisdom of our ancestors, that, having first
decided that there could be no breach of privilege to protect a
seditious libel, they then asserted the illegality of the very proceedings
they had already justified ! So that those are not altogether in the
wrong who deem that the chief glory of our Constitution lies in its
singular elasticity.

All the numbers of tlie North Britofiy especially No. 45, have
high interest as political and literary curiosities. Comparing even
now the King's speech on April 19, 1763, at the close of the seven
years' war, with the passage in No. 45 which contained the sting of
the whole, one feels that Walpole hardly exaggerated when he said
that Wilkes had given " a flat lie to the King himself" Perhaps so ;
but are royal speeches as a rule conspicuous for their truth ? The
King had said : " My expectations have been fully answered by the
happy effects which the several allies of my crown have derived from
this salutary measure. The powers at war with my good brother
the King of Prussia have been induced to agree tn « ' * « ^r
accommodation at that great prince has i

636 The Gentleman s Magazine.

which has attended my negotiation has necessarily and immediately
diffused the blessings of peace through every part of Europe."
Wilkes* comment was as follows: "The infamous fallacy of this whole
sentence is apparent to all mankind ; for it is known that the King of
Prussia did not barely approve, but absolutely dictated as conqueror,
every article of the terms of p>eace. No advantage of any kind has
accrued to that magnanimous prince from our negotiation ; but he
was basely deserted by the Scottish Prime Minister of England"
(Lord Bute). And, after all, that truth was on the side of Wilkes
rather than of the King is the verdict of history.

The House of Lords, soon after its unconstitutional attack upon
popular liberties in the case of Wilkes, showed itself as suddenly
enamoured of them a few months later, when Timothy Brecknock, a
hack writer, published his ** Droit le Roy," or a" Digest of the Rights
and Prerogatives of the Imperial Crown of Great Britain " (Febt
1764). Timothy, like Cowell in James I.'s time, favoured extreme
monarchical pretensions, so much to the offence of the defenders of
the people's rights, that they voted it "a false, malicious, and traitorous
libel, inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution to which we
owe the present happy establishment, and an audacious insult upon
his Majesty, whose paternal care has been so early and so effectually
shown to the religion, laws, and liberties of his people ; tending to
subvert the fundamental laws and liberties of these kingdoms and to
introduce an illegal and arbitrary power." The Commons concurred
with the Ix)rds in condemning a copy to the flames at Westminster
Palace Yard and the Exchange on February 25 and 27 respectively;
and the book is consequently so rare that for practical purposes it no
longer exists. Sad to say, the Royalist author came to as bad an
end as his book, for in his own person as well he came to require
the attentions of the hangman for a murder he committed in
Ireland.

The next work which the Lower House concurred with the Upper
in consigning to the hangman was " The Present Crisis with regard
to America Considered " (February 24, 1775) \ but of this book the
fate it met with seems now the only ascertainable fact about it It
appears to enjoy the real distinction of having been the last book
condemned by Parliament in England to the flames ; although that
honour has sometimes been claimed for the " Commercial Restraints
of Ireland," by Provost Hely Hutchinson (1779); a claim which wiD
remain to be considered after a brief survey of the works which in
Scotland the wisdom of Parliament saw fit to punish by fire.

The first order of this sort was dated November 16, 1700^ and

Our Last Book- Fires. 637

sentenced to be burnt by the hangm^ln at Mercat Cross, his
Majesty's " High Commission and Estates of Parliament."

In the same way was treated " A Defence of the Scots abdicating
Darien, including an Answer to the Defence of the Scots Settlement
there," and "a Vindication " of the same pamphlet, both by Walter
Herries, who was ordered to be apprehended. More interesting to
read would doubtless be a lampoon, said to reflect on everything
sacred to Scotland, and burnt accordingly, which was called ** Cale-
donia ; or, the Pedlar turned Merchant."

Dr. James Drake, whose " Memorial of the Church of England "
was burnt in England in 1705, published a work two years earlier
which stirred the Scotch Parliament to the same fiery point of in-
dignation. This was his " Historia Anglo-Scotica : an impartial
history of all that happened between the kings and kingdoms of
England and Scotland from the beginning of the reign of William
the Conqueror to the reign of Queen Elizabeth ''' (1703). This stout
volume of 423 pages Drake printed without any date or name, pre-
tending that the manuscript had come to him in such a way that it
was impossible to trace its authorship. He dedictated it to Sir Edward
Seymour, one of Queen Anne's commissioners for the then meditated
and unpopular union between the two kingdoms. It gave the
gravest offence, and was burnt at the Mercat Cross on June 30 for
containing " many reflections on the sovereignty and independence
of this crown and nation." But apart from the history that attaches
to it, one could hardly regard it with interest.

No less offence was given to Scotland by the English W^hig
writer William Attwood, whose "Superiority and Direct Dominion
of the Imperial Crown of England over the Crown and Kingdom
of Scotland, the true foundation of a compleat Union reasserted "
(1704) was burnt as "scurrilous and full of falsehoods," whilst a
liberal reward was voted to Hodges and Anderson, who by their
pens had advocated the independence of the Scotch crown. Ten
years later Attwood cdntributed another work to the flames, called
"The Scotch Patriot Unmasked (17 15)." Attwood was a barrister
by profession, a controversialist in practice ; writing against the
theories of Filmer and the Tories. He had a great knowledge of old
charters, and wrote an able but inconclusive answer to Molyncux*s
" Case for Ireland." He last appears as Chief Justice in New York,
where he became involved in debt and died.

In 1706 two works were condemned to the Mercat Cross:
(1) "An Account of the Burning of the Articles of Uuion

VOL. ccLxix. NO. 1920.

638 The Genttemafis Magaztni.

Dumfries " ; (2) " Queries to the Presbyterian Noblemen, Barons,
Burgesses, Ministers, and Commissioners in Scotland who are for the
Scheme of an Incorporating Union with England/'

To turn from Scotland to Ireland, it is stated in the preface to
the edition of 1770 that William Molyneux's "Case for Ireland
being bound by Acts of Parliament in England," first published in
1698, was burnt by the hangman at the order of Parliament ; and
the statement has been repeated by later writers, as by Mr. Lecky,
Dr. Ball, and others. But great doubt must attach to the fact, since
there is no mention of such a sentence in the journals of the
Commons, where a full account is given of the proceedings against the
book ; nor in Swift's "Drapier Letters," where he refers to the fate of
the **Caseof Ireland." This seems almost conclusive evidence on the
negative side ; but as the editor of 1770 may have had some lost
authority for his remark, and not been merely mistaken, some
account may be given of the book, as of one possibly, but not
probably, condemned to the flames.*

Molyneux was distinguished for his scientific attainments, was a
member of the Irish Parliament, first for Dublin City and then for
the University, and was also a great friend of Locke the philosopher.
The introduction in 1698 of the Bill, which was carried the same year
by the English Parliament, forbidding the exportationof Irish woollen
manufactures to England or elsewhere— one of the worst Acts of
oppression of the many that England has perpetrated against Ireland
— led Molyneux to write this book, in which he contends for the
constitutional right of Ireland to absolute legislative independence.
As the political relationship between the two countries— a relation
now of pure force on one side, and of subjection on the other— is
still a matter of contention, it will not be out of place to devote a
few lines to a brief summary of his argument.

Before 1641 no law made in England was of force in Ireland
without the consent of the latter, a large number of English Acts
not being received in Ireland till they had been separately enacted
there also. At the so-called conquest of Ireland by Henry II., the
English laws settled by him were voluntarily accepted by the Irish
clergy and nobility, and Ireland was allowed the freedom of holding
parliaments as a separate and distinct kingdom from England. So
it was that John was made King (or Dominus) of Ireland even in
the lifetime of his father, Henry II., and remained so during the

* In Notes and Queries for March 1 1, 1854, Mr. James Graves, of Kilkennj,
mentions as in his possession a copy of Molyneux^ considerable portions of
which had been consumed by fire.

Our Last Book- Fires. 639

reign of his brother, Richard I. Ireland, therefore, could not be
bound by England without the consent of her own representatives ;
and the happiness of having her representatives in the English
Parliament could hardly be hoped for, since that experiment had
been proved in CromwelFs time to be too troublesome and incon-
venient.

Molyneux concluded his argument with a warning that subse-
quent history has amply justified — "Advancing the power of the
Parliament of England by breaking the rights of another may in
time have ill effects." So, indeed, it has ; but such warnings or pro-
phecies seldom bring favour to their authors, and the English
Parliament was moved to fury by Molyneux's arguments. Yet the
latter, writing to Locke on the subject of his book, had said : " I
think I have treated it with that caution and submission that it cannot
justly give any offence ; insomuch that I scruple not to put my name
to it ; and, by the advice of some good friends, have presumed to
dedicate it to his Majesty. . . . But till I either see how the Par-
liament at Westminster is pleased to take it, or till I see them risen,
I do not think it advisable for me to go on t'other side of the
water. Though I am not apprehensive of any mischief from them,
yet God only knows what resentments captious men may take on
such occasions." (April 19, 1698.)

Molyneux, however, had not long to wait before he was unde-
ceived, for on May 21 his book was submitted to the examination of
a committee ; and on the committee's report (June 22) that it was
" of dangerous consequence to the Crown and people of England,
by denying the authority of the King and Parliament of England to
bind the kingdom and people of Ireland," an address was presented
to the King praying him to punish the author of such "bold and
pernicious assertions," and to discourage all things that might lessen
the dependence of Ireland upon England ; to which William replied
that he would take care that what they complained of might be
prevented and redressed. Perhaps the dedication of the book to
he King restrained the House from voting it to the flames ; but,
anyhow, there is no evidence of their doing so. Molyneux did not
survive the year of the condemnation of his book ; but, in spite of
his fears, he spent five weeks with Locke at Oates in the autumn of
the same year.

The whole history of the tyranny exercised over Ireland by
England during the eighteenth century no less justifies Molyneux's
remonstrance than it attests his wonderful foresight Hutchinson's
"Commercial Restraints of Ireland," published in 1779, and review-

640 The Gentleman s Magazine.

ing the progress of English misgovern ment, proved the correctness
of Molyneux's prognostications. " Can the history of any fruitful
country on the globe," he wrote, " enjoying peace for fourscore years,
and not visited by plague or pestilence, produce so many recorded
instances of the poverty and wretchedness and of the reiterated want
and misery of the lower orders of the people ? There is no such
example in ancient or modern history."

That a book of such sentiments should have been burnt, as
easier so to deal with than to answer, would accord well enough with
antecedent probability ; but, inasmuch as there is no such record in
the Commons' Journals, the probability must remain that Capt.
Valentine Blake, M.P. for Gal way, who, in a letter to the Times of
February 14, 1846, appears to have been the first to assert the fact,
erroneously identified the fate of Hutchinson's anonymous work with
the then received version of the fate of the work of Molyneux. The
rarity of the first edition of the "Commercial Restraints" may well
enough accord with other methods of suppression than burning.

**The Present Crisis," therefore, of 1774, must retain the distinc-
tion of having been the last book to be condemned to the public
fire; and with it a practice which can appeal for its descent to
classical Greece and Rome passed at last out of fashion and favour,
without any actual legislative abolition. When, in 1795, the great stir
was made by Reeve's "Thoughts on English Government," Sheridan's
proposal to have it burnt met with little approval, and it escaped
with only a censure. Reeve, president of an association against
Republicans and Levellers, like Cowell and Brecknock before him,
gave offence by the extreme claims he made for the English monarch.
The relation between our two august chambers and the monarchy he
compared to that between goodly branches and the tree itself : they
were only branches, deriving their origin and nutriment from their
common parent; but though they might be lopped off, the tree
would remain a tree still. The Houses could give advice and con-
sent, but the Government and its administration in all its parts rested
wholly and solely with the King and his nominees. That a book of
such sentiments should have escaped burning is doubtless partly due
to the panic of Republicanism then raging in England ; but it also
shows the gradual growth of a sensible indifference to the power of
the pen.

And when we think of the freedom, almost unchecked, of the
literature of the century now closing, of the impunity with which
speculation attacks the very roots of all our political and theological
traditions, and compare this state of liberty -with the servitude of

Our Last Book-Fires. 641

literature in the three preceding centuries, when it rested with arch-
bishop or Commons or Lords not only to commit writings to the
flames but to inflict cruelties and indignities on the writers, we
cannot but recognise how, proportionate to the advance we have
made in toleration, have been the benefits we have derived from it.
Possibly this toleration arose from the gradual discovery that the
practical cohsequences of writings seldom keep pace with the aim of
the writer or the fears of authority ; that, for instance, neither is
property endangered by literary demonstrations of its immorality, nor
churches emptied by criticism. At all events, taking the risk of con-
sequences, we have entered on an era of almost complete literary
impunity; the bonfire is as extinct as the pillory; the only fiery
ordeal is that of criticism, and dread of the reviewer has taken the
place of all fear of the hangman.

Whether the change is all gain, or the milder method more
effectual than the old one, I would hesitate to affirm. He would be
a bold man who would assert any lack of burnworthy books. The
older custom had perhaps a certain picturescjueness which was lost
with it It was a bit of old English life, reaching far back into
history — a custom that would have not been unworthy of the brush
of Hogarth. For all that we cannot regret it. The practice became
so common, and lent itself so readily to abuse by its indiscriminate
application in the interests of religious bigotry or political partisan-
ship, that the lesson of history is one of warning against it. Such a
practice is only defensible or impressive in proportion to the rarity of
its use. Applied not oftener than once or twice in a generation, in
the case of some work that flagrantly shocked or injured the national
conscience, the book-fire might have been retained, or might still
recover, its place in the economy of well -organised States ; and the
stigma it failed of by reason of its frequency might still attach to it
by reason of its rarity.

If, then, it were possible (as it surely would be) so to regulate
and restrict its use that it should serve only as the last expression of
the indignation of an offended community instead of the ready
weapon of a party or a clique, one can conceive its revival being
not without utility. To take an illustration. With the ordinary
daily libels of the public press the community as such has no con-
cern ; there is no need to grudge them their traditional impunity.
But supposing a newspaper, availing itself of an earlier reputation
and a wide circulation, to publish as truths, highly damaging to
individuals, what it knows or might know to be forgeries, the Im *
clearly been overstepped of the bearable liberty

642 The Gentlematis Magazine.

cause of the injured individual becomes the cause of the injured
community, insulted by the unscrupulous advantage that has been
taken of its trustfulness and of its inability to judge soundly where all
the data for a sound judgment are studiously withheld. Such an
action is as much and as flagrant a crime or offence against the
community as an act of robbery or murder, which, though primarily
an injury to the individual, is primarily avenged as an injury to the
State. As such it calls for punishment, nor could any punishment
be more appropriate than one which caused the offender to atone
by dishonour for the dishonour he sought to inflict. Condemnation
by Parliament to the flames would exactly meet the exigencies of a
case so rare and exceptional, and would succeed in inflicting that
disgrace of which such a punishment often formerly failed by very
reason of its too frequent application. A case in point would be the
notorious forgeries of the TimeSy when that journal published, with
no proper inquiry into their truth, letters purporting to be by Mr.
Parnell, which with no surpassing skill had been concocted by
Mr. Pigott : a case unapproached in the annals of the press for the
malice displayed. Fire, which would have purged the public con-
science from all complicity in the crime, would have had in this
instance only too abundant justification.

J. A. FARREJL

TABLE TALK.

A Parisian Experiment.

I HAVE before me, with the title of " Paris Vivant," the first issue
of the " Soci^t^ Artistique du Livre illustr^," * one of the most
remarkable of the numerous societies established during recent
years for the perfectioning of book illustration. The avowed aim of
those having charge of the experiment is to supply the amateur with
the most living picture obtainable of the Paris of to-day, or, to use
the current cant, of Paris fin de sikle. For the first number the
subject chosen is "Journalistic Life." In a series of admirably
executed designs the production and sale of Le Journal in Paris is
illustrated The etchings depict the political reporter, the process of
stereotyping, and the wholesale delivery of the newspaper. In the
text are innumerable designs by L. Moulignie, A. Lepbre, L. Tinayre,
and other young and promising artists, presenting the most familiar
phases of newspaper life. Here are the kiosque on the boulevard,
the street-crier, the camelots or salesmen huddling together for
warmth, and sleeping until the hour of the dispersal of the paper,
the editor's room, the interviewer, the military correspondent, and
the rest. A literary description of the life of the journal is furnished
by Clovis Hugues. For its own sake, and for the freshness and
spirit of its sketches, the volume is a desirable possession, and as
the issue is strictly limited, it will probably become a bibliographical
treasure. As an experiment, however, in the direction of co-operation,
it has further claim on attention. It is an effort on the part of
designers and engravers and their allies to dispense with all inter-
mediary assistance, and to appeal directly to the book-buying public.
No thought of interference cripples the writer or the designer. His
work has accordingly an unconventionality and a freedom which are
not the least attractions of the brochure. If not the only city in
which an experiment of this class can be tried, Paris is the sole place
in which it could have a chance of success. A dozen or so similar
works are promised by the Soci^t^, and are intended to convey the
true physiognomy of Parisian life of to-day.

Rabelais in London.

ONE of the last things to have been expected was the exhibition
in London of a series of pictures illustrating the work of the
inspired Cur^ of Meudon. Not seldom, however, the unexpected is
that which arrives. One hundred and sixty paintings i^i^*
the books of Gargantua and Pantagruel have

1 Paris: 4 Rue dcs Pettti O

644 ^^ GentUmayis Magazine.

London, and have met with a not too hospitable reception at the
hands of our authorities.

There is no need to undertake in the Gentleman^s Magazine the
defence of Rabelais, the task, superfluous as it ought to be, having
already been accomplished. A few words upon the paintings of the
late M. Jules Gamier may, however, serve as an appendix to what has
already been said. Of the illustrations I have seen these are the
best. All of Rabelais that is reproducible in them is reproduced.
The joyouslife of the Tourangeau, with its coarse prodigality of enjoy-
ment, is there ; the mirth and laughter are felt, and the whole work
is the accomi)lishment of a man steeped in his subject. It may
perhaps be urged that the atmosphere is that of the Garonne rather
than of the Loire, and that the types of face are Gascon rather than
Angoumois. This is of comparatively little consecjuencc. Objection
has been taken to the crudity of certain pictures. This, of course, is
inevitable. Some of the designs representative of bloodshed are
repulsive. For this, however, 1 fear warranty is found in Rabelais,
whose nature was not free from a touch of Latin ferocity. There is,
however, a commendable absence of caricature such as distinguishes
the work of M. RobiJa, and, indeed, that of most previous illustrators.
Except in one or two eminently effective pictures. Gamier has not
attempted to show the prodigious size of his heroes. This, too, is
right. Rabelais dispenses with the gigantic at will, and so must his
illustrators. A being who picks full-grown pilgrims out of his teeth
cannot be exhibited. What is vitalising in Rabelais is not susceptible
of i)ictorial illustration. I trust that these designs will be reproduced
in France, and shall be glad to possess the edition they illustrate.

This much was printed when I heard of the magisterial action,
taken at the instigation of the secretaries of so- called vigilance
associations, in condemning a series of twenty-one oil paintings to be
destroyed. So astounding a decision has not passed without earnest
protest in this country, in France, and in America. This, I fancy,
will have the desired effect, and an act of extraordinary inhospitaiity
and vandalism will, I understand, not be carried out. That some of
the designs are coarse — perhaps coarser than Teniers' — may be con-
ceded. Such is to be expected in dealing with Rabelais. Had the
exhibition been closed and the pictures sent back to France, a smile
of i)ity at our self-ai)pointed arbiters of morals and taste is all that
would have been provoked, '^o order their destruction, however, has
naturally roused a strong feeling of humiliation, and, taken into
account with other proceedings in which we are not very stringent,
leaves Englishmen in doubt how to face domestic resentment and
foreign uon^. svlvanus urban.

r

ittliljiiil