Full text of "Household words"

I he University oi

BUCKINGHAM

UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM

8113268

Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS" SHAKESPEARE.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

SournaL

CONDUCTED BY

CHARLES DICKENS.

VOLUME XI.

FROM THE SRD OF FEBRUARY TO THE 2STH OF JULY.
Being from No. 254 to No. 279.

LONDON:
OFFICE, 16, WELLINGTON STREET NORTH.

1855.

LONDON
I'.RADBl'EY AND EVANS, rKlNTKHS, WHITEFBIAES.

CONTENTS.

ACCIDENTS by Machinery, 241, 337,

494, 605

Adam, The Chinese ... 67

Adulterations 214

Advice . . . . . .73

Alchemists, Specimens of the, 457,

448, 540

Alderman, Starvation of an . . 214

Alexander the First . . 573

Algiers, the Game of Yadace" in 319

American Opinion of England, An 255

Ancestors 380

Anchovies 216

Arctic Voyagers, The Lost . . 12
Audit Board, The . . .543
Australia, Gold Discovered by a

Convict in 1788 . . . . 682

Australian Carriers . . . 420

BACK at Trinity . . . . 519

Back from the Crimea. . . 119
Balloon, Death of Du Rosier and

Romain . . . . . . 149

Barmecide Feast, Story of the . 315

Bedfordshire Farmer . . . 162

Bethnal Green, The Poor of . 193

Birthdays 238

Black Sea Five Centuries Ago,

The 62

Board of Trade . . . . 101

Bohemian Story of a Signboard 418

Boots and Corns . . . 348

Bottle of Champagne, A . . . 51

Brandy 301

Bread Cast on the Waters . . 326

Bright Chanticleer . . . 204

Brimstone . . . . 398

Brine 561

Bucharest 82

Bulgarian Posthouse, A . . 335

Bulgarians 465

Bull, Prince. A Fairy Tale . 49

Burgundy Wines . . . . 28

By Rail to Parnassus . . . 477

CALF'S SKIN, Stealing a . . . 140
California, Mr. F. Marryat's Ex-
periences of .... 88
Camel Troop Contingent, The . 225
Camp of Honvaiilt, The . . 483
Casaubon, Isaac . . . . 76
Cats and Dogs . . . .516
Cayenne Pepper . . . . 216
Ceylon in Olden Times . . 523
Chambers in the Temple . . 132

Champagne 61

Charles the Second, A Birthday

of 240

Cheap Patriotism . . . 433

Children, The Education of . . 577

Children of the Czar 108, 227, 286

Chinaman's Parson . . . 202

Chinese Adam, The . . . . 67

Chinese Postman .... 259

Chips . . 20, 67, 140, 379, 398, 494

Civil Service Appointment, A . 433

Clergyman, The Petition of a . 453

Coffee Adulteration . . . . 215

Coffee Adulteration, A Tale about 506

Cognac 361

Colonel Grunpeck and Mr. Per-
kinson . . . . . . 254

Colours from Electricity . . 252
College Invitation, A . . . 520

Commerce 323

Constantinople to Varua . . 142
Convicts, English aud French . 85
Convict, Story of a . . . 582
Cookery Book of 1660 . . . 21

Cote-d'Or 29

Countess d'Aultioy's Tales 493, 509

County Guy 599

Crits from the Past . . .607
Crimea, A Dinner in tke t . 191
Crimea, Returned from the . . 119
Criminal Lunatics . . . . 141
Criminal Process in 1690 . . 356
Curiosities of London . . 495, 607

DANUBE, The Passage of the . 465
Deadly Shafts . . 241, 337, 494

Dear Cup of Coffee, A . . . 505

Death's Ciphering-book . . 337

Diggings, Carriers to the . . 420

Dip in the Brine, A ... 561

Divers 502

Doctor Dubois .... 429

Dodsley, Robert . . . . 309

Dogs 518

Droitwich, The Salt Mines at . 561

EDINBURGH. The Houses of . . 183
Electric L'ght . . . .251
Elizabethan Reformer, A . . 553
Embarkation .... 354

FACES 261

Factory Accidents . 241,337, 494, 605
Factory Occupiers, National As-
sociation of . . . . . 605
Fairy Tales . . . .493,509
Falstaff, Death of ... 549
Farming in Bedfordshire . . 162
Fast and Loose .... 169

Fatalism 167

Fencing with Humanity, 241, 337, 494
Fenton, Elijah .... 44
Few More Leeches, A . . . Ill
Fiend-Fancy . . . 492, 509
Fifty-two, Wriothesley Place . 36
" Flare Up I " . . . . 607

Flats, Houses in . . 182

Flemish Gardens . . .603
Food and its Adulterations . . 214

Forefathers 380

France, Poultry in . . . . 399
Franklin's, Sir John, Expedition 12
French Convicts .... 80
French Court ot Justice . . . 506
French Criminal Process, A . 356
French Farmers, Two . . . 105
French Love .... 442
French Soldiers in Camp . . 483
French Wines . . .28,51,439
Froebel's Infant Gardens . . 577
Frost-bitten Homes . . .193

GAMBLING 280

Gardens in Belgium . . . 602
Garden Walks . . . . 601

Gaslight Fairies .

Ghost Story, A ....

Gibraltar, The Sappers and

Miners at the Siege of
Gold Discoverer, Story of a . .
Government Clerk, A .
Gone to the Dogs . . . .

Giurgevo

Giurgevo to Bucharest . . .

I'ACK

25
170

433
121
467
558

HABSALI.'S (Dr. Book on Adul-

terations .... 214
Herbert, Mr. Sidney, and the

English Soldier . . 48

Hill of Gold, The. . 28

Hood (Dr.) on Lunacy . . . 141

Houses in Flats . . 1S2
Humbugs, The Thousand and

One .... 265, 289, 313

Hunt's, Leigh, Stories in Verse 478

IGNORANT MAN and tho Genie

Story of the .
Important Kubbish .
India Pickle
India, Kesources of .
Indian Promotion*
Indian Kice

266
376
446
446
379
522

Infant Gardens .... 577

Iron Works, Refuse of the . . 37S

JOAK of ARC, The Sign of the . 418
Justice, A French Picture of, in

1690 ...... 356

LADIES' SCHOOL, A . . .36
Latest Intelligence from the

Spirits . .... 513

Law of Storms . . . 188

Leeches ...... 141

Legal Fiction, A . . . .598

Leigh Hunt's Stories in Verse . 478

Letter Carriers in China . . 260
Letter from a Candidate for Office

to a Board of Guardians . . 495

Leviathian Indeed, A . . . 406

Locusts ...... 67

London, Curiosities of . . . 495

London, The Plagues of . . . 316
London Thieves . . . .317

Long Life of Locusts . . . 67

Louis Qnatorze and his Wig . 620

I Love in France .... 442

j Lunacy ...... 141

Lyons, Admiral Sir E., A Yarn

about ...... 145

MACHINERY Accidents 211,337,494,605

Madame Tartine . . . . 494

Maxims of the Chinese . . 203

Mechanics in Uniform . . . 409
Medical Prescriptions, An Old

Book of ..... 304

Militia, Dress of the . . . 599

Misprints ..... 232

Monsters ...... 196

More Alchemy .... 540

More Children of the Czar . . 227

More Grist to the Mill . . 605

iv CONTENTS.

FA8

Mother and Stepmother
Part 1 341

Roving Englishman continued.
Prom Varna to Rustchuk . 307
A Bulgarian Post-house . . 335
Rustchuk 427

Tom D'Urfey ... 186
Trade, The Board of . . 101
Trade 323

Part II 367

Part I [I . . . 387

Two French Farmers . . . 105
Two Nephews .... 526

UNDER the Sea . . . . 502
Unfenced Machinery, 241, 337, 494, 605
Unfortunate James Daley . . 582

VAILS to Servants ... 10
Vampyres 39
Varna to Balaklava . . . 153
Varna to Rustchuk . . . . 307
Very Advisable .... 73
Very Little House, A . . . 470
Very Little Town, A . . .209
Vesuvius in Eruption . . . 435

WASTE 376

Mr. Philip Stubbos . . .553
Mr. Pope's Friend . . . . 43
Muse in Livery, The . . .308
My Confession . . . . 93
My Garden Walks ... 601

NOTHING Like Russia-Leather . 286

OBSOLETE Cookery ... 21
Old Boar's Head, The . . 546
Old Ladies 97
Old Picture of Justice, An . . 356
Old Scholar, An . . . .76
Our Bedfordshire Farmer . . 162
Overpunished Crime . . . 140
Oxford and Cambridge Men . . 520

PAPER MAKING, Straw Pulp for > 20
Passing Faces .... 261
Penny Wisdom . . . . 376
Pensioners, Employment for . 573
Pere Panpau 68
Periwigs 620
Petition Extraordinary . . . 453
Philosophers Stone, The 458,488,540
Physic a-Field .... 304
Pickles, Adulterations in . . 216
Plagues of London . . . 316
Poetry on the Railway . . . 414
Poetry by Railway . . .477
Poor, The Frostbitten Homes of
the 193
Pope's Friend .... 43
Post-cart Travelling in Wallachia 558
Postmen in China . ... 259
Potichomania .... 129
Poultry Abroad . . . . 399
Prescriptions, An Old Book of . 304
Prevention better than Cure . 141
Prince Bull. A Fairy Tale . 49
Promotion in India . . . 379
Public, That other .... 1
Public Ledger, The . . . 323
Pulp 20

The Passage of the Danube . 465
From Giurgevo to Bucharest . 558
Royal Balloon, The . . .149
Royal Engineers, The . . . 409
Royal Exchange, The . . . 326
Rubbish 376

Rustchuk . . . 427

Ruined by Railways . . . 114
Russia, Alexander the First of 673
Russia, Social Condition of, 108, 227,
286

SALT MINES at Droitwich. . . 561
Sappers and Miners, The . . 409
Sardinian Forests and Fisheries 58i
Scale of Promotion, The . . 379
Scarli Tapa and the Forty
Thieves, Story of the . . . 289
School of the Fairies, The . . 609
Secret of the Well, The ... 4
Servants, Vails to ... 10
Servia, Whittington in . . . 539
Set of Odd Fellows, A . . 196
Seven Dials 204
Signboard, Story of a . . . 418
Sir John Franklin and his Crews 12
Sister of the Spirits, The . . 124
Sister Rose-
Part 1 217

Water Carriers, Parable of the . 550
Water Magnitted . . . . 215
What it is to have Forefathers . 380
What my Landlord Believed . 418
When the Wind Blows . . 188
Whittington in Servia . '. . 539
Wigs 619

Wine-duty, The .... 439
Wines of France . . 28, 51, 439
Wives of Soldiers . . .278
Wives, The Wrongs of . . . 598
Workhouse, A Candidate for
Office in a . . . .495
Wounded Soldiers from the
Crimea 119
Wriothesley Place, A Ladies'
School in 36

Part II 244
Part III 267
Part IV 292
Slag . 376

Yadacd 319
Yarn about Young Lions . . 145
Yellow Mask, The
Part 1 520

Slang Sayings . . . . 608
Smith, Sir Sidney . . .132
Smuggled Relations . . . 481
Soldiers' Costume . . . 600
Soldiers from the War . . . 119
Soldier's Wife, The . . .278
Specimens of the Alchemists 457, 488,
540
Spirits, Latest Intelligence from
the 513

Part II 565

Part III 587
Part IV 609

POETRY.

ANGEL, The 540
Aspiration and Duty . . . 108
Baby Beatrice . . . .303
Banoolah . . . . . . 57

QOITE Revolutionary . . . 474

RAE'S (Dr.) Report of Sir John
Franklin's Expedition . . 12
Railway, Poetry on the . . . 414
Ralph, the Naturalist . . . 157
Relations in the Background . 481
Revolutions 474
Rice 522
Right Man in the Right Place,
The 495

Starvation of an Alderman . . 213
Stealing a Calf s Skin . . 140
Steam Ship, The Leviathan . 406
St. Nicholas 493
Storms and Wind Roads . . 188
Story of a King, The . . . 402
Strictly Financial . . 439
Stubbes, Mr. Philip . . . 653
Supposing 48

Before Sebastopol ... 85
False Genius, A . . . . 254
First Death, The . . .468
First Sorrow, A . . . . 376
Flower's Petition, The . . 278
Footman, The 309
God's Gifts 319

TALKATIVE BAEBEB, The Story of
the ... . 313

River Picture in Summer . . 379
Kosendacl 604

Tea, Adulteration of ... 215
Terraces, Parable of the . . 551
That other Public .... 1
Theatre, Fairies at the . . 25
Thieves of London . . . . 317
Thousand and One Humbugs,
The .... 265, 28?, 3)3
Tinder from a Californian Fire . 88
Timbs's (Mr.) Curiosities of Lon-
don 497

Lesson of the War ... 12
Madame Tartine . . . . 494
One by One 157

Rogues and Sharpers . . . 317
Routine ..... 550

Passing Clouds . . . . 132
Poet's Home, A . . . .609
Spring Lights and Shadows . 181
Strive, Wait, and Pray . . . 448
Time's Cure 565
Unknown Grave, The . . . 226
Vision of Hours, A ... 615
Wind, The 420

Roving Englishman
Very Cold at Bucharest . . 82
The Theatre .... 83
The Terrible Officer . . . 84
From Constantinople to Vama 142
From Varna to Balaklava . 163
A Dinner in Camp . . . 191

Toady-Tree, The . . . . 385

"Familiar in tJteir Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS"

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOUKNAL
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

254.]

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1855.

2cZ.

THAT OTHER PUBLIC.

IN our ninth volume,* it fell naturally in
our way to make a few inquiries as to the
abiding place of that vague uoun of multi-
tude signifying many, The Public. We re-
minded our readers that it is never forthcom-
ing when it is the subject of a joke at the
theatre : which is always perceived to be a
hit at some other Public richly deserving
it, but not present. The circumstances of
this time considered, we cannot better
commence our eleventh volume, than by
gently jogging the memory of that other
Public : which ia often culpably oblivious of
its own duties, rights, and interests : and to
which it is perfectly clear that neither we nor
our readers are in the least degree related.
We are the sensible, reflecting, prompt Public,
always up to the mark whereas that other
Public persists in supinely lagging behind,
and behaving in an inconsiderate manner.

To begin with a small example lately
revived by our friend, THE EXAMINER news-
paper. "What can. that other Public
mean, by allowing itself to be fleeced every
night of its life, by responsible persons
whom it accepts for its servants ? The case
stands thus. Bribes and fees to small officials,
had become quite insupportable at the time
when the great Eailway Companies sprang
into existence. All such abuses they immedi-
ately and very much to their credit, struck out
of their system of management; the keepers of
hotels were soon generally obliged to follow in
this rational direction ; the Public (meaning
always, that other one, of course) were relieved
from a most annoying and exasperating addi-
tion to the hurry and worry of travel ; and
the reform, as is in the nature of every re-
form that is necessary and sensible, extended
in many smaller directions, and was benefi-
cially felt in many smaller ways. The one,
persistent and unabashed defyer of it, at this
moment, is the Theatre which pursues its
old obsolete course of refusing to fulfil its
contract with that other Public, unless
that other Public, after paying for its
box-seats or stalls, will also pay the wages
of theatre servants who buy their places
that they may prey upon that other Public.

Household Words, volume IX. page 156.

As if we should sell our publisher's post to
the highest bidder, leaving him to charge an
additional penny or twopence, or as much
as he could get, on every number, of House-
hold Words with which he should gra-
ciously favour that other Public ! Within
a week or two of this present writing, we
paid five shillings, at nine o'clock in the
evening, for our one seat at a pantomime; after
our cheerful compliance with which demand, a
hungry footpad clapped a rolled-up playbill
to our breast, like the muzzle of a pistol, and
positively stood before the door of which he
was the keeper, to prevent our access (without
forfeiture of another shilling for his benefit)
to the seat we had purchased. Now, that
other Public still submits to the gross impo-
sition, notwithstanding that its most popular
entertainer has abandoned all the profit de-
rivable from it, and has plainly pointed out
its manifest absurdity and extortion. And
although to be sure it is universally known that
the Theatre, as an Institution, is in a highly
thriving and promising state, and although wo
have only to see a play, hap-hazard, to per-
ceive that the great body of ladies and gentle-
men representing it, have educated themselves
with infinite labour and expense in a variety
of accomplishments, and have really quali-
fied for their calling in the true spirit of stu-
dents of the Fine Arts ; yet, we take leave to
suggest to that other Public with which our
readers and we are wholly unconnected, that
these are no reasons for its being so egregi-
ously gulled.

We just now mentioned Eailway Com-
panies. That other Public is very jealous of
Railway Companies. It is not unreasonable
in being so, for, it is quite at their mercy ;
we merely observe that it is not usually slow-
to complain of them when it has any cause.
It has remonstrated, in its time, about rates
of Fares, and has adduced instances of their
being undoubtedly too high. But, has that
other Public ever heard of a preliminary sys-
tem from which the Eailway Companies have
no escape, and which runs riot in squander-
ing treasure to an incredible amount, before
they have excavated one foot of earth or laid
a bar of iron on the ground ? Why does that
other Public never begin at the beginning, and
raise its voice against the monstrous charges
of soliciting private bills in Parliament,

VOL. XI.

254

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted bjr

and conducting inquiries before Committees
of the House of Commons allowed on all
hands to be the very worst tribunals con-
ceivable by the mind of man ? Has that
other Public any adequate idea of the corrup-
tion, profusion, and waste, occasioned by
this process of misgovernment ? Supposing
it were informed that, ten years ago, the
average Parliamentary and Law expenses of
all the then existing Railway Companies
amounted to a charge of seven hundred
pounds a mile on every mile of railway made
in the United Kingdom, would it be startled 1
But, supposing it were told in the next breath,
that this charge was really not seven, but

SEVENTEEN HUNDRED POUNDS A MILE, what

would that other Public (on whom, of course,
every farthing of it falls), say then i Yet this
is the statement, in so many words and
figures, of a document issued by the Board of
Trade, and which is now rather scarce as
well it may be, being a perilous curiosity.
That other Public may learn from the same
pages, that on the Law and Parliamentary
expenses of a certain Stone and Rugby Line,
the Bill for which was lost (and the Line
consequently not made after all), there was
expended the modest little preliminary total
of one hundred and forty-six thousand !
pounds ! That was in the joyful days when
counsel learned in Parliamentary Law, re-
fused briefs marked with one hundred guinea
fees, and accepted the same briefs marked ;
with one thousand guinea fees ; the attorney !
making the neat addition of a third cipher,
on the spot, with a presence of mind sug-;
gestive of his own little bill against that j
other Public (quite dissociated from us as j
aforesaid), at whom our readers and we are j
now bitterly smiling. That was also in the j
blessed times when, there being no Public [
Health Act, Whitechapel paid to the tutelary !
deities, Law and Parliament, six thousand
five hundred pounds, to be graciously allowed
to pull down, for the public good, a dozen
odious streets inhabited by Vice and Fever.

Our Public know all about these things,
and our Public are not blind to their enor-
mity. It is that other Public, somewhere or
other where can it be 1 which is always

fetting itself humbugged and talked over.
t has been in a maze of doubt and con-
fusion, for the laet three or four years, on
that vexed question, the Liberty of the
Press. It has been told by Noble Lords
that the said Liberty is vastly inconve-
nient. No doubt it is. No doubt all
Liberty is to some people. Light is highly
inconvenient to such as have their sufficient
reasons for preferring darkness ; and soap
and water is observed to be a particular
inconvenience to those who would rather be
dirty than clean. But, that other Public find-
ing the Noble Lords much given to harping
betweenwhiles, in a sly dull way, on this
string, became uneasy about it, and wanted to
Jtuow what the harpers would have wanted

to know, for instance, how they would direct
and guide this dangerous Press. "Well, now
they may know. If that other Public will
ever learn, their instruction-book, very
lately published, is open before them. Chapter
one is a High Court of Justice ; chapter two
is a history of personal adventure, whereof
they may hear more, perhaps, one of these
days. The Queen's Representative in a most
important part of the United Kingdom a
thorough gentleman, and a man of unim-
peachable honour beyond all kind of doubt
knows so little of this Press, that he is
seen in secret personal communication with
tainted and vile instruments which it rejects,
buying their praise with the public money,
overlooking their dirty work, and setting
them their disgraceful tasks. One of the great
national departments in Downing Street is
exhibited under strong suspicion of like igno-
rant and disreputable dealing, to purchase
remote puffery among the most puff-ridden
people ever propagated on the face of this
earth. Our Public know this very well, and
have, of course,%iken it thoroughly to heart, in
itsmanysuggestiveaspects ; but, when will that
other Public always lagging behindhand in
some out of the way place become informed
about it, and consider it, and act upon it ?

It is impossible to over-state the complete-
ness with which our Public have got to the
marrow of the true question arising out of
the condition of the British Army before
Sebastopol. Our Public know perfectly,
that, making every deduction for haste, ob-
struction, and natural strength of feeling in
the midst of goading experiences, the cor-
respondence of THE TIMES has revealed a
confused heap of mismanagement, imbe-
cility, and disorder, under which the nation's
bravery lies crushed and withered. Our Public
is profoundly acquainted with the fact that
this is not a new kind of disclosure, but, that
similar defection and incapacity have be-
fore prevailed at similar periods until the
labouring age has heaved up a man strong
enough to wrestle with the Misgoverument of
England and throw it on its back. WEL-
LINGTON and NELSON both did this, and the
next great General and Admiral for whom
we now impatiently wait, but may wait some
time, content (if we can be) to know that
it is not the tendency of our service, by sea or
land, to help the greatest Merit to rise must
do the same, and will assuredly do it, and by
that sign ye shall know them. Our Public
reflecting deeply on these materials for co-
gitation, will henceforth hold fast by the
truth, that the system of administering their
aifairs is innately bad ; that classes -and
families and interests, have brought them to a
very low pass ; that the intelligence, stead-
fastness, foresight, and wonderful power of
resource, which in private undertakings dis-
tinguish England from all other countries,
have no vitality in its public business ; that
while every merchant and trader has en-

Charles Dickens.]

THAT OTHER PUBLIC.

larged his grasp and quickened his faculties,
the Public Departments have been drearily
lying iu state, a mere stupid pageant of
gorgeous coffins and feebly-burning lights ;
and that the windows must now be opened
wide, and the candles put out, and the
coffins buried, and the daylight freely ad-
mitted, and the furniture made firewood, and
the dirt clean swept away. This is the lesson
from which our Public is nevermore to be dis-
tracted by any artifice, we all know. But, that
other Public. What will they do 1 They are
a humane, generous, ardent Public ; but, will
they hold like grim Death to the flower
Warning, we have plucked from this nettle
War ? Will they steadily reply to all
cajolers, that though every flannel waist-
coat in the civilized, and every bearskin and
buffalo-skin in the uncivilized, world, had been
sent out in these days to our ill-clad country-
men (and never reached them), they would
not in the least affect the lasting question, or
dispense with a single item of the amendment
proved to be needful, and, until made, to be
severely demanded, in the whole household
and system of Britannia ? When the war
is over, and that other Public, always
ready for a demonstration, shall be busy
throwing up caps, lighting up houses, beating
drums, blowing trumpets, and making hun-
dreds of miles of printed columns of speeches,
will they be flattered and wordily- pumped
dry of the one plain issue left, or will they re-
member it ? O that other Public ! If we
you, and I, and all the rest of us could only
make sure of that other Public !

Would it not be a most extraordinary re-
missuess on the part of that other Public, if
it were content, in a crisis of uncommon
difficulty, to laugh at a Ministry without a
Head, and leave it alone 1 Would it not be a
wonderful instance of the shortcomings of
that other Public, if it were never seen to
stand aghast at the supernatural imbecility of
that authority to which, in a dangerous hour, it
<x>ufided the body and soul of the nation 1
We know what a sight it would be to behold
that miserable patient, Mr. Cabinet, specially
calling his relations and friends together
before Christmas, tottering on his emaciated
legs in the last stage of paralysis, and feebly
piping that if such and such powers were not
entrusted to him for instant use, he would
certainly go raving mad of defeated pa-
triotism, and pluck his poor old wretched
eyes out iu despair ; we know with what dis-
dainful emotions we should see him gratified
and then shuffle away and go to sleep : to
make no use of what he had got, and be heard
of no more until one of his nurses, more irri-
table than the rest, should pull his weazen
nose and make him whine we know what
these experiences would be to us, and Bless
us ! we should act upon them iu round ear-
nest but, where is that other Public, whose
indifference is the life of such scarecrows, and
whom it would seem that not even plague

pestilence and famine, battle murder and
sudden death, can rouse ?

There is one comfort in all this. We
English are not the only victims of that
other Public. It is to be heard of, else-
where. It got across the Atlantic, in the
train of the Pilgrim Fathers, and has fre-
quently been achieving wonders in America.
Ten or eleven years ago, one Chuzzlewit
was heard to say, that he had found
it on that side of the water, doing the
strangest things. The assertion made all
sorts of Publics angry, and there was
quite a cordial combination of Publics to
resent it and disprove it. But there is a
little book of Memoirs to be heard of at the
present time, which looks as if young
Chuzzlewit had reason in him too. Does the
" smart " Showman, who makes such a Mer-
maid, and makes such a Washington's Nurse,
and makes such a Dwarf, and makes such a
Singing Angel upon earth, and makes such a
fortune, and, above all, makes such a
book does he address the free and en-
lightened Public of the great United States :
the Public of State Schools, Liberal Tickets,
First - chop Intelligence, and Universal
Education ? No, no. That other Public
is the sharks'-prey. It is that other
Public, down somewhere or other, whose
bright particular star and stripe are not yet
ascertained, which is so transparently cheated
and so hardily outfaced. For that other
Public, the hatter of New York outbid
Creation at the auction of the first Lind seat.
For that other Public, the Lind speeches were
made, the tears shed, the serenades given. It
is that other Public, always on the boil and
ferment about anything or nothing, whom the
travelling companion shone down upon from
the high Hotel-Balconies. It is that other
Public who will read, and even buy, the
smart book in which they have so proud a
share, and who will fly into raptures about
its being circulated from the old Ocean
Cliffs of the Old Granite State to the Eocky
Mountains. It is indubitably in reference to
that other Public that we find the following
passage in a book called AMERICAN NOTES.
" Another prominent feature is the love of
' smart ' dealing, which gilds over many a
swindle and gross breach of trust, many a
defalcation, public and private ; and enables
many a knave to hold his head up with the
best, who well deserves a halter though it
has not been without its retributive opera-
tion ; for, this smartness has done more in a
few years to impair the public credit and to
cripple the public resources, than dull
honesty, however rash, could have effected
in a century. The merits of ( a broken specu-
lation, or a bankruptcy, or of a successful
scoundrel, are not gauged by its or his ob-
servance of the golden rule, ' Do as you
would be done by,' but are considered with
reference to their smartness. The following
dialogue I have held a hundred times : ' Is

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted liy

it not a very disgraceful circumstance that j
such a man as So and So should be acquiring |
a large property by the most infamous and
odious means ; and, notwithstanding all the
crimes of which he has been guilty, should be
tolerated and abetted by your Citizens ? He
is a public nuisance, is he not ? ' ' Yes, sir.'
' A convicted liar ? ' ' Yes, sir.' ' He has
been kicked and cuffed and caned 1 ' ' Yes,
sir.' ' And he is utterly dishonourable,
debased, and profligate 'I ' ' Yes, sir." ' In
the name of wonder, then, what is his
merit 1 ' ' Well, sir, he is a smart man.' "

That other Public of our own bore their
full share, and more, of bowing down before
the Dwarf aforesaid, in despite of his obviously
being too young a child to speak plainly : and
we, the Public who are never taken in, will
not excuse their folly. So, if John on this
shore, and Jonathan over there, could each
only get at that troublesome other Public of
his, and brighten them up a little, it would
be very much the better for both brothers.

THE SECRET OF THE WELL.

OUTSIDE the gate of Sitt Zeyneb, lead-
ing from New Cairo to the old city was
a cluster of buildings that became cele-
brated in their day. They wore the aspect
rather of a fortress than of the habita-
tions of quiet peaceable people ; and were
principally occupied by sly Copts and very
poor Muslems. The backs of the houses were
turned towards the fields, and exhibited
nothing but great bare walls with a few win-
dows pierced high up. The fronts looked upon
an irregular court and a few blind alleys,
some of which were vaulted over. A low
gateway, closed at night and in times of dis-
turbance, admitted those who had business
there from the dirty road. Other mode of
ingress there was none ; so that when, what
you may call the little garrison was united,
even collectors of taxes sometimes in vain de-
manded admittance. By agreement based
ou mutual interest, importunate creditors
were either locked out by common consent;
or, so ill-received, that they never cared to re-
turn again. The children and the dogs that
lay together all day long on the only spot
where the sun shone upon the court, were
sufficient to worry an ordinary man to
death.

From time immemorial there had been a
large house to let in this out-of-the-way place.
The family to whom it belonged must have
had some other good source of revenue ; for
generation after generation passed and no
tenant appeared. Once every twenty years or
so probably when son succeeded to father
some one came from the city with the keys,
went in, remained a little while, made in-
quiries about the salubrity of the place as if
debating whether to live there or not, and
went away with vague talk, never fulfilled, of
returning. The neighbours, not very inquisi-

tive people, had learned that the owners were
Copts, but nothing more. As to the fact
that the house remained empty, no one won-
dered at it. The cluster of habitations con-
tained many deserted dwelling-places besides,
and several single old men occupied premises
capable of containing five families. What
slightly astonished the gossips was, that any
one should ever recur to the idea of letting
that great tottering house.

Tt was situated in the extensive depths of
the Cassar, as the place was called ; and the
lane leading to its great arched doorway, be-
ing half choked with rubbish, was seldom
visited, save by some sulky boy truant from
the morning school of Dando the Copt barber-
or by some young couple who had contrived,
Heaven knows how. to give one another
rendezvous there. On all sides it rose high
and vast above the other dwellings, with not
a window by which light could penetrate into
the interior. Those who took the trouble to
reflect on this circumstance guessed that its
great circuit contained a court-yard, or, if not,
that the chambers were dark. But in general
the good folks of the Cassar lived as indiffer-
ently by the side of that vast mysterious,
edifice as the fox between the stones that
have tumbled from the great Pyramid. It
was part of the natural order of things.

As the court of the Cassar contained three
shops, it was called the bazaar. By the side
of Dando, barber and schoolmaster, was
Sohmed, the Muslem tobacco merchant, who
also dealt in ready-made clothes ; and over
the way Ibn Daood kept a sort of general
warehouse, in which most necessary things,
from pumpkins to pistols, from water-melons-
to coffee-pots, could be obtained. It seemed
to be the refuge of all rejected furniture and
unsold provisions. Strangers who wandered
into the place positively avowed that they
never saw a single customer at any one of
these shops ; and it is certain that Sohmed
and Daood spent the chief part of their time
on the bench in front of Dando's s"hop, on
what conversing it is difficult to say, for one
of the party being a Christian, controversial
topics and sacred legends were necessarily
excluded. In the East no propagandism is al-
lowed in private life; and theological fisticuff*
are not exchanged over a cup of coffee.

From the little I have said it may be
imagined, that life in the Cassar was a
steady hum-drum sort of thing. The people
got up with the sun and went forth to the
city or field to work, and came back with the
sun to go to bed. They ate as they were able,
and dressed with perfect indifference to the
world's opinion. Their sons and daughters
grew, and loved, and married, much like other
folk. Now and then there was a wedding ;
and now and then a funeral. But it seemed
never likely that the whole of that sober po-
pulation could suddenly be roused into painful
anxiety, disturbed with horrid fears perpetu-
ally increasing, and hurried day after day,

Charles Dickens.]

THE SECEET OF THE WELL.

week after week, more rapidly down a
stream of tragic excitement, such as some-
times seizes and bears along resistless the
population of whole cities.

On a bright, scorching, dusty day in
August, the triumvirate in the bazaar,
moved by the exclamation of an old woman
who passed with a tray of bread upon her
head, left the bench where they were lazily
smoking, and advanced to a point whence they
could look out beneath the broad arched gate-
way down a dark lane, as through a telescope,
into the sunny country. There was no doubt
about the matter. A small caravan of
camels, attended by some gaudily decked-
out servants, had certainly halted there. Pre-
sently a tall, handsome young man, dressed
in a garb that seemed Persian, stooped to
enter, and came rapidly towards the court-
yard accompanied by a little, shrivelled, old
man with a black turban. The three gossips
made way, but stared with all their eyes.

" Is that the shed 1 " enquired the young
man, looking with half-closed eyes and a
contemptuous curl of the lip at the walls of
the uninhabited house.

"A large shed," suggested Dando, across
whose mind vague visions of a customer be-
gan to float.

The stranger acknowledged this interrup-
tion by a slash with a little whip which he
twirled in his hand. Daudo dispersed in the
direction of his shop, Sohmed and Ibn Daood
followed. The old man, who carried a vast
wooden key like a club, went down the im-
pregnated lane, and, after some fumbling
contrived to open the door of the house. The
barber, rubbing his shoulder with one hand,
stretched out his neck and opened his eyes,
but saw nothing but a gulf of darkness for a
moment and then the solid planks of wood
again.

Soon afterwards a procession of servants,
all black, and too terrible-looking to en-
courage familiarity, passed by like shadows,
bearing heavy burdens. They went back-
ward and forward for some time. Then the
old man with the black turban made his ap-
pearance once more, hastened across the
courtyard, mounted a mule held by a slave
near the gate, and rode away. The camels
had already disappeared ; so that within an
hour after the Cassar had been thus disturbed
there was no sign whatever of the new arri-
val, except that the three tradesmen, a few old
men too weak to go forth to work, and all the
women of the place usually so silent and
sad were eagerly discussing this remarkable
occurrence. The eastern narrators will have
it that, by a kind of instinctive revelation, all
knew that they were soon to become the
neighbours of strange actions, perhaps the
victims of terrible disaster.

Early rising was the rule in the Cassar,
but next day everybody was astir an hour
before the usual time. Great was the rumour
and greater the conversation ; but there is so

much news, and, above all, so much wisdom
current in the world, that it would be fastidi-
ous to repeat anything that was said. "We all
know the rich variety of surmise that can be
based on a fact comprehended by nobody. In.
this case even Dando who, within an hour,
was equally positive that the new tenant of
the great house was a Persian physician, an
Indian juggler, a Chinese shawl-merchant,
and a Muscovite emissary, never approached
within a parasang of the truth.

A provoking circumstance was that the
day passed by, and the great time-stained
door of the old house never opened. No
loquacious black, no garrulous servant-girl
appeared. "And, by the by," observed the
barber, "we saw no woman enter. This is
against the rule. There are no harims in the
Cassar. We live here in no Wakalah. It is
not the custom for bachelors to lodge in the
midst of families. Some bold man should
go and make this representation. It would be
a good opportunity to see what is passing be-
behind that door."

The Muslem crowd, for mfhsual circum-
stance a crowd had collected, thanked
Dando for his solicitude ; and suggested that
he was the identical bold man wanted at this
critical conjuncture. But his shoulder still
felt the smack of the whip ; and he very
humbly admitted that he was not a lion. In
Egypt no man loses his own esteem or that of
others by pleading guilty to cowardice. It is
considered a mark of taste and piety to be
chary of that inestimable possession life.

Next day a very old black man with fierce
rolling eyes came out of the house and went
rapidly across the little square. A number
of women who were laying in wait addressed
him as " My Lord Steward," aud proposed
dealings in eggs, butter, milk, and other pro-
visions. They had stopped up the way, not
at all frightened by his fiery eyes aud bright
teeth, nor discouraged by his obstinate reply,
that he wanted nothing. "But your master
cannot live without eating," exclaimed the bar-
ber's wife. " Perhaps he does'nt eat bread,"
replied the black man with a horrid leer.
The crowd fell back and allowed him to pass.
In an incredibly short space of time it was
known that a cannibal had come to inhabit
the Cassar ; and mothers began to call their
children within doors, and to count them
anxiously.

In a couple of hours the black old man
returned followed by a porter, who grunted
under a huge basket of provisions, as Egyp-
tian porters usually grunt when they are near
the end of their journey, and are calculating
the amount of the present they are about to
receive. He was not allowed to enter the
house, but emptied his basket and received
his money at the door. It appears that he wag
well paid ; for whilst the women, who deter-
mined not to abandon the charge of canni-
balism, were crying out against the wretch
who despised to buy of his neighbours, the

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

porter, wiping his brow with his sleeve, went
away murmuring : " O prince, O generous

11KU1 ! "

For a long time matters continued in this
position, so that, although the population of
the Cassar continued uneasy, ana mothers no
longer fearful but spiteful, still maliciously
affected to count their children morning and
evening, they sank back perforce into their
old jog-trot style of life. The three trades-
men alone persisted hi making the old house
and its servants the object of their conver-
sation, because they had nothing else to talk
about ; and their eyes were often raised to-
wards the vast silent walls that overlooked
like a precipice the whole of the Cassar. At
length, new food was supplied to their
curiosity.

Strangers began to make their appearance,
sometimes guided by the old black man ;
sometimes alone. The latter would ask for
the House of Gamadel, by which outlandish
came it appeared the new tenant, whom
nobody had ever seen after the first day, was
known. Alf seemed eager to arrive, and
not by any means eager to go away. At
whatever tune they came, it was never until
long after dark that they departed ; and one
of the earliest observations made in the Cassar
was, that the more remarkable the visitor, the
later the hour of departure. Sometimes the
porter who slept on a bench behind the door,
always closed at nightfall, tried to keep awake
until some very noble stranger issued forth ;
but it always happened that the bars were
taken down before he could well open his eyes.
He never, therefore, saw more than a robe or
the back of a turban, disappearing through
the door ; and the old black man, with the
rolling eyes and bright teeth, preparing to
shut it. On these occasions, however, the
steward was particularly soft-spoken and even
humble in his politeness. He seemed afraid
to excite the anger or the curiosity of
Bawab Ali ; and now and then dropped a
piece of money into his hand, saying : "This
is from my master's guest."

Now, it happened that near the very ancient
and sacred mosque of Sitt Zeyneb, within the
gate of the city, dwelt an old man who had
an only sou named Cathalla, celebrated in the
quarter for his singular disposition. In
Cairo, as elsewhere, reputations are oftener
based on reprehensible than on admirable
qualities. Cathalla became talked of among
the neighbours, because, his father being mo-
derately rich, he took it into his head that he
was not bound to enter into the contest for
wealth. Some foolish old book had told him
that the sole object of life was not to add
piastre upon piastre, and heap dollar upon
dollar. Man, according to him, was created
for other objects than to gather stores which
he could never consume. The pursuit of
knowledge and the acquisition of wisdom, the
search after the nature and the reasons of
things, were not to be abandoned only to men

of feeble body and wandering intellects, inca-
pable of overreaching a customer or grappling
with the intricacies of a bargain. Study was
not quite unworthy of a noble spirit ; and the
sentences garnered up by the wise, of times
gone by, were sometimes of more value than
gold and silver.

These odd notions led Cathalla to adopt a
singular kind of life. His father, whose ap-
proval he had won as much by obstinacy as by
reason, allowed him to purchase all the old
manuscripts he could find, and to fit up a
room in a retired part of the house they in-
habited, where he spent the greater portion of
his time, growing paler as he grew wiser.
What he learned it would be too long to-
relate. The general result was that he
acquired a very different mode of viewing
thoughts and actions from all around him,,
and came to consider things unlawful, which
everybody else regarded as perfectly proper.
But he did not crave happiness. It is a terri-
ble thing to make a code of morals for one-
self, and to quit the path of custom. Medita-
tion easily finds truth ; but the will is not
always strong enough to obey it. Cathalla.
became soon dissatisfied with himself as he
was with the world. He lost the health
of his mind as well as that of his body.

Suddenly, he threw his books aside and
took to wandering forth through the city,,
especially by night, when the narrow streets
were deserted, save by some unhappy man in
search of rest or booty, or by an occasional
party of worthy citizens protected by lanterns
and the loudness of their voices, or by the
watch moving along with heavy tramp. At
such times, when the tranquil moon threw
down patches of silver between the near
houses, and the starry sky could be seen in
stripe over head; when the sound softly shook
the leaves of the palm trees that drooped
over the lofty walls, and the owl hooted from
the pinnacle of some ruined building ; Cathalla
thought that he felt his mind enlarge and rise-
in stature, so that high-placed truth was
nearer to his grasp. But, he did not quite
understand all the emotions that troubled
him. There were times when he yearned after
something different from the old aphorisms of
philosophy when " to know " appeared no
longer all in all, and he aspired likewise " to
be." " Is this existence ? " he would say.
" What purpose do I fulfil in this world ? The
men whom I disdain, belong to the great ma-
chine of humanity. They buy, they sell, they
cultivate, they go forth in ships, they tread
the desert, they govern and give judgment in
causes. When they disappear, there is joy
or sorrow. But, if I go to sleep under this
dark archway, who will miss me but the old
man living in alonely house, too far on the way
to Paradise for bitter regret ? " In truth, Ca-
Ui.-illa yearned to love and to be loved ; and in
such moods of mind, from every lattice over-
head, he thought he heard passionate whis-
pers, and soft salutations, and tender sighs,

Charles Dickens.l

THE SECRET OF THE "WELL.

and half audible kisses crossing to and fro, in-
terlacing, as it were, in an exquisite roof,
beneath which he lingered for a while with
ineffable delight that soon turned to despair.

One day, tire young man wandered forth
into the country, and strolled on the banks of
the Nile, until its waters grew dark and became
dotted with the reflections of stars. Then, he
thought of returning homeward ; but the
city gates were closed when he reached them,
and the guards refused to admit him. He was
not at all disturbed by the idea of passing a
night in the open air ;, but, being tired, wished
to find a place where he could lie down and
rest undisturbed. Chance directed him to a
ruined tomb near the back of the Cassar
under the walls of the house of Gamadel.
He entered, and lying down, slept. Towards
midnight he was awakened by the sound of
voices. He listened at first without moving,
thinking he was in the neighbourhood of
robbers.

ei Show thy face, O Suliman Ebn Suliman,"
said a voice from some high position in a
jeering tone. " If it be not now black, thou
art not to be admitted."

" It is black as blackness," was the reply.
" Great is the power that can effect this
change."

Cathalla looked cautiously through a break
in the ruined tomb, and beheld by the light
of the moon, which shone brilliantly, a tall
negro standing at the foot of the wall, looking
up. He was dressed in the garments ot a
distinguished person, and seemed to wait im-
patiently to seize the first round of a rope-
ladder that was being let down from above.
Presently he began to ascend, and soon disap-
peared through a small window near the
summit of the lofty wall.

" This is a strange occurrence." thought
Cathalla, trying to account for it by reasoning,
but in vain.

Next day, just as the Damascus caravan
was about to start, great search was made
after a wealthy merchant named Suliman
Ebn Suliman, a Turk. A crier perambulated
the streets, announcing that his friends were
distressed at his disappearance ; but Cathalla
was again wandering forth ; and even if he
had heard the inquiry, having impiously
learned to disbelieve in magical transforma-
tions, would never have thought of connecting
the white merchant, whose face he well knew,
with the black man he had seen entering in a
mysterious manner the house of Gamadel.

By this time, however, the Cassar was in a
state of terrible excitement. No one can tell
how the report got abroad, or on what it was
founded. It seemed to be one of those reve-
lations, which Providence sometimes mys-
teriously puts into the mouths of common
people, who shout the truths they do not
understand through the streets and fields.
Certain it is, however, that from the barber
to the porter, every one began to say that the
strangers who entered the house of Gamadel

nearly every day never came forth again.
Some people personating them, wearing their
garments or mysteriously assuming their
shape, did pass through the gate frequently
whilst the bawab was in hia heavy sleep, and
never returned. But Dando maintained, with
great appearance of truth, that the real per-
sonages would be less careful to conceal their
faces, and was perhaps the first to cry out
that the house of Gamadel was a house of
slaughter an idea readily accepted* for the
popular mind willingly infers that a man who
disappears is dead.

If the people of the Cassar had been quite
persuaded of what seemed to be likely under
this supposition that the strangers whose
fate interested them were murdered for the
purpose of robbery they would probably
have been less disquieted. Being all poor,
they could have nothing to fear for them-
selves. But their imaginations were fertile.
Gamadel, the strong-armed, as they now
thought they remembered the ferocious-
looking young man, might be a terrible
magician who had need of human blood for
his incantations. Their turn might come next.
At any rate, this supposed neighbourhood of
crime disquieted them, even w T hile they had
reason to think that they themselves were safe.

At length even this consolation was taken
from them. A half-witted youth one morning
went chuckling about the Cassar, intimating
that he could say strange things if he chose,
that he had passed the night outside the
gates, and had seen he would not say what.
They pestered him to speak, but with a
cunning stupidity he refused. ''Let him
alone," said Dando. " This evening, if we
turn our backs on him, he will tell all of his
own accord/' The half-witted lad went forth ;
but was found about midday in a field of
sugar-canes, killed by a single stroke of a
sword.

When this fact became known, the people
of the Cassar assembled tumultuously ; and
although there seemed no positive reason to
say that death had been dealt by any of the
people of the house of Gamadel, no one
doubted that such was the case. The mur-
dered lad had boasted of having noticed some
suspicious circumstance, and had died without
saying what it was. Who could be interested
in slaying him, save some servant of the
house 1 Less conclusive reasoning has often
urged a crowd to the most terrible excesses.
An old woman the mother of the victim-
pointing with her lean fingers to the corpse,
which lay on some straw in a corner of the
court, croaked for vengeance. The men of the '
Cassar were not usually brave, but they were-
goaded on by despair. One after the other,
they might all fall beneath the assassin's
knife, if they dared to reveal any frightful
secret that might come to them without their
will. Some old guns, several rusty swords^
and many spears, began to make their ap-
pearance. The butcher wielded a prodigious

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

cleaver. They advanced with furious shouts passed by. He heard the muezzins from the
towards the great door of the house no mosques calling to prayer long after the hum

sound emanating from within, no sign re-
vealing that it was inhabited.

An unexpected circumstance put a stop to
the meditated assault. A lady followed by a
slave, and at a little distance by a young
man, appeared in the court of the Cassar,
advancing towards the house of Gamadel.
She was carelessly veiled ; and what could be
seen of her countenance was so beautiful,
that the most furious of the crowd stopped ;
presently all ranged themselves on either
hand, to let her pass. She advanced at first
boldly and then seemed to hesitate, as if
uncertain whither she was going.

" Is this the house of Gamadel 1 " s
inquired.

They answered that it was ; but, their anger
and their terror reviving at that word, all
implored her not to enter, repeating the ter-
rible suspicions that had troubled them for
so many months past. She smiled incredu-
lously, and announced her intention to enter,
with so much confidence, that the people
began to doubt what they had previously
seemed so certain about. This lady spoke
of Gamadel so tenderly, and as if from so
complete a knowledge, that all marvelled.

Suddenly the young man whom we have
mentioned came forward. It was no other
than Cathalla. He had seen the lady riding
slowly along the street, and having been
smitten with love for her had followed, not
knowing what he desired or what he hoped.
With passionate entreaties he also besought
her not to enter ; and his words and manner
showed clearly what was the reason of his
interference. The lady looked benevolently
at him and smiled sadly ; but without an-
swering advanced towards the great doorway.
Cathalla would have followed ; but the crowd
surrounded him ; and when he succeeded in
passing through, thrusting back their hands
on either side, the grim vast door had closed
upon the form, the image of which remained
like a burning coal in his breast.

He listened gloomily to the horrible stories,
or rather the horrible surmises related to
him, and then went away. But he could not
leave the neighbourhood of the place where
the object of his sudden love had disappeared
beneath a roof of terror, like a bright stream
leaping into a yawning chasm of the earth.
Going round the Cassar by the fields, he
recognised the tomb where he had once
passed a night, and the great wall of the
house which the black man had entered in
so strange a manner. What he had just heard
seemed a comment on what he had seen for-
merly.

" I will retui-n," he said, " when darkness
comes, and watch."

So, he wandered away to the river side, and
remaining there until an hour after sunset,

came back by moonlight to the tomb,
he lay down and waited patiently.

Here

of the great city near at hand had died away.
Occasionally in the suburbs and in the vil-
lages scattered over the fields, packs of dogs
barked at some wayfarer. The wind that
blew sometimes seemed to sing amongst the
sugar-canes. The monotony of watchful:
ness ovei-came him, and he slept. But,
as before, he was awakened by the sound of
voices :

" Look around," said some one overhead
" I saw that young dreamer prowl in this
direction. What ii' he play the spy ? "

" Does he wish to go with the other ? "
growled the black man, looking to the right
and to the left, and then advancing towards
the tomb. Cathalla beheld the gleam of a
sword, and knew that he must kill or be
killed. He drew a dagger and stood inside
the ruined doorway, breathless as one watch-
ing by a sick bedside. The black man, who
strange to say wore the mantle of a woman,
entered without much caution, and fell on his
face dead ; for, the dagger of Cathalla at the
first blow pierced him to the heart. The
young man, made reckless by the excess of
his passion for the unknown lady, instantly
tore off the mantle, threw it over his own
head, and taking the dead man's sword, went
forth towards the house to the place where
the ladder was let down as before. He
mounted eagerly, no one speaking to him,
and reaching the window entered and stood
nrmly on the floor before the other black took
notice of him. A cry of terror and warning
was interrupted by death ; and Cathalla
stepped over this second corpse and pro-
ceeded to explore the interior of the house.

A long passage, at the extremity of which
burned a light, pi'esented itself to him. It
led to a chamber with a lamp in a niche
opening upon a kind of terrace. Advancing
cautiously, Cathalla leaned over the parapet,
and looking down beheld a sight that con-
vinced him how unfounded had been the
suspicions of the people of the Cassar at any
rate in one instance. A veil seemed to drop
from before his eyes. Had he been a mur-
derer without just cause ? Were the two
lives he had taken, innocent ? He might
have retired with fear and trembling, but
a stronger passion than remorse restrained
him.

He beheld the lady who, according to the
villagers, had gone to certain death, sitting
dressed in splendid garments on a kind of
raised throne in the centre of a little garden,
beautifully shaded by trees and cooled by a
fountain that gushed amidst flowers. Near
her feet, reclining on a low divan, was the
young man known as Gamadel. He seemed
to gaze at her with passionate adoration, and
now and then uttered a few words the sense
of which did not come to the ears of Cathalla.
Probably, however, he was pressing her to

Time I sing ; for, presently she took a lute, and

Charles DicVens.]

THE SECEET OF THE WELL.

having tuned it, in a voice of marvellous
sweetness chanted the following verses :

" In absence I longed for thee as the thirsty flowers
long for the dews of night ;

" As the Arab longs to Bee the white sides of his
tent gleaming in the deserts afar off; as the mother for
the first kiss of her first-bora ; as the soul of the faith-
ful for paradise.

" Food was not pleasant to me, for the sweetest
viands seemed bitter.

" Kest was not pleasant to me, for I feared that thy
feet were weary.

" Sleep stayed no longer on my eyelids than does the
nestward-bound bird ou the branch where it alights to
rest its wings.

" I rose to escape from my dreams, and I lay down
to escape from my waking thoughts.

" "Without thee I cannot live, and with thee I ain
content to die."

As she concluded she stooped towards
Gamadel and touched his brow fondly with
her hand. Cathalla dared not advance and
could not retire.

Then the master of the house took the lute,
and having tuned it, sang in a voice that
resounded like the clang of cymbals :

" For the love of thee I have steeped my hands in
blood ; and the wealth which I lay at thy feet is
gathered by the strength of my arm.

" I have not measured yards of cloth nor weighed
the teeth of dead beasts in scales.

" I have not lied to foolish men nor deceived silly
women.

" They come with their hands full of gold ; some to
buy more gold, and others to buy more life.

" Not one has returned except in semblance.

" What matters it that the people murmur? Now
thou art come we will away to the land of Ajem, and
the secret of the well will never be known."

Cathalla learned from these words that he
had really penetrated into a house of crime,
and regretted not that he had put the two
blacks to death. Ordinary prudence would
have counselled him to retire whilst it Avas
yet time ; but although the lady was evidently
associated with Gamadel in crime, her fascina-
tionremained powerful. Curiosity, also, to learn
more of this strange history, urged Cathalla on-
wards. No other person save the two lovers
seemed astir in the house. On all sides the doors
of chambers well-lighted were open, but no one
moved. The young man, casting aside his
mantle and firmly grasping his sword, de-
scended a narrow staircase, and soon found
himself on a level with the garden in a dark
corner where he was concealed by trees.
From what they said, it seemed that they
were cousins ; that they had lived formerly at
Stamboul, from which city they had been
forced suddenly to fly, by different ways ; that
the young man had continued m various
places his terrible mode of life decoying rich
men by secret emissaries to his house by
the promise of unlimited wealth procured
magically and that the lady had long
searched for hirh in vain.

" Whisper into their ears," said Gamadel,
with terrible knowledge of human nature ;

" though they be rich as Suliman ben Daood,
with not a month of life before them ; tell
them that there is a way to get more money
without work, and that the grave may be
spurned back as I spurn this cushion. Not
one will disbelieve ! All come here with pearls
and jewels ; all come and die and go to their
paradise, which they would exchange for one
hour of basking at thy feet."

Gamadel was about to say further impious
things ; but the sword of Cathalla gleamed
over his head, and he fell and spoke no more.
The lady became white with terror, and
looked to the right and to the left for help ;
but seeing none, tried to smile the smile of
one upon the rack, who will not allow his
torturer to know that he has power over him.
Then she spoke the sweetest words she could |
remember, so that Cathalla, who had medi-
tated doing vengeance on her likewise,
dropped the point of his sword arid listened.
She feigned to be glad of her deliverance
from a monster like Gamadel, and offered to
follow Cathalla. But he now loathed her
even because she was so submissive, and im-
periously commanded her to say how many
more slaves were in the house. Two, she
said, the steward and the porter ; and offered
to lead him where he might slay them. She
kept her promise ; for she had formed a plan
to kill Cathalla afterwards, and take to flight
alone with a casket containing all the wealth
of Gamadel in jewels of prodigious value.
"With this," said she, exhibiting it, "we
will fly to the world's end." She beckoned
to the young man to follow her into a room ;
so fascinating was her smile, that in
spite of his good resolutions he was about to
follow ; when, as if by a miracle, a line of
Gamadel's song flashed across his mind :
" The secret of the well will never be
known."

" Lad} r ," said he, " wherefore didst thou
avoid that great stone in the doorway ? Is
the well beneath ? Come towards me across
it ; else I will slay thee with this sword."

Upon this, seeing that she was discovered,
the face of the woman changed to that of a
fury, and she began to utter horrible male-
dictions. The choice of death was before her.
She endeavoured bravely to meet the sharp
edge of the sword, but could not ; and leaping
with a fearful cry upon the stone, that gave
way at once, she fell to join the numerous
victims on whose spoils the wealth of her
lover was based. Cathalla stood a moment
horror-stricken ; but the wicked woman,
thinking to get rid of her enemy and escape
at once, had thrown fire into a room full of
rich stuffs, the spoils of the murdered. Smoke
and flames began to rise on every side : the
crackling of burning wood showed how
rapidly the conflagration spread. The young
man snatched up the casket and made his
escape in time ; but, the house of Gamadel,
with the whole of the Cassai-, was destroyed
that night. The poor people, suddenly

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

awakened, rushed forth into the fields and
stood helpless, beholding the flames devoui
all they possessed. According to their belief
fire hail descended from heaveu to punish th<
wicked.

Not long afterwards, a new village haa
risen on the same spot by the munificence o:
a stranger whose name was never known,
and all the inhabitants had reason to rejoice
over what had seemed at first an irreparable
disaster. As for Cathalla, strongly impressed
with the wickedness and avarice of the world,
he retired with his father to a lonely spot
with his strangely acquired wealth, and built
a house and devoted himself entirely to acts
of charity. When he told this story he
pretended that the conduct of the cousin of
Gamadel had so disgusted him with women,
that he had resolved never to marry ; but
some believing, what may be true, that love
is a kind of madness, said that no other
woman could make him forget that one.
And after all, how many great passions would
be born in this world if only good women
were their object ?

VAILS TO SERVANTS.

HAVING been from year to year an unmoved
spectator of the indignant face of, and an
amused listener to the lamentations over the
decay of vails to servants, made by the head
.messenger of my office (I sit in the shadow
of Inigo's banqueting hovise), I have been
looking of late into a box I possess, of
anecdotes relating to English manners and
customs, to see what I can find on a subject,
the decay and almost entire abolition of which
-elicits every Christmas sour looks and sour
words from the well-fed, well-lodged, and
not at all ill-salaried Ephraim Easeinsleep
head messenger and ofticekeeper of one of
her Majesty's offices of state.

Amused with what I have found, I will
group together briefly, but accurately, all
[ know upon the subject. I will only
premise that vails to servants were of a like
nature with fees to officials looked upon as
perquisites appertaining to wages and salaries;
and that it is only within the last few years'
that Christmas boxes to servants, and fees to
officers of state, have been, as far as the
public accounts are concerned, publicly
abolished and forbidden by the Lords Com-
missioners of her Majesty's Treasury. A few
perhaps remain, such as fees on venison
warrants, but their number must be very
few. Hence Ephraim's ill-humour.

I read (to use one of old Stow's expres-
sions), that the servants of our portrait
painters were the greatest exacters of vails
Few sitters escaped. When Villiers. Duke of
Buckmghaui (the Buckingham who was assas-
sinated), sat to Mr. afterwards Sir Balthazar
Gerbier, the bearer of the Duke's privv purse,
bir backville Crowe, was indignant at" the ex-
.actions made upon his master. Sir Sackville's

entry of the payments made on this occasion
will excite a smile :

Given to Mr. Geibier's servants uhen his Lordship
sat there for his picture, viz., to the two maids, 2 ;
to the two men that pretended to take pains about his
picture, 5. In all, 7.

The first painter in this country to forbid
the custom of giving vails to servants, was
that great pourtrayer of manners, William
Hogarth. When I sat to Hogarth," said
painstaking William Cole, "the custom of
giving vails to servants was not discontinued.
On taking leave of the painter at the door I
offered his servant a small gratuity, but the
man very politely refused it, telling me it
would be as much as the loss of his place if
his master knew it. This,* adds Cole, " was
so uncommon and so liberal in a man of
Hogarth's profession at that time of day,
that it much struck me, as nothing of the
kind had happened to me before." ft is told
of Sir Joshua Eeynolds, that he gave his
servant six pounds annually of wages, and
offered him one hundred pounds a year for
the door! But Ealph knew better than to
go halves with his master in such a matter.

My next memorandum leads us to a cha-
racteristic story of Sir Eichard Steele, who
was always liberal and always poor. Steele
was at Blenheim at the performance of a
;ragedy by Dryden. It was got up to amuse
the great Duke of Marlborough in his dotage,
and Steele sat next to the famous Hoadfy,
then only Bishop of Bangor. The liveried
army alarmed Sir Eichard. "Does your
ordship give money to all these fellows in
aced coats and ruffles?" asked the discon-
certed essayist and theatrical patentee. " No
doubt," replied the bishop. "I have not
enough," whispered the knight, and walked
on. Hoadly watched him, and heard him
accost the bevy of menials in the hall, telling
them that he had found them men of taste
and as such invited them all to Drury Lane
Theatre to any play they should bespeak.
My theatrical reading has not enabled me to
discover if Sir Eichard was called upon to
make good the promise of his witty escape
from vails on this occasion.

The people who have been most indignant
against vails to servants have been the mean
and the necessitous. Of the latter class was
Eichard Savage. His wants made him seek
access to the titled, and his poverty prohi-
bited him from acting up to the liveried
notion of the complete gentleman. He com-
plained in print. Queen Caroline allowed
Merlin's Cave and other torn-fooleries of the
kind, at Eichmond, to be shown for money.
This was too much for Savage, who in a
poem "On Public Spirit with regard to
Public Works," inserted these lines :
But what the flowering pride of gardens rare,
However royal, or however fair,
If gates, which to access should still give way,
Ope but, like Peter's Paradise, for pay?
If perquisited varlets frequent stand,
And each new walk must a new tax demand,

Charles Dickens.]

VAILS TO SERVANTS.

What foreign eye but with contempt surveys ?

What muse shall from oblivion snatch their praise ?
These, however, for fear of offending the
Queen, he was prudent enough to cancel ;
and thus his vigorous vferse was of no use in
removing an absurd custom then prevalent
in England.

The next memorandum in my box refers
to Henry Fielding, and leads us to an anec-
dote not unlike that I have just told of Sir
Richard Steele. It is this. At one of Gar-
rick's many dinners, Fielding was present^
and vails to servants being still in fashion,
each of the guests at parting made a present
to the man servant of the great actor, David,
a "Welshman, and a wit in his way. When
the company had gone, the lesser David being
in high glee, was asked by his master how
much he had got. " I can't tell you yet, sir,"
was the man's reply. " Here is half-a-crown
from Mrs. Gibber, Got pless hur ! here is a
shilling from Mr. Macklin ; here are two from
Mr. Havard ; here is and here is some-
thing more from Mr. Fielding, Got pless his
merry heart ! " By this time, the expectant
Welshman wearing the great actor's livery
-had unfolded the paper, when, to his great
astonishment, he saw that it contained a
vulgar and unmistakeable penny and no
more. Garrick, it is said, was nettled at this,
and spoke next day to Fielding about the
impropriety of jesting with a servant. " Jest-
ing ! " said the author of Tom Jones, with
seeming surprise. "So far from it, that I
meant to do the fellow a real service, for
had I given him a shilling, or half-a-crown, I
knew you would have taken it from him ;
but by giving him only a penny, he had a
chance of calling it his own." Garrick's
alleged parsimony was long the subject of
sarcastic observation among his contempora-
ries. That the two Davids the master and the
man divided vails it is impossible to believe.

If Sir Richard Steele was witty in his
escape from this black-mail levied by men in
livery, Sir Timothy Waldo, Baronet, of whom
I know nothing mor% was at least manly on
a similar occasion. He had been dining with
the minister Duke of Newcastle, I suppose
in that large red house in the north-west
corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields still known to
antiquaries as Newcastle House. On leaving,
Sir Timothy was pressed by the domestics of
the Duke, who lined the hall with eager faces
and extended hands. He had made his way
as far as the cook, and apparently had satisfied
the servants of his host, when a crown put
into the hand of the cook was returned with
" Sir, I do not take silver." " Don't you in-
deed ! " said the baronet, putting it into his
pocket, " then I do not give gold."

From these exactions poor peers suffered
still more than poor commoners. Here is a
case in point, told of a Roman Catholic peer
and the attainted Duke of Ormond. " 1 re-
member," says Dr. King, " a Lord Poor, a
Koman Catholic peer of Ireland, who lived

upon a small pension which Queen Anne had
granted him. He was a man of honour and
well esteemed, and had formerly been an
officer of some distinction in the service of
France. The Duke of Ormond had often in-
vited him to dinner, and he had as often excused
himself. At last the Duke kindly expostu-
lated with him, and would know the reason
why he so constantly refused to be one of his
guests. My Lord Poor then honestly con-
fessed that he could not afford it. "But,"
says he, "if your Grace will put a guinea
into my hands as often as you are pleased to
invite me to dine, I will not decline the
honour of waiting on you." This was done,
says Dr. King, and my Lord was afterwards
a frequent guest in St. James's Square.

This levy of vails had grown to such a nui-
sance early in the reign of King George the
Third, that serious attempts were made to
resist the tax. In this resistance, no one
seems to have behaved better than a gentle-
man whose name has unluckily not reached
us. He was paying the servants of a friend
for a dinner which their master had invited
him to. One by one they appeared with
"Sir, your great coat," and a shilling was
given; "Sir, your hat," another shilling;
" Sir, your stick," a third shilling ; " Sir,
your umbrella," a fourth shilling ; " Sir,
your gloves." "Why, friend, you may keep
the gloves ; they are not worth a shilling ! "

A still more active opponent of the scan-
dalous custom of vails was the benevolent
Jonas Hauway, whose name still lingers
pleasantly round many of our London cha-
rities. He not only wrote against it, but
answered a friend in high station, who re-
proached him for not coming oftener to dine
with him, by saying, " Indeed I cannot
afford it."

Han way moved in good society; and his
letters, and, above all, his example, did much
to remove this indecent tax upon good nature
and good sense. The Duke of Norfolk, Mr.
Spencer, Sir Francis Dashwood, and others,
increased their servants' wages in proportion
to the alleged value of their vails. The famous
farce of High Life Below Stairs caused ser-
vants to be looked upon in a light unfavour-
able to the custom, and by degrees the tax
was no longer demanded as a right. The
discontinuance first, it is said, commenced
seriously in Scotland. " I boasted," says
Boswell, "that the Scotch had the honour of
being the first to abolish the inhospitable,
troublesome, and ungracious custom of giving
vails to servants. "Sir," said Johnson, in
reply, " you abolished vails because you were
too poor to be able to give them."

The first attempt made to discontinue so
scandalous a custom, led to a serious disturb-
ance. The scene was Ranelagh, and the time
the eleventh of August, seventeen hundred
and sixty-four. Such of the nobility and
gentry as would not suffer their servants to
take vails, were hooted and hissed on that

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conductedbj

occasion by their own coachmen and foot-
men. From hissing they proceeded to break
the lamps and outside windows. They then
extinguished their flambeaux and pelted the
company with brickbats. Swords were drawn ;
in the scuffle one servant was run through
the thigh, another through the arm, and many
others were wounded. Four were seized
and being carried before the justices, one was
committed to Newgate, one discharged by his
master and bound to good behaviour, one set
at liberty on his asking pardon and promising
to discover his accomplices, and one dis-
charged, no person appearing against him.

I long to see Ephraiui's face when he reads
this paper.

THE LESSON OF THE WAR.

THE feast is spread through England

For rich and poor to-day ;
Greetings and laughter may be there,

But thoughts are far away,
Over the stormy ocean,

Over the dreary track,
Where some are gone whom England

Will never welcome back.
Breathless she waits, and listens

For every eastern breeze
That bears upon its bloody wings

News from beyond the seas.
The leafless branches stirring

Make many a watcher start,
The distant tramp of steed may send

A throb from heart to heart.
The rulers of the nation,

The poor ones at their gate,
With the same eager wonder

The same great news await !
The poor man's stay and comfort,

The rich roan's joy arid pride,
Upon the bleak Crimean shore

Are fighting side by side.
The bullet comes and either

A desolate hearth ma}' see ;
And God alone to-night knows where

The vacant place may be !
The dread that stirs the peasant

Thrills nobles' hearts with fear,
Yet above selfish sorrow

Both hold their country dear.
The rich man who reposes

In his ancestral shade,
The peasant at his plough =1,. ire,

The worker at his trade,
Each one his all has perilled,

Each has the same great stake,
Each soul can but have patience,

Each heart can only break !
Hushed is all party clamour ;

One thought in every he-art,
One dread in every household,

lias bid such strife depart.
England has called her children,

Long silent the word camo
That lit the smouldering ubhes

Through all the land to f'auie.
you who toil and suffer,

You gladly heard the call ;

But those you sometimes envy

Have they not given their all ?
O you who rule the nation,

Take now the toil-worn hand,
Brothers you are in sorrow

In duty to your land.
Learn but this noble lesson

Ere Peace returns again,
And the lifeblood of OKI England

Will not be shed in vain !

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN AND HIS
CREWS.

IN order that our readers, at a future time,
when the Esquimaux stories shall have been
further tested, may be in possession of them
as originally brought home, we have pro-
cured from DR. RAE a faithful copy of his
Report for publication. We do not feel
justified in omitting or condensing any part
of it ; believing, as we do, that it is a very
unsatisfactory document on which to found
. such strong conclusions as it takes for granted.
I The preoccupation of the public mind has
! dismissed this subject easily for the present ;
but, we assume its great interest, and the
serious doubts we hold of its having been
convincingly set at rest, to be absolutely
certain to revive.

York Factory, Hudson's Bay, 1st Sept., 1854.
I have the honour to report, for the
information of the Governor, Deputy Go-
vernor, and Committee, that I arrived here
I yesterday with my party, all in good health ;
j but, from causes which will be explained
! hereafter, without having effected the object
of the expedition. At the same time
information has been obtained, and articles
j purchased from the natives, which prove
beyond a doubt that a portion, if not all, of
the survivors of the long lost and unfortunate
party under Sir John Franklin had met with.
a fate as melancholy and dreadful as it is
possible to imagine.

By a letter dated Chesterfield Inlet,
ninth of August, eighteen hundred and fiftv-
three, you are in possession of my proceed-
ings up to that time. Late on the evening of
that day we parted company with our small
consort, she steering down to the southward,
whilst we took the opposite direction to
Repulse Bay.

Light and variable winds sadly retarded
our advance northward ; but by anchoring
during the flood, and sailing or rowing with
the tide, we gained some ground daily. On
the eleventh we met with upwards of three
hundred walrus, lying on a rock a few milea
off shore. They were not at all shy, and
several were mortally wounded, but one only
(an immensely large fellow) was shot dead
by myself. The greater part of the fat was
cut off and taken on board, which supplied
usabundantly with oil for our lamps all winter.
On the forenoon of the fourteenth, having
a fair wind, we rounded Cape Horn, and ran
up Repulse Bay ; but as the weather was

Charles Dickens.]

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN AND HIS CREWS.

very foggy, completely hiding every object at
the distance of a quarter-of'-a-mile, \ve made
the laud about seven miles east of my old
winter quarters ; next day, midst heavy rain,
we ran down to North Pole River, moored
the boat, aud pitched the tents.

The weather being still dark and gloomy,
the surrounding country presented a most
dreary aspect. Thick masses of ice clung to
the shore, whilst immense drifts of snow
filled each ravine, and lined every steep bank
that had a southerly exposure. No Esqui-
maux were to be seen, nor any recent traces
of them. Appearances could not be less
promising for wintering safely ; yet I deter-
mined to remain until the first of September ;
by which date some opinion could be formed
as to the practicability of procuring sufficient
food and fuel for our support during the
winter: all the provisions on hand at that
time being equal to only three months'
consumption.

The weather fortunately improved, and not
a moment was lost. Nets were set ; hunters
were sent out to procure venison ; and the
majority of the party was constantly em-
ployed collecting fuel. By the end of August
a supply of the latter essential article (An-
dromeda Tetragona) for fourteen weeks was
laid up, thirteen deer and one musk-bull had
been shot, aud one hundred and thirty-
six salmon caught. Some of the favourite
haunts of the Esquimaux had been visited,
but no indications were seen to lead us to
suppose that they had been lately in the
neighbourhood.

The absence of the natives caused me some
anxiety ; not that I expected any aid from
them, but because I could attribute their
having abandoned so favourable a locality
to no other cause than a scarcity of food,
arising from the deer having taken another
route in their migrations to and from the
north.

On the first of September I explained our
position to the men ; the quantity of pro-
Visions we had, and the prospects, which
were far from flattering, of getting more.
They all most readily volunteered to remain,
and our preparations for a nine months'
winter were continued with unabated energy.
The weather, generally speaking, was favour-
able, and our exertions were so successful,
that by the end of the month we had a
quantity of provisions . and fuel collected
adequate to our wants up to the period of
the spring migrations of the deer.

One hundred and nine deer, one musk-ox
(including those killed in August) fifty-three
brace of ptarmigan, and one seal, had been
shot ; and the nets produced fifty-four
salmon. Of the larger animals above enu-
merated, forty-nine' deer and the musk-ox
were shot by myself ; twenty-one deer by
Mistegan, the deer-hunter ; fourteen by
another of the men ; nine by William Oulig-
back ; and sixteen by the remaining four men.

The cold weather set in very early, and
with great severity. On the twentieth, all
the smaller, and some of the larger lakes,
were covered with ice four to six inches
thick. This was far from advantageous for
deer shooting, as these animals were enabled
to cross the country in all directions, instead
of following their accustomed passes.

October was very stormy and cold. About
the fifteenth, the migrations of the deer
terminated, and twenty-five more were added
to our stock. Forty-two salmon, and twenty
trout, were caught with nets and hooks set
in lakes under the ice. On the twenty-
. eighth, the snow was packed hard enough
for building ; and we were glad to exchange
the cold and dismal tents (in which the tem-
perature had latterly been thirty-six or
thirty-seven degrees below the freezing
point) for the more comfortable shelter of
snow-houses, which were built on the south
south-east side of Beacon Hill, by which
they were well protected from the pre-
vailing north-west gales. The houses were
nearly half a mile south of my winter
quarters of eighteen hundred and forty-six
and eighteen hundred and forty-seven.

The weather in November was com-
paratively fine, but cold, the highest, lowest,
and mean temperature being, respectively,
thirty-eight degrees, eighteen degrees, and
three degrees below zero. Some deer were
occasionally seen, but only four were shot ;
some wolves, several foxes, and one wolve-
rine were killed ; aud from the nets fifty-
nine salmon and twenty-two trout were
obtained.

Our most productive fishery was in a lake
about three miles distant, bearing east
(magnetic) from Beacon Hill, or the mouth
of the North Pole River.

The whole of December, a very few days
excepted, was one continued gale with snow
and drift. When practicable, the men were
occupied scraping under snow for fuel, by
which means our stock of that very essential
article was kept up. The mean temperature
of the month was twenty-three degrees below
zero. The produce of our nets and guns was
extremely small, amounting to one partridge,
one wolf, and twenty-seven fish.

On the first of January, eighteen hundred
aucl fifty-four, the temperature rose to the
very unusual height of eighteen degrees
above zero, the wind at the time being
south-east, with snow. Our nets, after being
set ill different lakes without success, were
finally taken up on the twelfth, only five
small fish having been caught. The ther-
mometer was tested by freezing mercury, and
found to be in error, the temperature indi-
cated by it being four degrees five minutes
too high.

The cold during February was steady and
severe, but there were fewer storms than
usual. Deer were more numerous, and gene-
rally were travelling northward. One or two

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

were wounded, but none killed. On two
occasions (the first and twenty-seventh), that
beautiful but rare appearance of the clouds
near the sun, with three fringes of pink and
green, following the outline of the cloud, was
seen, and I may add that the same splendid
phenomenon was frequently observed during
the spring, and was generally followed by a
day or two of fine weather.

During the latter part of the month, pre-
parations were being made for our spring
journeys. A carpenter's workshop was built
of snow, and our sledges were taken to pieces,
reduced to as light a weight as possible,
and then reunited more securely than be-
fore. The mean temperature of February,
corrected for error of thermometer, was
thirty-nine degrees below zero. The highest
and lowest being twenty degrees and fifty-
three degrees.

On the first of March a female deer in
fine condition was shot, and on the ninth and
tenth two more were killed. Three men
were absent some days during this month, in
search of Esquimaux, from whom we wished
to obtain dogs. They went as far as the head
of Ross Bay, but found no traces of these
people.

On the fourteenth I started with three
men hauling sledges with provisions, to be
placed in " cache" for the long spring journey.
Owing to the stormy state of the weather we
got no farther than Cape Lady Pelly, on the
most northerly point of which our stores were
placed, under a heap of large stones, secure
from any animal except man or the bear.
We returned on the twenty-fourth, the dis-
tance walked together being a hundred and
seventy miles.

On the thirty-first of March, leaving three
men in charge of the boat and stores, I set
out with the other four, including the inter-
preter, with the view of tracing the west
coast of Boothia, from the Castor and Pollux
River to Bellot Strait. The weight of our
provisions, &c., with those deposited on the
way, amounted to eight hundred and sixty-
five pounds, an ample supply for sixty-five
days.

The route followed for part of the journey
being exactly the same as that of spring,
eighteen hundred and forty-seven, it is un-
necessary to describe it. During the two
first days, although we did not travel more
than fifteen miles per day, th men found the
work extremely hard, and as I perceived that
one of them (a fine, active young fellow, but a
light weight) would be unable to keep pace
with the others, he was sent back, and re-
placed by Mistegan, a very able man, and an
experienced sledge-hauler. More than a day
was lost in making this exchange, but there
was still abundance of time to complete our
work, if not opposed by more than common
obstacles.

On the sixth of April we arrived at our
provision cache, and fouud it all sate. Hav-

ing placed the additional stores on the
sledges, which made those of the men weigh
more than a hundred and sixty pounds each,
and my own about a hundred and ten pounds,
we travelled seven miles further, then built
a snow house on the ice two miles from shore.
We had passed among much rough ice, but
hitherto the drift banks of snow, by lying in
the same direction in which we were travel-
ling, made the walking tolerably good. As
we advanced to the northward, however,
these crossed our track (showing that the
prevailing winter gales had been from the
westward), and together with stormy weather,
impeded us so much that we did not reach
Colville Bay until the tenth. The position of
our snow house was in latitude sixty-eight
degrees thirteen minutes five seconds north,
longitude by chronometer eighty-eight de-
grees fourteen minutes "fifty-one seconds west,
the-variation of the compass being eighty-six
degrees twenty minutes west. From this
place it was my intention to strike across
land as straight as possible for the Castor and
Pollux River.

The eleventh was so stormy that we could
not move, and the next day, after placing en
cache two days provisions, we had walked
only six miles in a westerly direction, when a
gale of wind compelled us to get under
shelter. The weather improved in the even-
ing, and having the benefit of the full moon,
we started again at a few minutes to eight
P.M. Our course at first was the same as it
had been in the morning, but the snow soon
became so soft and so deep that I turned
more to the northward in search of firmer
footing. The walking was excessively fa-
tiguing, and would have been so even to
persons travelling unencumbered, as we sank
at every step, nearly ankle deep in snow.
Eight and a half miles were accomplished in
six and a half hours, at the end of which as
we required some rest, a small snow house
was built, and we had some tea and frozen
pemican.

After resting three hours we resumed our
march, and by making long detours, found
the snow occasionally hard enough to support
our weight. At thirty minutes to noon on
the thirteenth, our day's journey terminated
in latitude sixty-eight degrees twenty-three
minutes thirty seconds north, longitude
eighty-nine degrees three minutes fifty-three
seconds west, variation of compass eighty-
three degrees thirty minutes west. At a
mile and a half from our bivouac, we had
crossed the arm of a lake of considerable
extent, but the country around was so fiat,
and so completely covered with snow, that
its limits could not be easily defined, and our
snow hut was on the borders of another lake
apparently somewhat smaller.

A snow etorrn of great violence raged
during the whole of the fourteenth, which did
not prevent us from making an attempt to
get forward. After persevering two and a

Cbarles Dickens.]

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN AND HIS CREWS.

half hours, and gaining a mile and a half
distance, we were again forced to take shelter.

The fifteenth was very beautiful, with a
temperature of only eight degrees below zero.
The heavy fall of snow had made the walking
and sledge-hauling worse than before. It was
impossible to keep a straight course, and we
had to turn much out of our way, so as to
select the hardest drift banks. After advanc-
ing several miles, we fortunately reached a
large lake containing a number of islands, on
one of which I noticed an old Esquimaux
tent site. The fresh footmarks of a partridge
(Tetrao rupestris) were also seen, being the
only signs of living thing (a few tracks of
foxes excepted) that we had observed since
-commencing the traverse of this dreary waste
of snow-clad country. To the lake above
mentioned, and to those seen previously, the
name of Barrow was given, as a mark of
respect to John Barrow, Esquire, of the
Admiralty ; whose zeal in promoting, and
liberality in supporting, many of the expedi-
tions to the Arctic Sea are too well known to
require any comment, further than that he
presented a very valuable Halkett's boat for
the service of my party, which unfortunately
by some irregularity in the railway baggage
trains between London and Liverpool did not j
reach the latter place in time for the steamer, \
although sent from London some days before, j
Our snow hut was built on the edge of a !
small lake in latitude sixty-eight degrees
thirty-one minutes thirty-eight seconds north, j
longitude eighty-nine degrees eleven minutes
fifty-five seconds west, valuation of com-
pass eighty-three degrees thirty minutes
west.

The difficulties of walking were some-
what diminished on the sixteenth by a
fresli breeze of wind, which drifted the snow
off the higher ground, and we were enabled
to make a fair day's journey. Early on the
seventeenth we reached the shore of Pelly
Bay, but had barely got a view of its rugged
ice covering before a dense fog came on. We
had to steer by compass for a large rocky
island, some miles to the westward ; and we
stopped on an islet near its east shore until
the fog cleared away. This luckily hap-
pened some time before noon, and afforded
an opportunity of obtaining observations,
the results of which were latitude sixty-
eight degrees forty-four minutes fifty-three
seconds north, longitude by chronometer
eighty-nine degrees thirty-four minutes forty-
seven seconds west, and variation eighty-four
degrees twenty minutes west.

Even on the iee we found the snow soft
and deep, a most unusual circumstance. The
many detentions I had met with caused me
now, instead of making for the Castor and
Pollux Eiver, to attempt a direct course
towards the magnetic pole, should the land
westof the bay be smooth enough for travelling
over. The large island west of us was so
rugged and steep that there was no crossing

it with sledges ; we therefoi'e travelled along
its shores to the northward, and stopped for
the night within a few miles of the northern
extremity. The track of an Esquimaux
sledge drawn by dogs was observed to-day,
but it was of old date.

The morning of the eighteenth was very
foggy ; but after rounding the north point
of the island it became clear, and we tra-
velled due west, or very nearly so, until
within three miles of the west shore of the
bay, which presented an appearance so rocky
and mountainous, that it was evident we
could not traverse it without loss of time.
As the country towards the head of the bay
looked more level, I turned to the southward,
and, after a circuitous walk of more than
sixteen miles, we built our snow house on
the ice, five miles from shore. Many old
traces of Esquimaux were seen on the ice
to-day.

On the nineteenth we continued travelling
southward, and our day's journey (about
equal to that of yesterday) terminated near
the head of the bay.

Twentieth of April. The fresh foot-
marks of Esquimaux, with a sledge, having
been seen yesterday on the ice within a short
distance of our resting-place, the interpreter
and one man were sent to look for them, the
other two being employed in hunting and
collecting fuel, whilst I obtained excellent
observations, the results of which were
latitude sixty-eight degrees twenty-eight
minutes twenty-nine seconds north, longi-
tude by chronometer ninety degrees eighteen
minutes thirty-two seconds west, variation of
compass ninety-eight degrees thirty minutes
west. The latter is apparently erroneous,
probably caused by much local attraction.

After an absence of eleven hours the men
sent in search of Esquimaux returned in
company with seventeen natives (five of
whom were women), and several of them
had been at Repulse Bay when I was there
in eighteen hundred and forty-seven. Most
of the others had never before seen " whites,"
and were extremely forward and trouble-
some. They would give us no information
on which any reliance could be placed, and
none of them would consent to accompany
us for a day or two, although I promised to
reward them liberally.

Apparently, there was a great objection
to our travelling across the country in a
westerly direction. Finding that it was their
object to puzzle the interpreter and mislead
us, I declined purchasing more than a small
piece of seal from them, and sent them away
not, however, without some difficulty, as
they lingered about with the hope of stealing
something ; and, notwithstanding our vigi-
lance, succeeded in abstracting from one of
the sledges a few pounds of biscuit and
grease.

The morning of the twenty-first was ex-
tremely fine ; and at three A.M. we started

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

across land towards a very conspicuous hill,
bearing west of us. Oix a rocky eminence,
some miles inland, we made a cache of the
seal's flesh we had purchased. Whilst doing
this, our interpreter made an attempt to join
his countrymen. Fortunately, his absence
was observed before he had gone far ; and
he was overtaken after a sharp race of four
or five miles. He was in a great fright when
we came up to him, and was crying like a
child, but expressed his readiness to return,
and pleaded sickness as an excuse for his
conduct. I believe he was really unwell
probably from having eaten too much boiled
seal's flesh, with which he had been regaled
at the snow huts of the natives.

Having taken some of the lading off
Ouligback's sledge, we had barely resumed
our journey when we were met by a very
intelligent Esquimaux, driving a dog-sledge
laden with musk-ox beef. This man at once
consented to accompany us two days' journey,
and in a few minutes had deposited his load
on the snow, and was ready to join us.
Having explained my object to him, he said
that the road by which he had come was the
best for us ; and, having lightened the men's
sledges, we travelled with more facility.

We were now joined by another of the
natives, who had been absent seal-hunting
yesterday ; but being anxious to see us had
visited our snow-house early this morning,
and then followed our track. This man was
very communicative, and on putting to him
the usual questions as to his having seen
white men before, or any ships or boats, he
replied in the negative ; but said that a
party of kabloonans had died of starvation
a long distance to the west of where we then
were, and beyond a large river. He stated
that he did not know the exact place that
he had never been there, and that he could
not accompany us so far.

The substance of the information then and
subsequently obtained from various sources
was to the following effect.

In the spring, four winters past (eighteen
hundred and fifty), whilst some Esquimaux
families were killing seals near the northern
shore of a large island, named in Arrowsmith's
charts King William's Land, about forty white
men were seen travelling in company south-
ward over the ice, and dragging a boat anc
sledges with them. They were passing along
the west shore of the above-named island
None of the party could speak the Esquimaux
language so well as to be understood ; but by
signs the natives were led to believe that the
ship or ships had been crushed by ice, anc
that they were then going to where they
expected to find deer to shoot. From the
appearance of the men all of whom, with
the exception of an officer, were hauling on
the drag-ropes of the sledge, and were lookin^
thin they were then supposed to be getting
short of provisions ; and they purchased a
small seal, or piece of seal, from the natives

The officer was described as being a tall,
stout, middle-aged man. When their day's
ourney terminated, they pitched tents to
rest in.

At a later date, the same season, but pre-
vious to the disruption of the ice, the corpses
of some thirty persons and some graves were
discovered on the continent, and five dead
jodies on an island near it, about a long day's
ourney to the north- west of the mouth of a
.arge stream, which can be no other than
Back's Great Fish Eiver (named by the
Esquimaux Oot-koo-hi-ca-lik), as its descrip-
tion, and that of the low shore in the neigh-
bourhood of Point Ogle and Montreal Island,
agree exactly with that of Sir George Back.
Some of the bodies were in a tent or tents ;
others were under the boat, which had been
turned over to form a shelter ; and some lay
scattered about in different directions. Of
those seen on the island, it was supposed that
one was that of an officer (chief), as he
had a telescope strapped over his shoulders,
and his double-barrelled gun lay underneath
him.

From the mutilated state of many of the
bodies, and the contents of the kettles, it is
evident that our wretched countrymen had
been driven to the last dread alternative as a
means of sustaining life.

A few of the unfortunate men must have
survived until the arrival of the wild fowl
(say until the end of May), as shots were
heard, and fish-bones and feathers of geese
were noticed near the scene of the sad
event.

There appears to have been an abundant
store of ammunition, as the gunpowder was
emptied by the natives in a heap on the
ground out of the kegs or cases containing it ;
and a quantity of shot and ball was found
below high-water mark, having probably been
left on the ice close to the beach before the
spring thaw commenced. There must have
been a number of telescopes, guns (several of
them double-barrelled), watches, compasses,
&c. ; all of which seem to have been broken
up, as I saw pieces of these different articles
with the natives, and I purchased as many
as possible, together with some silver spoons
and forks, an order of merit in the form of a
star, and a small silver plate engraved " Sir
John Franklin, K.C.H."

Enclosed is a list of the principal articles
bought, with a note of the initials, and a
rough pen-and-ink sketch of the crests on the
foi'ks and spoons. The articles themselves I
shall have the honour of handing over to
you on my arrival in London.

None of the Esquimaux with whom I had
communication saw the white men, either
when living or after death, nor had they ever
been at the place where the corpses were
found, but had their information from natives
who had been there, and who had seen the
party when travelling over the ice. From
what I could learn, there is no reason to

Charles Dickens.]

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN AND HIS CREWS.

suspect that any violence had been offered to
the sufferers by the natives.

As the dogs in the sledge were fatigued
before they joined us, our day's journey was
a short one. Our snow-house was built in lati-
tude sixty-eight degrees twenty-nine seconds
north, and longitude ninety degrees forty-two
minutes forty-two seconds west, on the bed of
a river having high mud banks, and which
falls into the west side of Pelly Bay, about
latitude sixty-eight degrees forty-seven mi-
nutes north, and longitude ninety degrees
twenty-five minutes west.

On the twenty -second, we travelled along
the north bank of the river (which I named
after Captain Beecher, of the Admiralty), in
a westerly direction, for seven or eight miles,
until abreast of the lofty and peculiarly
shaped hill already alluded to, and which I
named Ellice Mountain, when we turned
more to the northward.

We soon arrived at a long narrow lake, on
which we encamped a few miles from its east
end, our day's march being little more than
thirteen miles. Our Esquimaux auxiliaries
were now anxious to return, being in dread,
or professing to be so, that the wolves or
wolverines would find their " cache" of meat,
and destroy it. Having paid them liberally
for their aid and information, and having
bade them a most friendly farewell, they
set out for home as we were preparing to go
to bed.

Next morning provisions for six days were
secured under a heap of ponderous stones, and
we resumed our march along the lake.

Thick weather, snow-storms, and heavy
walking, sadly retarded our advance. The
Esquimaux had recommended me, after
reaching the end of the chain of lakes (which
ran in north-westerly direction for nearly
twenty miles, and then turned sharply to the
southward) to follow the windings of a brook
that flowed from them. This I attempted to
do, until finding that we should be led thereby
far to the south, we struck across land to the
west among a series of hills and valleys.

Tracks of deer now became numerous, and
a few traces of musk cattle were observed.

At two A.M., on the twenty-sixth, we fell upon
a river with banks of mud and gravel twenty
to forty feet high, and about a quarter of a
mile in width. After a most laborious walk
of more than eighteen miles, we found an old
snow-hut, which after a few repairs was made
habitable, and we were snugly housed at
forty minutes past six A.M. Our position
was in latitude sixty-eight degrees twenty-
five minutes twenty-seven seconds north,
longitude ninety- two degrees fifty-three
minutes fourteen seconds west.

One of our men who, from carelessness
some weeks before, had severely frozen two
of his toes, was now scarcely able to walk ;
and as, by Esquimaux report, we could not
be very far from the sea, I prepared to start
in the evening with two men and four days'

provisions for the Castor and Pollux River,
leaving the lame man and another to follow,
at their leisure a few miles on our track, to
some rocks that lay on our route where they
were more likely to find both fuel and game,
than on the bare flat ground where we then
were.

The morning of the twenty-sixth was very
fine as we commenced tracing the course ot
the river seaward ; sometimes following its
course, at other times travelling on its left or
right bank to cut off points.

At four A.M., on the twenty-seventh, we
reached the mouth of the river, which, by
subsequent observation, I found to be situated
in latitude sixty-eight degrees thirty-two
minutes north, and longitude ninety-three
degrees twenty minutes west. It was rather
difficult to discover when we had reached the
sea, until a mass of rough ice settled the
question beyond a doubt. After leaving the
river we walked rapidly due west for six
miles, then built our usual snug habitation
on the ice, three miles from shore, and had
some partridges (Tetrao mutus) for supper, at
the unseasonable hour of eight A.M. We had
seen great numbers of these birds during the
night.

Our latitude was sixty-eight degrees thirty-
two minutes one second north, and about
forty minutes east of Simpson's position of
the mouth of the Castor and Pollux iiiver.

The weather was overcast with snow
when we resumed our journey, at thirty
minutes past eight P.M., on the twenty-seventh;
we directed our course directly for the shore,
which we reached after a sharp walk of one
and a half hours, in doing which we crossed
a long stony island of some miles in extent.
As by this time it was snowing heavily, I
made my men travel on the ice, the walking
being better there, whilst I followed the
winding of the shore, closely examining every
object along the beach.

After passing several heaps of stones, which
had evidently formed Esquimaux caches, I
came to a collection larger than any I had
yet seen, and clearly not intended for the
protection of property of any kind. The
stones, generally speaking, were small, and
had been built in the form of a pillar, but the
top had fallen down, as the Esquimaux had
previously given me to understand was the
case.

Calling my men to land, I sent one to trace
what looked like the bed of a small river
immediately west of us, whilst I and the
other man cleared away the pile of stones in
search of a document. Although no docu-
ment was found, there could be no doubt in
my own mind, and in that of my companion,
that its construction was not that of the
natives. My belief that we had arrived at
the Castor and Pollux River was confirmed
when the person who had been sent to trace
the apparent stream-bed returned with the
information that it was a river.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

My latitude of the Castor and Pollux is
sixty-eight degrees twenty-eight minutes
thirty-seven seconds, west ; agreeing within
a quarter of a mile with that of Simpson ;
but our longitudes differ considerably, hia
being ninety-four degrees fourteen minutes
west, whilst mine was ninety-three degrees
forty-two minutes west. My longitude is
nearly intermediate between that of Simpson
and Sir George Back, supposing the latter to
have carried on his survey eastward from
Montreal Island. A number of rocky eleva-
tions to the north of the river were mistaken
by Simpson for islands, and named by him
the Committee.

Having spent upwards of an hour in fruit-
less search for a memorandum of some kind,
we began to retrace our steps ; and after a
most fatiguing march of fifteen hours, during
which we walked at least thirty miles, we
arrived at the snow-hut of the men left be-
hind. They had shot nothing, and had not
collected sufficient andromeda for cooking,
but had been compelled to use some grease.
The frost-bitten man could scarcely move.

Early on the morning of the twenty-ninth,
during a heavy fall of snow, we set out for
the mouth of the river, which was named in
honour of Sir Frederick Murchison, the late
President of the Royal Geographical Society ;
and after losing our way occasionally in
attempting to make short cuts, we arrived at
Cache Island, so named from an Esquimaux
cache that was on it, within two miles of the
sea, at eight A.M., and stopped there, as it
blew a gale with drift.

As soon as we got shelter, and had supped,
preparations were made for starting in the
evening for Bellot Strait. An ample stock of
provisions and fuel for twenty-two days were
placed on two of our best sledgea, and I
hauled on my own small sledge my instru-
ments, books, bedding, &c., as usual.

On the evening of the twenty-ninth, the
weather was so stormy, that although we were
prepared to start at eight o'clock, we could
not get away until past two on the following
morning, when after travelling little more than
five miles, a heavy fall of snow and strong
wind caused us again to take shelter.

Our advance was so much impeded by thick
weather and soft snow, that we did not arrive
within a few miles of Cape Porter of Sir John
Ross, until the sixth of May. In doing this
we had traversed a bay, the head of which
was afterwards found to extend as far north
as latitude sixty-eight degrees four minutes
north. Point Sir H. Dryden, its western
boundary, is in latitude sixty-eight degrees
forty-four minutes north, longitude ninety-
four degrees west. To this bay, the name of
Shepherd was given, in honour of the Deputy
Governor of the Honourable Hudson's Bay
Company, and an island near its head, was
called Bence Jones, after the distinguished me-
dical man and analytical chemist of that name
to whose kindness I and my party were much

indebted, for having proposed the use and pre-
pared some extract of tea, for the expedition.

This article we found extremely portable,
and as the tea could be made without boiling
water, we often enjoyed a cup of that refresh-
ing beverage, when otherwise from want of
fuel, we must have been satisfied with cold
water.

From Point Dryden, the coast which is low
and stony, runs in a succession of small points
and bays about ten miles nearly due west,
then turns sharply up to the north in latitude
sixty-eight degrees forty-five minutes north,
longitude ninety-four degrees twenty-seven
minutes fifty seconds west, which was ascer-
tained by observations obtained on an island
near the shore. The point was called Cape
Colvile, after the Governor of the Company,
and the island, Stanley. To the west, at the
distance of seven or eight miles, land was seen,
which received the appellation of Matheson
Island, as a mark of respect to one of the
Directors of the Company.

Our snow-hut on the sixth of May, situate
on Pointe de la Guiche was by good observa-
tions found to be in latitude sixty-eight de-
grees fifty-seven minutes fifty-two seconds
north, longitude ninety-four degrees twenty-
two minutes fifty-eight seconds west. One of
my men, Mistegan, an Indian of great intel-
ligence and activity, was sent six miles farther
along the coast northwards ; by ascending
some rough ice at its extreme point, he could
see about five miles farther, the land was still
trending northward, whilst to the north-west,
at a considerable distance, perhaps twelve or
fourteen miles, there was an appearance of
land, the channel between which and the point
where he stood, being full of rough ice. This
land, if it was such, is probably part of Matty
Island, or King William's Land, which latter
is also clearly an island.

I am happy to say that on this present, as
on a former, occasion, where my survey met
that of Sir James C. Ross, a very singular
agreement exists, considering the circum-
stances under which our surveys have been
taken.

The foggy and snowy weather, which con-
tinued upwards of four days, had occasioned
the loss of so much time, that, although I
could easily have completed a part (perhaps
the half) of the survey of the coast, between
the Magnetic Pole and Bellot Strait, or
Brentford Bay, I could not do the whole with-
out great risk to my party, and I therefore
decided upon returning.

Having taken possession of our discoveries
in the usual form, and built a cairn, we com-
menced our return on the night of the sixth.
Having fine, clear weather, we made long
marches, and at Shepherd Bay, having got rid
of the sledge, which I had hitherto hauled, I
detached myself from the party, and ex-
amined the bay within a mile or two of
the shore, whilst my men took a straighter
route.

Charles Dickens.]

SIR JOHN FEANKLIN AND HIS CEEWS.

Thick weather again came on as we en-
tered the bay (named in honour of Sir Eobert
H. Inglis) into which the Murchison Eiver
falls, and we had much trouble in finding the
mouth of the river. Here the services of my
Cree hunter were of much value, as custom
had caused him to notice indications and
marks, which would have escaped the ob-
servation of a person less acute and ex-
perienced.

On the eleventh of May, at three A.M., we
reached the place where our two men had
been left. Both were as well as I could hope
for, the one whose great toe had been frozen,
and which was about to slough off at the first
joint, thereby rendering the foot very tender
and painful when walking in deep snow, had
too much spirit to allow himself to be hauled.
One deer, and eighteen partridges had been
shot ; but, notwithstanding, I found a greater
reduction in our stock of provisions than I
had anticipated, and I felt confirmed in the
course I had taken.

The day became very fine, and observations
were taken, which gave the position of Cache
Island, where our snow-hut was latitude
sixty - eight degrees thirty - two minutes
two seconds north, longitude ninety-three
degrees thirteen minutes eighteen seconds
west.

Having completed my observations, and
filled in rough tracings of the coast line,
which I generally did from day to day, we
started for home at eight thirty, P.M. The
weather being now fine, and the snow harder
than when outward bound, we advanced more
rapidly and in a straighter direction, until we
came to the lakes, about midway in the
Isthmus, after which, as far as Pelly Bay, our
outward and homeward route were exactly
alike. We reached Pelly Bay at one A.M., on
the seventeenth, and built a snow-house about
two and a half miles south, and the same dis-
tance west, of my observations of the twentieth
of April.

Observing traces of Esquimaux, two men
were sent, after supper, to look for them.
After eight hours absence they returned with
ten or twelve native men, women, and child-
ren. From these people I bought a silver
spoon and fork. The initials F. E. M. C., not
engraved, but scratched with a sharp instru-
ment, on the spoon, puzzled me much, as I
knew not at the time the Christian names of
the officers of Sir John Franklin's expedition;
and thought that the letters above-named
might possibly be the initials of Captain
M'Clure, the small c between M C being
omitted.

Two of the Esquimaux (one of them I had
seen iu eighteen hundred and forty-seven)
offered for a consideration to accompany us a
day or two's march with a sledge and dogs.
We were detained some time by the slow
preparations of our new allies ; but we soon
made up for lost time, and, after a journey of
sixteen geographical or about eighteen and a

half statute miles, we arrived at the east side
of the bay, in latitude by reduction to the
meridian sixty-eight degrees twenty-three
minutes ten seconds north, longitude eighty-
nine degrees fifty-eight minutes thirty-nine
seconds west.

It may be remembered that in the spring
of eighteen forty-seven I did not trace the
shore of Pelly Bay, but saw it from the summit
of one of the lofty islands in the bay. Desirous
of being always within, rather than of exceed-
ing the limits of truth, I that year placed the
head of the bay about ten miles north of what
it ought to have been, a mistake which will
be easily accounted for by those who know
the difficulties of estimating distances in a
snow-clad country, where the height of the
land is unknown.

The width of the isthmus separating Pelly
and Shepherd's Bays is fully sixty geogra-
phical miles.

In the evening before parting with our
Esquimaux assistants, we bought a dog from
them, and after a most friendly farewell,
resumed our journey eastward, and found, on
a long lake, some old snow-houses, in which
we took up our lodgings. Here a set of good
observations placed us in latitude sixty-eight
degrees twelve minutes eighteen seconds
north, longitude eighty-nine degrees twenty-
four minutes fifty-one degrees west ; varia-
tion eighteen-one degrees west.

On the morning of the twenty-first, we
arrived at Committee Bay. From thenee our
route to Eepulse Bay was almost the same as
before ; and I shall not, therefore, advert to it
further than to mention that we arrived at
our winter home at five, A.M., on the twenty-
sixth of May, having, from the better walk-
ing, travelled in twenty days the distance
(less forty or fifty miles) which had taken us
thirty-six days to accomplish on our outward
journey.

$%I found the three men who had been left in
charge of the property quite well, living in
abundance, and on the most friendly terms
with a number of Esquimaux families, who
had pitched their tents near them.

The natives had behaved in the most ex-
emplary manner ; and many of them who
were short of food, in compliance with my
orders to that effect, had been supplied with
venison from our stores.

It was from this time until August that I
had opportunities of questioning the Esqui-
maux regarding the information which I had
already obtained, of the party of whites who
had perished of starvation, and of eliciting
the particulars connected with that sad
event, the substance of which I have already
stated.

In the early part of July, the salmon came
from the sea to the mouths of the rivers and
brooks which were at that date open ; and
we caught numbers of them. So that occa-
sionally we could afford to supply our native
friends with fifty or one hundred in a night.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

As is the usual custom at the Hudson's Bay
Company's inland trading posts, all provisions
were given gratis ; and they were much more

gratefully received by the Esquimaux than
y the more southerly and more favoured
red man.

We had still on hand half of our three
months' stock of pemican, and a sufficiency
of ammunition to provide for the wants of
another winter. We were all in excellent
health, and could get as many dogs as we
required : so that (D.V.) there was little
doubt that a second attempt to complete the
survey would be successful ; but I now
thought that I had a higher duty to attend
to, that duty being to communicate, with as
little loss of time as possible, the melancholy
tidings which I had heard, and thereby save
the risk of more valuable lives being jeo-
pardised in a fruitless search, in a direction
where there was not the slightest prospect of
obtaining any information. I trust this will
be deemed a sufficiently good reason for my
z'eturn.

The summer was extremely cold and back-
ward ; we could not leave Repulse Bay until
the fourth of August, and on the sixth had
much difficulty in rounding Cape Hope. From
thence, as far as Cape Fullerton, the strait
between Southampton Island and the main
shore was fully packed with ice, which gave
us great trouble. South of Cape Fullerton
we got into open water. On the evening of
the nineteenth instant, calms and head winds
much retarded us, so that we did not enter
Churchill River until the morning of the
twenty-eighth of August. There we were
detained all day by a storm of wind. My
good interpreter, William Ouligback, was
landed, and before bidding him farewell, I
presented him with a very handsomely
mounted hunting knife, intrusted to me by
Captain Sir George Back for his former
travelling companion, Ouligback ; but as the
old man was dead, I took the liberty of giving
it to his son, as an inducement to future good
conduct should his services be again required.

A three days' run brought us to York
Factory, at which place we landed all well
on the forenoon of the 31st of August. I
am happy to say that the conduct of my
men, under circumstances often very trying,
was generally speaking extremely good and
praiseworthy ; and although their wages were
higher than those of any party who have
hitherto been employed on boat expeditions,
I- thought it advisable, after consulting with
Chief Factor William Mactavish, to give each
a small gratuity, varying the amount accord-
ing to merit.

In conclusion, I have to express my regret
that I was unable, on this occasion, to bring
to a successful termination an expedition
which I had myself planned and projected;
but in extenuation of my failure, I may men-
tion that I was met by an accumulation of
obstacles, beyond the usual ones of storms

and rough ice, which my former experience
in Arctic travelling had not led me to
anticipate.

CHIP.

PULP.

THE possibility of making paper from any-
thing but rags has only been mooted since
the rag-famine set in. It was amongst the
good old manufacturing prejudices, that pulp
for paper-making could only be formed from
flax or cotton which had been spun, woven,
made into garments or napery, worn out,
cast off, had the best price given for it at the
Black Doll ; picked, sorted, washed, torn to
tatters, and smashed into pulp at the mill.
The manufacturing mind has only recently
become awake to the probability that pulp
might be made out of fibre that has never
passed through the rag-shop.

The idea of making paper from raw flax
is neither new nor startling At present
the flax plant is only used for two pur-
poses its straw is reduced to fibre, and
then spun and woven into textile fabrics ;
and its seed, besides propagating it, yields
painter's oil. Yet the same plant can never
be used for both purposes. To produce
good flax, it must be cut down before the
seed is ripe; and, when fully matured to
yield oil, the straw fibre cannot be spun.
But it can be converted into the best possible
pulp. Unlimited supplies of this straw is
wasted in India, whence it might be im-
ported into this country ; and, mixed with in-
ferior cotton and linen rags to soften and econo-
mise it, be converted into a tougher, whiter,
and cheaper paper than we can at present
afford for common use. On such paper the
second edition of the "Times" newspaper of
Monday the seventeenth of July last was
printed.

There are besides, coarser varieties of the
flax-plant that might be cultivated to yield
paper-pulp of the first quality. The experiment
has been tried with a success which proves that
vast expanses of marshy lands in this country,
and a large proportion of the Irish soil, not
now productive, might be made to grow in-
ferior species of flax convertible into unlimited
supplies of pulp. There is only one barrier to
the immediate solution of the great paper
difficulty. A few gentlemen with capital
and enterprise have associated themselves
for the supply of flax pulp to paper makers,
and some of the principal paper-makers have
agreed to become their customers. Their
object being, however, one of those which can
only be carried out on a large and expansive
scale, it is beyond the means of "a few"
gentlemen. With broad acres to purchase
or to rent, with mills and machinery to pro-
vide ; or, with vast purchases to make of the
coarser flax from the Indian, Australian, or
New Zealand markets, the capital required
could only be commanded by an extensive
company j and, whoever enters upon the

Charles Dickets.]

OBSOLETE COOKERY.

scheme must be prepared to incur enormous
liabilities. This no man in his senses will
do, in the present absurd and crippling state
of the law of partnership even to confer
the greatest blessing on his fellow men ; for
he would place everything he possessed in
jeopardy, from his bank-stock to his boots.

Here then, is an instance of a most useful
and beneficial project being paralysed from an
. irrational and unjust law alaw which exists in
' no other country than England : alaw which
discourages habits of prudence and saving
among the humbler orders (for it shuts out
every profitable investment from the small
capitalist) and which nips every comprehen-
sive and beneficent enterprise in the bud.
Mr. Cardwell has promised an alteration of
this anomalous statute ; let us hope that
he will keep his word early in the present
Session.

OBSOLETE COOKERY.

THE cookery of mummers and morris-
dancers, of abbots of unreason and licensed
jesters what can it be but grotesque, like
the rest ; full of quaint humour without
elegance, and of gross lavishness without real
luxury 1 So, in fact, we find it in Robert
May's queer book ; " The Accomplisht Cook ;
printed for Nath. Brooke, at the Sign of the
Angel, Cornhill, 1660." Robert May seems
to have been great in his time, in his attempt
to popularise the art and mystery of cookery ;
and in his address to the master cooks
and young practitioners which is as much
a defence as an address he deprecates the
wrath of the protectionists of that art in
consequence. He takes high ground, though.
He says that though " he may be envied by
some that only value their private Interests
above Posterity and the publick good; yet
God and his own Conscience would not per-
mit him to bury these his Experiences with
his Silver Hairs in the Grave." An expression
that gives one an affectionate kind of reve-
rence for the brave old cook the " artist "
as he calls himself and his confrdres. He is
intensely English, among <bther things. He
abuses the French for their " Epigram dishes,
smoak't rather than dress't their Mush-
room 'd Experiences for Sauce rather than
Diet," and ungraciously says, that though
"whatever he found good in their Manu-
scripts and printed Authours he inserted
in this volume," yet their books were but
" empty and unprofitable treatises, of as little
use as some Niggards' Kitchens : " wherein we
see the shadow of that fatal spirit of expendi-
ture, the ill effects of which we feel to this day.

We have directions for carving, and the
terms of carving; an account of sundry
" triumphs and trophies in cookery, to be used
at festival times, as Twelfth Day, etc." ; the
service (or order of meats); a list of sauce
for all manner of fowls ; showing " how with
all meats sauce shall have the opperatiou ;"

bills of fare for every season in the year ;
also " how to set forth the meat in order for
that service, as it was used before hospitality
left this nation." And finally a mass of recipes
and such recipes ! Shade of Lucullus! what
clumsy messes, and what strange material !

The directions for carving are very quaint,
You are to break a deer and to leach brawn
(leche, a thin slice ?) You are to spoil a
hen, unbiane a mallard, display a crane,
disfigure, a peacock, border a pasty, tire an
egg, tame a crab, tusk a barbel, culpon a
trout, fin a chevin (chub), trauson an eel,
tranch a sturgeon, under tranch a porpoise,
and barb a lobster. Also, which is not ex-
actly carving, you are to timber the fire. la
the service or order of serving you are to
have first mustard and brawn, then pottage,
then meat, fowl or game, fish, sweets; you
are to have stork and crane and heron and
peacock with his tail on, and larks and
dowcets (custard), and pampuff (pancakes ?)
j and white leach which we leave to our
readers to interpret into modern English
amber-jelly, and then curlews and snites, alias
snipes, and sparrows and martins, and pearch
in jelly, and petty pervis which is also to be
interpreted according to pleasure and a good
dictionary and dewgard or dewberries, und
fruter-sage, and blandrells, and pippins, with
carraways in comfits, and wafers and hip-
pocras. Then you are to have as sauce
verjuice for chickens, and chaldrons orgiblets
very likely with swan : mustard and sugar
with lamb and pig ; sauce gumeliu whatever
that may be with bustard and bittern and
spoonbill; with cranes and herons, salt and
sugar ; with sparrows and thrushes, salt and
cinaou (cinnamon). Sprats is good in stew,
says Robert May ; pears and quinces in
syrrup with parsley roots, and a mortus of
houudfish is to be raised standing. Which
last seems to mean pounded or perhaps potted
fish, turned out of a deep dish.

You are to carve cleanly and handsomely,
and not break the meat ; you are to lay
the slices in a fair charger generally, and
lace the breasts of poultry with your knife ;
you are to gobbin a salt lamprey and
other things, and dight the brain of a wood-
cock (gobbin seems to mean, cut up into
small pieces, and to dight is to dress) ;
you are to roast a porpos and cut him
about ; when you unbrane a mallard you
are to lace it down on each side with your
knife, bending it to and fro like waves ; and
you are to array forth a capon on your
platter as though he should fly.

But listen to Robert May's description of
"a triumph and trophy in cookery," such as
was " formerly the delight of the nobility
before good housekeeping had left England,
and the sword really acted that which was
only counterfeited in such honest and laud-
able exercises as these." You are to make
the likeness of a ship in pasteboard, with
flags and streamers, with guns of kiekses

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted br

(kickshaws?) charged with trams of gun-
powder. This ship you are to place in a
great charger with salt round about, and
stick therein egg-shells full of sweet water.
Then in another charger you are to have a
stag made in coarse paste, with a broad
arrow in the side of him, and his body filled
up with claret wine. In another charger,
after the stag, you are to have a castle with
battlements, percullices, gates, and draw-
bridges of pasteboard, the guns of kickses as
in the former instance. The castle is also
surrounded with salt, stuck with egg-shells
full of rose-water. On each side of the stag
have a pie one filled with live frogs, the
other with live birds. Ship, stag, castle, and
pies are to be gilded and adorned with gilt
bay leaves. Being all placed in order upon
the table, the ladies are to be persuaded to
pluck the arrow out of the stag ; then will
the claret wine follow as blood running out
of a wound. This being done with admi-
ration of the beholders, after a short pause
fire the train of the castle, answering with
that of the ship, as in a battle. Then the
ladies, "to sweeten the stinck of the powder,"
are to take the egg-shells full of sweet waters
and throw them at each other. All danger
being now over, by this time it is supposed
that you will desire to see what is in the
pies ; " when, lifting off the lid of one, out skip
the frogs, which makes the ladies to skip and
shreek ; next after the other pie, whence
comes out the birds." The birds by natural
instinct will fly high and put out the
candles ; so that what with the flying birds
and skipping frogs, the one above, the other
beneath, and total darkness for the romp, we are
told this trophy and triumph will cause much
delight and pleasure to the whole company.

They ate such queer things in those
days. Most likely they knew how to make
good dishes out of their grotesque con-
comitants ; but a "jigott" of mutton with
anchove sauce does seem a rather odd com-
pound ; so does a turkey roste and stuck
with cloves, and eight turtle doves and an
olive pie and larded gulls. Snails, too, do
not suit the degenerate palates of the nine-
teenth century. But, Robert May gives nine
receipts for the various dressing of snails.
First as boiled, then broiled, then fried, then
hashed, then in a soup, and lastly baked.
We are told how to bake frogs as well. Take
the recipe as it stands :

" Being fleyed, take the hind legs, cut off
the feet and season them with nutmeg,
pepper, and salt ; put them in a pie with^
some sweet herbs chopped small, large mace,
slic't lemon, gooseberries, grapes, or bar-
berries, pieces of skirret, artichocks, pota-
toes or parsnips, and marrow. Close it up
and bake it ; being baked, liquor it with butter
and juyce of orange, or grape of verjuyce."
Which looks rather as if the frogs were to
be disguised out of all recognition than ap-
preciated and enjoyed. But what would a

" muskle pie " be like ? Would they bake
the beards as well? Has any one eaten a
broiled lobster ? or one hashed, stewed,
baked, or fried 1 Would hashed oyster be
good eating ? There is an oyster pottage
which reads well, and oysters in stoffado,
whatever that may be ; which last receipt
includes wine, vinegar, spices, eggs, cream,
butter and batter, "slic't" oranges, bar-
berries, and " sarsed manchet " which we
should call bread crumbs among its ingre-
dients. There are minced-herring pies and
all sorts of fish pies generally" not bad
things, by the way and there is a stewed
lump, and a baked lump, and chewits,
otherwise minced patties of salmon, and
a lumber pie of salmon, and pike jelly,
and peti poets (petits pates ?) of carp
minced up with eel ; and marinated fish of
every kind, which seems to be fish pickled
and salted in a peculiar way. Porpoise and
whale were familiar things to Robert May.
We believe he would not have declined hip-
popotamus or alligator, or lions and tigers.
He would have made decent stews and
hashes out of snakes and condors, no doubt,
true omniverous old cook that he was. We
protest, though, against his taking a hand-
some carp a special one of eighteen inches
and splitting it down the back alive. Our
crimped cod, and the eels which do'nt get
used to being skinned, are just as bad, and
perhaps worse ; but the originators of these
wicked practices were the Robert Mays of
our ancestors.

We wish we could give the engravings of
this book. There are pictures of fish " splat,"
or in pies the oddest-looking things ima-
ginable, with queer, grave countenances, that
seem to express a stolid objection to their
position. They would be better as portraits
if they were not all alike. A salmon, a
sturgeon, and a carp, have some points of
difference, but Robert May's wood-engraver
ma.kes the same block do for them all, which
rather spoils the likeness. The king of
them all is a lobster. What words can
describe that unhappy crustacean ? It
looks like a spread eagle ; like a goblin born
of dyspepsia and laudanum ; like a fanciful
flower-bed ; like a mythic tortoise with gout
in his fins, for it is splat in halves, as is
the wont with this accomplished cook's fish ;
it is sprawling and floundering across the
page in a wonderful fatehion, not at all after
the manner of modern lobsters. The cut
we refer to heads a recipe for "baked lob-
sters to be eaten hot." It sounds appetising
enough.

" Being boild and cold, take the meat out
of the shells and season it lightly with nut-
meg, pepper, salt, cinamon, and ginger ;
then lay it in a pie made according to this
form" (our spread eagle or goblin), "and
lay on it some dates in halves, large mace,
slic't lemons, barberries, yolks of hard eggs,
and butter. Close it up, and bake it ; and

Charles Dickens.]

OBSOLETE COOKERY.

being baked, liquor it with white wine,
butter and sugar, and ice it. On flesh days
put marrow to it."

If the fish are odd, the pastry is more
so. That section on pastry demands a
volume to itself. To begin with, do our pre-
sent cooks make paste for a pie in this
manner : u Take to a gallon of flour a pound
of butter ; boil it in fair water ; and make
the paste up quick 1 " Or have we eatable
custard paste like this : " Let it be onely boil-
ing water and flour without butter ; or put
sugar to it, which will add to the stifness of
it, and thus likewise all paste for crusts and
orangado tarts and such like ? " If this was
intended to be eaten and digested, they had
good stomachs in those days. The garnish
of dishes, which we make jiow of paste
stamped out by a cutter, was" then made in
moulds. They were called stock fritters or
fritters of arms, and were made of " fine
flower " into a batter no thicker than thin
cream. The brass moulds were heated in
clarified butter ; then dipped half-way in the
batter and fried, to garnish any boiled
fish, meats, or stewed oysters. " View
their form," ends Robert May, garnishing
this recipe with three woodcuts the
first is the likeness of a pike in all the
agonies of acute indigestion ; the second a
cross-bar, like the heraldic sign of a mascle ;
and the third like a grotesque pink or carna-
tion. Then paste was fried out of a scringe,
or butter-squirt, like little worms lying about
the dish. Well, that was only a coarser kind
of vermicelli or macaroni, so we have no right
to laugh at it. " Blamanger " is apparently
always made of capon " boild all to mash,"
or of pike boiled in fair water, very tender,
and chopped small ; boiled on a soft fire,
remember, in a broad, clean-scoured skillet
to the thickness of an apple moise. And
when made, this blamanger, and creams, and
jellies too of all kinds, are served up in forms
and shapes like the most hideous of those
geometrical ravings which artistically-minded
children draw on their slates for ornament.
A pippin pie is to be made of thirty good
large pippins, thirty cloves, a quarter of an
ounce of whole cinamon, and as much pared
and slic't, a quarter of a pound of orangado,
as much of lemon in sucket (sweet-meat), and
a pound and a half of refined sugar ; close it
up and bake it it will ask four hours
baking then ice it with butter, sugar and
rose-water. There is a quince pie that looks
like an unintelligible astronomical figure, with
the signs of the zodiac all round ; and there
are pippin tarts of half-moons, and rounds, and
ninepins with spots all over them ; and other
fruit pies like cathedral windows ; and a tart
of pips ; and a tart of spinage ; and a taffety
tart (apple, lemon- peel, and fennel-seed) ; and
cream tarts made of cream thickened with
muskified bisket-bread, and preserved cit-
teron, and in the middle a preserved orange
with biskets, the garnish of the dish being of

puff-paste ; and receipts for all manner of
tart stuff, that " carries his colour black, or
yellow, or green, or red." There are recipes
for triffels, for sack possets, for wassel, Nor-
folk fools, white-pot, pyramidis cream, me-
theglin, ippocras, jamballs, jemelloes, amber-
greece cakes, marchpanes, paste of violets,
burrage, bugloss, rosemary, cowslips, &c.,
portingall tarts, and many more that we
cannot even allude to. There is a recipe for
a dish of marchpane to look like collops of
bacon ; for making muskedines, called rising
comfits, or kissing comfits, made of " half-a-
pound of refined sugar beaten and searced ;
put into it two grains of musk, a grain of
civet, two grains of amber-juyce, and a
thimble-full of white orris powder ; beat all
these with gum-dragon steeped in rose-
water ; then roul it as thin as you can, and
cut it into little lozenges with your iging-
iron, and stow them in some warm oven or
stove, then box them and keep them all the
year." There is an " Extraordinary Pie, or a
Bride Pie of severall Compounds, being seve-
rall distinct pies on one bottom." One of the
ingredients is a snake or some live birds,
"which will seem strange to the beholders
who cut up the pie at the table." This is
" onely for a wedding, to pass away time."

Then there are " maremaid pyes," made of
pork and eels ; and " minced pyes of calves'
chaldrons, or muggets," made of grapes,
gooseberries, barberries, and bacon ; and
there are "heads" made into pyes, with a wood-
cut underneath that looks literally like half
a carpet rug with a scroll at the two ends ;
and there are recipes for " baking ail manner
of sea-fowl, as swan, whopper, dap-clucks,
&c. ;" and there are marinated pallets, and
lips, and noses ; and Italian chips of different
coloured pastes in layers ; and then there are
sallets.

Here is a grand sallet. A cold roast capon,
or other roast white meat, cut small, mingled
with a little minced tarragon, and an onion,
lettice, olives, samphire, broom-buds, pickled
mushrooms, pickled oysters, lemon, orange,
raisins, almonds, blew figs, Virginia potato,
caperons, crucifex pease, and the like. Gar-
nish this medley with quarters of oranges and
lemons, and pour on oyl and vinegar beaten
together. Another sallet has the following
mixture : " Take all manner of knots of buds
of sallet herbs, buds of potherbs, or any green
herbs, as sage, mint, balm, burnet, violet-
leaves, red coleworta streaked of different
colours, lettice, any flowers, blanched al-
monds, blew figs, raisins of the sun, currans,
capers, olives ; then dish the sallet in a heap
or pile, being mixt with some of the fruits,
and all finely washed and swung in a
napkin ; then about the center lay first slic't
figs, next capers and currans, then almonds
and raisins, next olives, and lastly either
jagged beets, jagged lemons, jagged cucum-
bers, cabbidge-kttice in quarters, good oyl.
and wine vinegar sugar or none."

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

Now is not this a recipe worth studying ?
If variety has any claim to one's attention, this
mixture ought to stand high in our considera-
tion. Every kind of herb or plant seemed fit for
" sallet," according to our accomplisht cook. If
he had recommended hay-seeds or thistle-
buds we should not have felt surprised.
Purslan, cloves, jilly-flowers, rampons, ellick-
sander buds, samphire, . charvel, cucumber,
boild collyflower, burnet, burrage, endive,
lettice, fruits of all kinds, everything that
grows, in short, mingled. together, and mixed
up with salt, sugar, oil and vinegar. A most
catholic, taste, to say the least of it ; but
really more sensible than our silly daintiness
which permits.a wide wealth of food to rot at
our feet because of some absurd, prejudice or
most unworthy ignorance. Yet, at first sight
and at first taste too, one would imagine
much of the material of that day would be
unpalateable. For who would dream of
shell-bread 1 positively muscle-shells !
muscle-shells "toasted in butter melted, when
they be baked, then boiled in melted sugar,
as you boil a simnell (the present name
for a certain Shrewsbury cake) ; then lay
them on the bottom of a wooden sieve,
and they will eat as crisp as a wafer."
The rest of this shell-bread is made of a
quarter of a pound of rice flower, a quarter
of a pound of fine flower, the yolks of four
new laid eggs, a little rose-water, and a
grain of music ; make these into a paste, then
roul it very thin, and bake it in great muscle-
shells (we have already had the receipt for
the management of these). There is a re-
ceipt, too, for bean-bread, which is made of
aniseeds, musk, and blanched almonds ; why
called bean-bread is difficult to say.

These cinnamon toasts are not bad. " Cut
fine thin toasts, then toast them on a grid-
iron, and lay them in ranks in a dish, put to
them some fine beaten cinamon, mixed with
sugar and some claret, warm them over the
fire, and serve them hot." Here are French
toasts, too, tolerable in their way : " Cut
French bread, and toast it in pretty thick
toasts on a clean gridiron, and serve them
steeped in claret, sack, or any wine, with
sugar and juyce of orange." Do you want a
sauce or souce, as our accomplisht hath it
for a hare ?

" Beaten cinamon, nutmegs, ginger, pepper,
boiled prunes, and corrans strained, muski-
fied bisket ; bread beaten into powder, sugar
and cloves, nil boild up as thick as \vater-
grewel."

Another sauce much like this is to be
"boild up to an indifferency, ; " and another
is to "have a walm or two over the fire."
Mustard is to be ground in a "mustard
quern, or a boul with a cannon-bullet," and
made into little loaves or cakes to carry in
one's pocket. Then, there are odd ways of
making vinegar. You are to take bramble
bryers when they are half ripe, dry them,
and make them into powder ; with a little

strong vinegar, make little balls, and dry
them in the sun, and when you will use
them, take wine and heat it, put in some of
the ball, or a whole one, and it will be turned
very speedily into strong vinegar. This is a
good pendant to the mustard cakes. At this
rate a man might carry his whole store-closet
in his pocket. In making vinegar you are
to put your firkin full of good white wine
in the sun, "on the leads of a house or gut-
ter." Or you are to put into this firkin, a
beet-root, medlars, cervices, mulberries, un-
ripe flowers, a slice of barley bread hot out
of the oven, or the blossoms of cervices in
their season : dry them in the sun in a glass
vessel, in the manner of rose vinegar ; fill
up the glass with clear wine vinegar, white
or claret wine, or set it in the sun or in a
chimney by fhe fire. .There are sugar or
honey sops to be met with in Cumberland to
this day. Very delicious, and uncommonly
bilious eating. Then, there is " broth for a
sick body ;" and to "stew a cock agaihst a con-
sumption ;" and "to distill a pig good against a
consumption ;" and another " excellent broth
or drink for a sick body," and immediately
following, another " strong broth for a sick
party," and an excellent restorative for a
weak back, of, " the .leaves of clary and nepe,
fried with the yolks of eggs, and . eat to
breakfast.

We might multiply Robert May's odditiea
in his Art and Mystery of Cooking, until
we had given every recipe in- his book.
They are all in the same style as those
we have copied. Cumbersome, quaint, pro-
fuse, coarse, they are fit for the time which
countenanced the gross practical jokes and
rough pleasures of ttie Trophy and Triumph
we have spoken of ; but, there is also a lordly
lavish ness about them that brings up pleasant
pictures of the baronial magnificence of olden
times, and somewhat shames the smaller, if
more elegant hospitality of to-day. Live
frogs, live birds, and live snakes, are not the
most pleasant guests at a dinner-table ; but, the
open-handed desire to show honour to their
friends, and to give happiness and pleasure,
was some counterbalance to the coarseness of
our ancestors. Passing by the bad taste
which took delight in such vandalisms, we
might perhaps find some useful hints in our
old cookery-book. Certainly we might learn
one good lesson how to make use of every
available article of food ; how to multiply
our present resources, and turn into nourish-
ment and use, material now left wasting by
the side of men dying of hunger.

This day is published, for greater convenience, and
cheapness of binding,

THE FIRST TEN VOLUMES

HOUSEHOLD WORDS,

IN FIVE HANDSOME VOLUMES,

WITH A GENERAL INDEX TO THE WHOLE.
Price of tho Set, thus bound in Five Double instead of Ten
Single Volumes, 2 10s. Od.

Published at tin Olfcce, -No. ;c, \''cUingt?n Street .North, Strand. Prm'.eii by l?iu*ui & ETAHS, \Vhlterrin, Louitoa

"Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS"

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL,
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

255.]

SATUKDAY, FEBBUARY 10, 1855.

GASLIGHT FAIRIES.

FANCY an order for five-and-thirty Fairies !
Imagine a mortal in a loose-sleeved great
coat, with the mud of London streets upon
his legs, commercially ordering, in the
common-place, raw, foggy forenoon, " five-
and-thirty more Fairies " ! Yet I, the writer,
heard the order given. " Mr. Vernon, let me
have five-and-thirty more Fairies to-morrow
morning and take care they are good ones."

Where was it that, towards the close of
the year one thousand eight hundred and
fifty-four, on a dark December morning, I
overheard this astonishing commission given
to Mr. Vernon, and by Mr. Vernon accepted
without a word of remonstrance and entered
in a note-book ? It was in a dark, deep gulf
of a place, hazy with fog at the bottom of a
sort of immense well without any water in
it ; remote crevices and chinks of daylight
faintly visible on the upper rim ; dusty palls
enveloping the sides ; gas flaring at my feet ;
hammers going, in invisible workshops ;
groups of people hanging about, trying to
keep their toes and fingers warm, what time
their, noses were dimly seen through the
smoke of their own breath. It was in the
strange conventional world where the visible
people only, never advance ; where the
unseen painter learns and changes ; where
the unseen tailor learns and changes ; where
the unseen mechanist adapts to his purpose
the striding ingenuity of the age ; where the
electric light comes, in a box that is carried
under a man's arm; but, where the visible flesh
and blood is so persistent in one routine
that, from the waiting-woman's apron-pockets
(with her hands in them), upward to the
smallest retail article in the "business" of
mad Lear with straws in his wig, and
downward to the last scene but one of the
pantomime, where, for about one hundred
years last past, all the characters have
entered groping, in exactly the same way, in
identically the same places, under precisely
the same circumstances, and without the
smallest reason I say, it was in that strange
world where the visible population have so com-
pletely settled their so-potent art, that when
I pay my money at the door I know before-
hand everything that can possibly happen to
me, iifside. It was in the Theatre, that I

heard this order given for five-and-thirty
Fairies.

And hereby hangs a recollection, not out of
place, though not of a Fairy. Once, on just
such another December morning, I stood on
the same dusty boards, in the same raw
atmosphere, intent upon a pantomime-
rehearsal. A massive giant's castle arose
before me, and the giant's body-guard
marched in to comic music ; twenty grotesque
creatures, with little arms and legs, and enor-
mous faces moulded into twenty varieties of
ridiculous leer. 'One of these faces in par-
ticular an absurdly radiant face, with a
wink upon it, and its tongue in its cheek
elicited much approving notice from the
authorities, and a ready laugh from the or-
chestra, and was, for a full half minute, a special
success. But, it happened that the wearer of
the beaming visage carried a banner ; and, not
to turn a banner as a procession moves, so as
always to keep its decorated side towards the
audience, is one of the deadliest sins a
banner-bearer can commit. This radiant
goblin, being half-blinded by his mask, and
further disconcerted by partial suffocation,
three distinct times omitted the first duty of
man, and petrified us by displaying, with the
greatest ostentation, mere sackcloth and
timber, instead of the giant's armorial bear-
ings. To crown which offence he couldn't
hear when he was called to, but trotted
about in his richest manner, unconscious
of threats and imprecations. Suddenly, a
terrible voice was heard above the music,
crying, " Stop ! " Dead silence, and we
became aware of Jove in the boxes.
" Hatchway," cried Jove to the director,
"who is that man? Show me that man."
Hereupon, Hatchway (who had a wooden
leg), vigorously apostrophising the defaulter
as an " old beast," stumped straight up to
the body-guard now in line before the castle,
and taking the radiant countenance by the
nose, lifted it up as if it were a saucepan-lid
and disclosed below, the features of a bald,
superannuated, aged person, very much in
want of shaving, who looked in the forlornest
way at the spectators, while the large face
aslant on the top of his head mocked him.
" What ! It's you, is it?" said Hatchway, with
dire contempt. " I thought it was you." "I
knew it was that man ! " cried Jove. " I

VOL. XL

255

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

told you yesterday, Hatchway, he was not fit
for it. Take him away, and bring another ! "
He was ejected with every mark of ignominy,
and the inconstant mask was just as funny
on another man's shoulders immediately
afterwards. To the present day, I never see
a very comic pantomime-mask but I wonder
whether this wretched old man can possibly
have got behind it ; and I never think of him
as dead and buried (which is far more likely),
but I make that absurd countenance a part of
his mortality, and picture it to myself as
gone the way of all the winks in the world.

Five-and-thirty more Fairies, and let them
be good ones. I saw them next day. They
ranged from an anxious woman of ten, learned
in the prices of victual and fuel, up to a
conceited young lady of five times that age,
who always persisted in standing on on leg
longer than was necessary, with the deter-
mination (as I was informed), "to make a
Part of it." This Fairy was of long theatrical
descent centuries, I believe and had never
had an ancestor who was entrusted to com-
municate one word to a British audience.
Yet, the whole race had lived and died with
the fixed idea of " making a Part of it" ; and
she, the last of the line, was still unchangeably
resolved to go down on one leg to posterity.
Her father had fallen a victim to the family
ambition ; having become in course of time
so extremely difficult to " get off," as a vil-
lager, seaman, smuggler, or what not, that it
was at length considered unsafe to allow him
to " go on." Consequently, those neat con-
fidences with the public in which he had
displayed the very acm6 of his art usually
consisting of an explanatory tear, or an arch
hint in dumb show of his own personal de-
termination to perish in the attempt then on
foot were regarded, as superfluous, and came
to be dispensed with, exactly at the crisis when
he himself foresaw that he would " be put into
Parts " shortly. I had the pleasure of recog-
nising in the character of an Evil Spirit of
the Marsh, overcome by this lady with one
(as I should else have considered purposeless)
poke of a javelin, an actor whom I had
formerly encountered in the provinces under
circumstances that had fixed him agreeably
in my remembrance. The play, represented
to a nautical audience, was Hamlet ; and this
gentleman having been killed with much credit
as Polonius, reappeared in the part of Osric :
provided against recognition by the removal
of his white wig, and the adjustment round
his waist of an extremely broad belt and
buckle. He was instantly recognized, not-
withstanding these artful precautions, and a
solemn impression was made upon the spec-
tators for which I could not account, until a
sailor in the Pit drew a long breath, said to
himself in a deep voice, " Blowed if here a'nt
another Ghost !" and composed himself to
listen to a second communication from the tomb.
Another personage whom I recognized as
taking refuge under the wings of Pantomime

(she was not a Fairy, to be sure, but she kept
the cottage to which the Fairies came, and
lived in a neat upper bedroom, with her legs
obviously behind the street door), was a
country manager's wife a most estimable
woman of about fifteen stone, with a larger
family than I had ever been able to count :
whom I had last seen in Lincolnshire, playing
Juliet, while her four youngest children (and
nobody else) were in the boxes hanging out
of window, as it were, to trace with their
forefingers the pattern on the front, and
making all Verona uneasy by their imminent
peril of falling into the Pit. Indeed, I had
seen this excellent woman in the whole round
of Shakesperian beauties, and had much
admired her way of getting through the text.
If anybody made any remark to her, in re-
ference to which any sort of answer occurred
to her mind, she made that answer ; other-
wise, as a character in the drama, she preserved
an impressive silence, and, as an individual,
was heard to murmur t'o the unseen person
next in order of appearance, " Come on !" I
found her, now, on good motherly terms with
the Fairies, and kindly disposed to chafe and
warm the fingers of the younger of that race.
Out of Fairy-land, I suppose that so many
shawls and bonnets of a peculiar limpness
were never assembled together. And, as to
shoes and boots, I heartily wished that " the
good people " were better shod, or were as
little liable to take cold as in the sunny days
when they were received at Court as God-
mothers to Princesses.

Twice a-year, upon an average, these gas-
light Fairies appear to us ; but, who knows
what becomes of them at other times ? You
are sure to see them at Christmas, and they
may be looked for hopefully at Easter ; but,
where are they through the eight or nine long
intervening months 1 They cannot find shelter
under mushrooms, they cannot live upon dew;
unable to array themselves in supernatural
green, they must even look to Manchester for
cotton stuffs to wear. When they become
visible, you find them a traditionary people,
with a certain conventional monotony in their
proceedings which prevents their surprising
you very much, save now and then when they
appear in company with Mr. Beverley. In a
general way, they have been sliding out of the
clouds, for some years, like barrels of beer
delivering at a public-house. They sit in the
same little rattling stars, with glorious cork-
screws twirling about them and never
drawing anything, through a good many
successive seasons. They come up in the
same shells out of the same three rows of
gauze water (the little ones lying down in
front, with their heads diverse ways) ; and
you resign yourself to what must infallibly
take place when you see them armed with
garlands. You know all you have to
expect of them by moonlight. In the glowing
day, you are morally certain that the gentle-
man with the muscular legs and ihf short

Charles Dickens.]

GASLIGHT FAIRIES.

tunic (like the Bust at the Hairdresser's, com-
pletely carried out), is coming, when you see
them " getting over " to one side, while the
surprising phenomenon is presented on the
landscape of a vast mortal snadow in a hat of
the present period, violently directing them
so to do. You are acquainted with all these
peculiarities of the gaslight Fairies, and you
know by heart everything that they will do
with their arms and legs, and when they will
do it. But, as to the same good people in their
invisible condition, it is a hundred to one that
you know nothing, and never think of them.

I began this paper with, perhaps, the most
curious trait, after all, in the history of the
race. They are certain to be found when
wanted. Order Mr. Vernon to lay on a
hundred and fifty gaslight Fairies next Mon-
day morning, and they will flow into the
establishment like so many feet of gas. Every
Fairy can bring other Fairies; her sister Jane,
her friend Matilda, her friend Matilda's
friend, her brother's young family, her mother
if Mr. Vernon will allow that respectable
person to pass muster. Summon the Fairies,
and Drury Lane, Soho, Somers' Town, and
the neighbourhood of the obelisk in St.
George's Fields, will become alike prolific in
them. Poor, good-humoured, patiezit, fond
of a little self-display, perhaps, (sometimes,
but far from always), they will come trudging
through the mud, leading brother and sister
lesser Fairies by the hand, and will hover
about in the dark stage-entrances, shivering
and chattering in their shrill way, and earn-
ing their little money hard, idlers and vaga-
bonds though we may be pleased to think
them. I wish, myself, that we were not so often
pleased to think ill of those who minister to
our amusement. I am far from having satis-
fied my heart that either we or they are a
bit the better for it.

Nothing is easier than for any one of us to
get into a pulpit, or upon a tub, or a stump,
or a platform, and blight (so far as with our
bilious and complacent breath we can), any
class of small people we may choose to select.
But, it by no means follows that because it is
easy and safe, it is right. Even these very
gaslight Fairies, now. Why should I be
bitter on them because they are shabby per-
sonages, tawdrily dressed for the passing
hour, and then to be shabby again 1 I have
known very shabby personages indeed the
shabbiest I ever heard of tawdrily dressed
for public performances of other kinds, and
performing marvellously ill too, though trans-
cendently rewarded : yet whom none dispa-
raged ! In even-handed justice, let me render
these little people their due.

Ladies and Gentlemen. Whatever you may
hear to the contrary (and may sometimes
have a strange satisfaction in believing), there
is no lack of virtue and modesty among the
Fairies. All things considered, I doubt if
they be much below our own high level. In
respect of constant acknowledgment of the

claims of kindred, I assert for the Fairies,
that they yield to no grade of humanity. Sad
as it is to say, I have known Fairies even to
fall, through this fidelity of theirs. As to
young children, sick mothers, dissipated
brothers, fathers unfortunate and fathers
undeserving, Heaven and Earth, how many
of these have I seen clinging to the spangled
skirts, and contesting for the nightly shilling
or two, of one little lop-sided, weak-legged
Fairy !

Let me, before I ring the curtain down on
this short piece, take a single Fairy, as Sterne
took his Captive, and sketch the Family-Pic-
ture. I select Miss Fairy, aged three-and-
twenty, lodging within cannon range of Water-
loo Bridge, London not alone, but with her
mother, Mrs. Fairy, disabled by chronic rheu-
matism in the knees; and with her father,
Mr. Fairy, principally employed in lurking
about a public-house, and waylaying the the-
atrical profession for twopence wherewith to
purchase a glass of old ale, that he may have
something warming on his stomach (which
has been cold for fifteen years) ; and with
Miss Eosina Fairy, Miss Angelica Fairy, and
Master Edmund Fairy, aged respectively,
fourteen, ten, and eight. Miss Fairy has an
engagement of twelve shillings a week sole
means of preventing the Fairy family from
coming to a dead lock. To be sure, at this
time of year the three young Fairies have a
nightly engagement to come out of a Pumpkin
as French soldiers ; but, its advantage to the
housekeeping is rendered nominal, by that
dreadful old Mr. Fairy's making it a legal
formality to draw the money himself every
Saturday and never coming home until his
stomach is warmed, and the money gone.
Miss Fairy is pretty too, makes up very
pretty. This is a trying life at the best, but
very trying at the worst. And the worst
is, that that always beery old Fairy, the
father, hovel's about the stage-door four or
five nights a week, and gets his cronies among
the carpenters and footmen to carry in mes-
sages to his daughter (he is not admitted him-
self), representing the urgent coldness of his
stomach and his parental demand for twopence;
failing compliance with which, he creates dis-
turbances ; and getting which, he becomes
maudlin and waitsfor the manager, to whom he
represents with tears that his darling child and
pupil, the pride of his soul, is " kept down in
the Theatre." A hard life this for Miss Fairy,
I say, and a dangerous ! And it is good to
see her, in the midst of it, so watchful of
Eosina Fairy, who otherwise might come to
harm one day. A hard life this, I say again,
even if John Kemble Fairy, the brother, who
sings a good song, and when he gets an
engagement always disappears about the
second week or so and is seen no more, had
not a miraculous property of turning up on a
Saturday without any heels to his boots,
firmly purposing to commit suicide, xinless
bought off with half-a-crown. And yet so

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

curious is the gaslighted atmosphere in \vhich
these Fairies dwell ! through all the narrow
ways of such an existence, Miss Fairy never
relinquishes the belief that that incorrigable old
Fairy, the father, is a wonderful man ! She is
immovably convinced that nobody ever can,
or ever could, approach him in Rolla. She
has grown up in this conviction, will never
correct it, will die in it. If, through any
wonderful turn of fortune, she were to arrive
at the emolument and dignity of a Free
Bene6t to-morrow, she would " put up " old
Fairy, red nosed, stammering and imbecile
with delirium tremens shaking his very but-
tons off as the noble Peruvian, and would play
Cora herself, with a profound belief in his
taking the town by storm at last.

THE HILL OF GOLD.

THE alchemists tried hard to discover some
form of aurum potabile, or drinkable gold,
which, when at last brewed in correct and
perfect style, should endow the happy and
learned drinker with unfading youth and in-
terminable length of days. They failed, we
may suppose ; because, although rarely, from
time to time, one or two reputed evergreen
immortals have strutted on the stage whereon
all men and women are the players, they,
like the rest, have made their exit. Them-
selves, as well as the scenes, have been shifted.
We see them not amongst us, to testify to the
potency of their golden potion, in spite of the
daily miracles wrought by hair dyes, supple-
mental teeth, and Tyrian bloom.

It has been reserved for myself to make
the grand discovery which past ages have
been unable to achieve. I not by myself
I, have penetrated to the source whence issue
inexhaustible fountains of potable gold. I
have drunk my fill without stint or limit, and
I feel the invigorating beverage tingling in
every fibre, imparting strength to every
muscle, and even adding energy to every
thought. Not to be selfish and miserly, by
concealing the whereabouts of this liquid
treasure, the true golden beverage is to be
had at springs whose names are Vollenay,
Vougeot, Beaune, Nuits, and many others,
all situated in the eastern region of France,
midway between the Mediterranean and the
English Channel. But, to cut matters short
and to end all mystery, I will precede any
further explanation by a short lecture on
Gallic geography.

France, then, is historically associated in
our minds with the old division into pro-
vinces. We can never forget such memorable
words as Champagne, Burgundy, Langue-
doc. These names have disappeared from
modern maps, and are replaced by others.
It is exactly as if all our counties were swept
clean away, and Great Britain were redistri-
buted into more equal portions, with quite
new denominations attached to them. France
actually and at present is, by decree of the

National Assembly, partitioned into five
regions, very easy to remember in respect to
their relative positions namely, north, south,
east, west, and Central which again are un-
equally divided into eighty-six departments,
including Corsica, ceded to France by the
republic of Genoa so lately as seventeen hun-
dred and sixty-eight, in consideration of a
money payment. This insular department of
course belongs to the south region. As to the
order in which the departments usually
range, some geographers begin at the bottom
of the map, making Corsica number one ;
others at the top, placing the Department du
Nord (in which are the towns of Dunkerque,
Lille, and Valenciennes) at the head of the list.

The names by which the different depart-
ments are distinguished, have been conferred
upon them for different reasons. Many are
known by the name of the principal river or
rivers which run through them ; as the De-
partments de la Sarthe, de PAllier, de Loir-
et-Cher, and de la Seine-Inferieure. Others
derive their titles from the mountains to
which they are contiguous ; as the Depart-
ments du Jura, des Vosges, des Basses-Alpes,
and des Hautes-Pyrenees. Some maritime
departments bring with them an allusion to
the seas which wash their shores ; as those of
de la Manche, du Pas-de-Calais, and des
C6tes-du-Nord ; while remarkable natural
peculiarities of position or constitution, un-
usual and celebrated points of topography,
claim their right to be commemorated in the
household words of the locality. Hence we
have the Departments du Puy-de-D6me, from,
the conical colossus who rears his head above
the other Puys, or volcanic hills, which have
been upraised by subterranean fires in the
neighbourhood of Clermont ; des Landes,
from the vast sandy plains which tire the
eye with little relief, except from ponds and
marshes, and over which the wild inhabitants
stride rapidly on stilts ; du Finisterre, from
the Land's End of France ; and du Calvados,
from a dangerous chain of rocks along the
coast, six leagues in length, extending from
the mouth of the Vire to that of the Orne,
and which owe their own denomination to
the shipwreck of a vessel of that name be-
longing to the squadron which Philip the
Second dispatched for England in fifteen
hundred and eighty-eight. And lastly, as a
crowning example, there is a bit cut out of
Burgundy, the Department de la C6te-d : Or,
or the Hill of Gold.

Gold is really found, then, in that precious
hill ? It is another Australia? a Californian
mountain ? Oh no ! Something far better
than that. Its gold, I repeat, is drinkable ;
producing, when used with due discretion, if
not exactly eternal youth, the nearest ap-
proach to it which human wit has as yet
discovered, the most perennial restorative
allowed to man according to the laws imposed
on nature by the Almighty Controller and
Provider of all things.

Charles Dickens.]

THE HILL OF GOLD.

The C6te-d'Or is\a chain of hills extending
about five-and-thirty English miles in length
from the city of Dijon at its northern end to
Santenay, the last village at its southern
extremity. Along this range are produced
the wines which have conferred on Burgundy
a cosmopolitan reputation as the out-and-out
prince of jollity and good cheer. The line of
this chain runs from north-east to south-
west, in such a way that the first rays of the
rising and the last of the setting sun gild
and warm the outspread vineyards. Once,
the summits of the hills were all crowned
with wood, which now only remains as a rare
exception. The forests were all cut down,
because it was believed they attracted hail-
storms (that -might be merely an excuse for
raising the wind) ; but since their removal
the evil has proved as destructive as ever,
while their shelter and mist-attracting
powers are lost. For the most part, the top
of the Hill of Gold is a lump of cold, grey,
barren limestone, with hardly sufficient
moisture and mould upon it to keep alive a
few half-starved tufts of grass and stunted
bushes. Mosses and lichens, those outcasts
of vegetation, shift for themselves as well as
they can. The vineyards, all along the Cote,
run up to the very verge of this stony
desert ; and within a few feet, sometimes
within a few inches of each other, you see
blushing the grape which produces the most
luscious wine, and the astringent sloe and
the vapid blackberry. Sometimes a low cliff,
a few feet in height, serves as a wall to sepa-
rate the vineyard from the wilderness, and
so causes the transition to appear less abrupt.

As a general rule, the wine-producing por-
tions of Burgundy and Champagne are what
we should call dry, even short of water.
There are neither marshes, lakes, nor consi-
derable rivers, to send up mists which pollute
the atmosphere and screen the vivifying action
of the sun ; and the ocean is too far distant
to overspread the sky with a mantle of sea-
fog night and morning. You can fancy,
therefore, that the grapes (like the cucumbers
from which the Laputa chemist proposed to
extract the sunbeams), imbibe the heat of the
solar rays, and treasure it up, for the purpose
of yielding it back by and by, as they do
when they cause the old man's heart to glow
within him. The C6te-d'Or, in spite of its
gray, barren, bald forehead, looks everywhere
warm, dry, and comfortable. Its slope is
thickly studded with snug villages, whose
names, when you ask them, are familiar
words, Vougeot, Gevrey-Chambertin, and
Voile nay, each with its square, solid steeple,
and dwarf, atubby, would-be spire. Many
present a deceitfully-dilapidated aspect, from
being roofed with shingle of self-splitting
rock ; they nevertheless are weatherproof
habitations of men, wherein dwell wealth,
ease, and good living, besides contented be-
cause constant labour. The Cote, so smiling
upon the whole, every now and then yawns

wide, opening into rocky and precipitous
ravines, tufted and overhung with clumps of
trees, and tempting to penetrate their shady
recesses. But the foot of the Cote is a conti-
nuous carpet of vineyards stretching further
north and south than the eye can follow it
either way. We should wonder what the
inhabitants can do with all the wine pro-
duced (and epochs, as we shall see, have
occurred when they have been sorely puzzled
how to dispose of it), did we not know that
the whole world, just now, like a thousand-
armed Briareus, is constantly holding out
innumerable cups for generous Jean Raisin
to fill with good liquor. In the Department
de la Cote-d'Or alone there are, in round
numbers, sixty-nine thousand English acres
entirely occupied by vineyards. This im-
mense field of viniferous verdure is dotted
with, not broken up by, standard fruit-trees
of various kinds. The vine-forest is over-
topped at distant intervals by vegetable
monsters of colossal growth, the humblest in.
rank, though not in stature, being the walnut,
with its valuable wood. There are a few
apple-trees, more pears, still more cherries,
with apricot and peach-trees in unaccountable
abundance. The fruit from these is in great
part sent off to less favoured regions, and to
the all-consuming metropolis. There are
vignerons who have sold this year six hun-
dred francs' worth of apricots alone, thus
slightly stopping the gap caused by the
failure of the grape-blossoms in spring. And
as to the fruit from the standard peach-trees,
a plein vent, in the full wind, though inferior
in size, they are in flavour what can only be
expressed by smacking the lips with the
accompaniment of a look of ecstacy. Less
pretending intruders are numerous ; aspa-
ragus stools dispersed throughout the vine-
yards to render an acceptable tribute in their
season. Then come undulating tracts, sinking
into valleys of a very Welsh character ; hilla
breaking out into clifEs, with shrubs sprouting
on their perpendicular face ; with vineyards
running merrily to the tops of the respective
portions of Cote, till the bare rock, cropping
out, effectually stops all further progress.
The whole scene fills the mind with that
indescribable complacency which arises from
the contemplation of a lovely landscape. The
best and choicest wine, be it ever remem-
bered, is grown neither at the very top of the
cultivated part, nor yet upon the flat fertile
part which sends forth such abundant streams
of rosy juice. It is found just upon the final
slope by which the hill dissolves and descends
into the plain.

The very fields amidst the vineyards on the
plain are but temporary gaps. Burgundy
does not grow enough wheat for its own con-
sumption, even on the alluvial bottoms that
skirt the Saoue, the Ouche, and the Yonne.
When vines show symptoms of wearing out,
they are stubbed up, and the ground is cul-
tivated with other crops for a few years to

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

give it rest ; that is, to allow the bits of rock
in which the vine delights, to decompose and
furnish fresh soil. But such stubbings-up
seldom occur on well-managed ground. On
the Cote is a vineyard called Charlemagne,
because, according to an old tradition, it was
planted by that prince's order. Some vines
at Chablis have lasted from sixty to eighty
years, with care ; others, neglected, fall off
at thirty. As the Burgundians are short of
grain crops, they consequently are short of
manure ; and, in the absence of farm-yard
muck, they sow the land destined for wheat,
with peas, vetches, and other leguminous
plants, sometimes also with raves, or coarse
turnips, to be ploughed in as fertilizers. All
these are allowable make-shifts ; but, apart
from vine-growing, farming is not at high-
water mark. In Basse Bourgogne are to be
seen instructive examples of the evil effects
of stripping beet of its leaves. The root re-
sulting is something resembling a crooked
red walking-stick, instead of the fat honest
corpulence which a well-to-do beet is expected
to protrude. A hundred symptoms, as you
travel along, show that the vine is lord para-
mount of the soil. Thus, all the moist hol-
lows are planted with willows and osiers,
to serve as ligatures to the drooping shoots.

Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of
the best Burgundiau vineyards, is their soil ;
for the rich alluvial loam of the valley only
produces second-rate wine. It is composed
of bits of broken grey or yellow rock, mixed
with a portion of what cannot be called earth
or vegetable mould, but merely rotten stone
in the shape of powder, and hardly that.
You would say that it was only fit to mend
the roads with. I have seen many a good
cartload of the like lying ready prepared by
the wayside, in the midland counties. Mr.
Blueapron who keeps his vinery so moist
that his vines put forth roots, in mid air, the
whole length of their new-wood branches
who manures his vine-borders with quarters
of dead horse, and will not allow even a
mignonnette plant to exhaust their richness
would look aghast if he were told to culti-
vate such compost as that. It is perfectly
true that the two Messieurs B., Blueapron
videlicet, and Bourgignon, grow grapes with
a different object ; table and tub are their
opposite destiny. " My grapes," the former
will boast, "are different to these." To which
B. the second will answer with a shrug
" They are indeed ! The only drink your
dropsical berries would make, is the cru
which the Champagne beasts call Tord-
boyau, or Twistbowel wine. More opposite
conditions of culture can hardly exist. In
one case, the plant has its branches, fruit,
and foliage in the dryest almost of European
air, smd its roots in a stratum of warm well-
ventilated pebbles ; in the other, the vine is
smothered with steam above and choked
with carrion below. The horticultural vine

the vineyards has little other stimulant (save
sunshine) than slowly decomposing mineral
food. The Academy of Salerno have wisely
decided that wine, to be really good, must
possess united the four meritorious qualities
of perfume, savour, brilliancy, and colour.
All these, and more, good burgundy can
boast ; and yet it is produced from a" more
heap of stony rubbish.

In short, it is the rock that makes the
wine. Not that any and every rock will pro-
duce good burgundy ; but, on the quality of
the rock depends the permanent character of
the vintage. Everybody knows that good
champagne ought to have a decided taste of
gun-flint. Sir Humphry Davy has shown
that the nature of the soils defends on the
substratum of rock on which they lie, and by
the decomposition whereof they are mainly
produced. And thus, the wines of the Cote-
d'Or may be classed into groups ; those grow-
ing on the same bed of rock are similar in
flavour and character. As the substratum
varies along the course of the C6te, so do the
wines. Generally, the rock which forms the
base of the Golden Hills, is a coarse sub-carbon-
ate of lime, which furnishes very tolerable stone
for building purposes, and presents, especially
near Santenay, an enormous mass of gryphites
united by a calcareous paste of a grayish tint.
But the prevailing hue is an ochrey yellow ;.
and it is uncertain whether the Cote derives
its name from the colour of its soil or the-
money value of its produce. Examine any one
given hill, and the truth of the above prin-
ciple will be evident. For instance, the hill of
PuJigny and Mursault is all of a piece ; the-
crystallisation is the same, and it is a heap of
the same kind of shells. Whether you take it
at Mursault or at Montrachet, namely, at the
two extremities, it is the same carbonate ot
lime, differing only in slight external pro-
perties, but identical in its internal composi-
tion.

Nevertheless, the wine of Montrachet is
superior to that of the rest of the hill ; but
that is the consequence of its aspect, which
slopes to the south-east. Moreover, the soil
of this canton is fine, light, extremely perme-
able to the action of the air, and is composed
of an admirable mixture of clay, sub-carbonate
of lime, tritoxide of iron, and vegetable
remains. The superiority of the produce is
owing to the fortunate combination of a
favourable aspect and a good soil.

At the valley of Nuits commences the por-
tion of the Cote, which is perhaps the most
celebrated amongst foreigners for its wines,
which have the reputation of being strong, of
keeping well, and of bearing long journeys.
Fashion may have had something to do with
it. Until the beginning of the eighteenth
century they were in less esteem. Their re-
putation seems to date from the illness which
Louis the Fourteenth suffered in sixteen hun-
dred and eighty, when his physician Fagon

is glutted with animal manure ; the vine of ' recommended Nuits wine to restore his

Charles Dickens.]

THE HILL OF GOLD.

strength. Of course, every sick courtier
drank the same beverage ; those that were
not sick fell ill on purpose to follow their
dread sovereign's example. We may add, by
the way, that the failing powers of the same
monarch gave rise to the invention oj
liqueurs by the same medical attendant, as a
cordial wherewith to stimulate the blunt
senses of decrepitude. The rock which forms
the base of this little chain is a very pure
subcarbonate of lime, with but little admix-
ture of foreign substances ; in fact, it is true and
real marble streaked with a few delicate
pinkish veins. It is possible that, hereafter,
the marble of Nuits will stand in almost as
high repute as its wine.

:One October morning I was awakened at
Nmtsby the din of coopers hammer ing the tub
of preparation, and making them fit to receive
the grapes. I dressed myself to the sound oJ
music, whose rhythm corresponded to Dr
Arne's old tune of, " When the hollow drum
doth beat to bed." The streets were full ol
quiet but earnest business ; it was the first
day of the vintage. There were carts going
out of town, on each of which was mounted a
large oval tub called a balonge, to receive and
pai-tially squeeze the grapes in ; there were
the same or similar carts and tubs brimful ol
black grapes returning from the field ; there
were men passing from the vineyards into the
town, laden with hods, or back-baskets, and
also with baskets shaped like Yarmouth
swills, only shallower, all full of the black,
not-at-all-goodlooking pineau grape ; wo-
men also with empty baskets containing
a supply of unshutting priming-knives
to sever poor Jean Raisin from his
parent stem ; gentlemen with choice little
baskets of grapes on their arm, culled before
the vintagers have begun, for their wives to
treasure in moss and paper to produce them
for the Christmas dessert ; or a woman bear-
ing the same on her head, by way of trans-
porting them more steadily ; and vine-
owners, accompanied by their bailiffs or
factotums, seriously walking to the scene of
action; for, they say here, when the cat's
away the rats will dance. Of course there
are parties of young ladies and gentlemen
who must go and see the vintaging, and
neighbours who like to peep at other neigh-
bours' crops. And then contrast with their
neat and spruce attire those three rough
fellows riding inside one balonge, like veritable
children of St. Nicholas in their pickled-pork
tub ; pity, too, the horse who is forced to
drag the cart, laden with the balonge, filled
with as many as eight-and-twenty large
baskets of grapes eight baskets make a
pierce, or hogshead of wine a tolerable
load on a hot autumnal day. I should like
to give that horse a few bunches of grapes, to
moisten his poor dry dusty mouth with. By
the way, dogs are prohibited from entering
the vineyards when the fruit is ripe, for they
are as fond of a good dessert as the fox in

the fable ; sportsmen also can be kept at bay
to the distance of three hundred metres, for,
gunshot wounds are fatal to Jean Eaisin,
both in stem and fruit. If the owner's
longing for game, and not his judgment, con-
sents to or commits the trespass, it is he who
bears the penalty. Another by the way : a
miller's donkey stepped into a vineyard and
drank a full draught out of a tub of new
grape - juice. The owner summoned the
miller before the justice to make him pay
damages. The sentence was, that the donkey
having only swallowed a passing glass of
wine, without sitting down to enjoy himself
in a regular way, the miller was not com-
pelled to pay anything. That justice had
all the wisdom of Solomon. Thou shalt not
muzzle the ox while he treads out the com.
It is odious to see French horses, at harvest
time, with baskets on their mouths like wean-
ling calves. But grapes grapes nothing
but grapes ! All the grapes grown around
Nuits are brought into the town to be made
into wine, excepting always those numerous
basketfuls that are sold to be made into wine
elsewhere ; a passable quantity, altogether,
although, they say, the grape- harvest is a
failure. You can smell the vintage as you
walk along the street exactly the fruity,
cloying kind of smell which delighted the
old woman when she put her nose, with the
./Esopian exclamation, to the bung-hole of the-
empty tub. Grapes, grape-refuse, grape-
produce, grape-odours, grape-tools, and grape-
people !

Nuits is a straggling, loose-built little town
(never having been confined within a corset of
fortifications), situated on one of the gorges
into which the C6te-d'0r is split, and tra-
versed by the bed of what is sometimes
a torrent, and sometimes a dry strip of shingle
and sand, over which then unnecessary bridges
stride. Nuits, with only five thousand in-
habitants, still possesses two public walks ;
but the vineyards were the most tempting
promenade to me. Everybody at Nuits is
either a vine-grower, a wine-merchant, a vin-
tager, or a wine-cooper. The universal popu-
lation are drinkers of wine, from old sealed
bottles to new piquette, and the shop-windows
display a varied assortment of brass and other
taps and syphons. As you walk in the out-
skirts, little symptoms tell eloquent tales
about the climate. You have maize cultivated
with a successful result, sometimes in patches,
sometimes in single plants stuck in to fill the
place of a missing vine ; you have magnificent
heads of drooping millet ; you have melons
ripening on the bare open ground ; you have
comichons or gherkins, growing in a row and
running up sticks like ranks of green peas.
A gardener will tell you what all that means,
if the flavour of your glass of wine does not
give rise to strong suspicions that the summer
here differs a little from the English one.
Quite out of town, you are in a sea of vines.
En general there is no boundary or fence.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted br

Jean Raisin stands exposed to every enemy.
Land is too valuable to be wasted in hedges,
which, besides, would exhaust the soil, shade
the crop, and harbour weeds and vermin.
Jean, therefore, throws himself entirely on
your honesty and generosity. Paths from the
high road conduct you whithersoever you
choose to roam, whether to the naked brow of
the Cote, or far and wide amidst the vine-
yards. The Burgundian is a bold, bluff,
generous fellow ; his beard comes before his
discretion. If you are a well-known brigand
and thief, he will give you unmistakable
warning to keep out of his vines ; but if you
have the garb and look of an honest man, you
are welcome to peep in, aye, find to taste with
moderation. " Eat, monsieur, eat ! " was the
only warning or prohibition I received during
my strolls in the environs of Nuits. To be
sure, it is easy for vintagers to be liberal with
what is not exactly their own. " That's
tolerably heavy ! " I said to a broad-shouldered
fellow, as he set down a basket of grapes that
would have made many a watering-place
donkey sprawl flat on the ground. "At your
service ! " was his reply, with a gesture
of invitation, stalking away to fetch another.
And he was a garde-champe'tre, too, whose
duty is to watch and keep marauders away
from all sorts of country produce. There is
also another noble custom here ; when once
the first grape-gathering is over, the half-ripe,
unripe, and quite inferior bunches are left to
hang for a while, as vine-gleanings for the
poor to make piquette with. This year, how-
ever, in consequence of the general failure,
Vollenay, and several other communes where
there is a considerable number of late-pro-
duced grapes, have decided to make a second
vintage of them, as a matter of necessity
rather than of custom.

A few of the choicest and most valuable
spots are circumscribed by a wall of stone.
A walled-in vineyard is called a clos. One
of the most famous of these is the Clos
"Vougeot, which suns itself on the gentlest
of slopes, half-way between Nuits and
Dijon. Like almost everything else that
is good, it was once in the grasp of the touch-
and-take-all monks, who made three separate
brewings of the grapes. The produce of the
upper portion of the Clos was never sold, but
was reserved for the abbot (barring what he
treated himself to), as presents to the crowned
heads, princes, and ministers of Catholic
Europe. The wine from the middle part,
almost equal to the first, was sold at exceed-
ingly high prices. The lowest part produced
a sample which, though inferior to the others,
was still very good, and always found ready
purchasers. The Clos Vougeot, with its league
or two of cellarage, has passed into the hands
of lay proprietors ; otherwise, things are much
as they were. Old epicures say that the fla-
vour of the wine is not so good as when the
monks prepared it ; perhaps it is their palates
that have undergone the change.

In Lower Burgundy, the vines are planted
on even ground (leaving the general slope
of the whole out of the question), in rows
which run up-hill and down-hill not across,
a yard wide, and two feet apart from stool
to stool, or thereabouts ; though this varies
according to locality, like most other details
of vine culture. At Chablis, the plants are
four and a half feet from each other, whilst
the ranks are two and a half feet wide.
Some attempts are made to plant in quin-
cunx, which, principally in consequence of
the operation of provignement, or layering
the vines, in a few years become patterns of
irregularity, and at no time are so convenient
either for gathering or tillage. The vines
are supported by stakes about five feet long,
called echalas, sometimes paisseaux, which
are nothing more than laths of split oak-
branches, prepared by workmen known as
fendeurs de merrain, and pointed at each
end, that when one end is rotted off in the
ground, the other may be used and the stake
still remain useful. " As thin as an echalas,"
is a local saying. During winter, the laths
are collected and sheltered somewhere from
the weather, like hop-poles, to save them
from rotting. These vine-props are not stuck
perpendicularly into the ground, but are
made to slope uniformly, all leaning a little
at the same angle, according to the aspect of
the hill and the whim of the vine-dresser,
who is apt to be fanciful in this respect.
The arrangement gives great regularity to
the appearance of the vineyards about Ton-
nerre and Chablis. When the stake slightly
overtops the vine, the effect, seen from below,
is like that of a field of green corn with an
enormous beard. If a vine-stem is so long
that its shoots would rise above its own
stake, it is made to trail about a couple of
inches above the surface of the ground, and
then mount that of one of its neighbours.
This plan is useful in case any of its said
near neighbours should die, as it can then be
inlaid, and so form a new plant. But to keep
home, as the gardeners say, to cut close
back, is the favourite practice. To shorten
the vine, they believe, improves its health.

The planting of a vineyard is an expensive
affair. It gives no return till the fourth year,
and has to be carefully cultivated all the while.
The small profit from cabbages, and other
crops, grown in the intervals of the rows is but
an inconsiderable help to cover the outlay.
The fifth year it begins to produce in good
earnest ; but the wine from young vines is
inferior to that from old ones. The eighth
year, 'it is in its full strength and vigour.
New vineyards here are mostly planted from
rooted cuttings (chevelees), in trenches like
our celery trenches, at the proper intervals.
When the plants are established, the earth
is levelled, and they shoot forth new roots at
the new surface of the ground. On the
C6te-d'Or, in little out-of-the-way nooks, may
be seen vine-cutting nurseries, filled with little

Charles Dickene.l

THE HILL OF GOLD.

vines thickly planted together, which are
intended to be transferred to other ground
next year, or the year after, to supply our
sons and grandsons with a cheerful glass to
drink to the memory of the present gene-
ration. Many Lower Burgundians prefer
planting a new vineyard with unrooted
cuttings, the technical word for which is
chapons. A few of these are sure to fail.
Those that succeed, thrive all the better for
having escaped transplantation, and the
vacancies are filled up the following season
with cheve!6es. The chapons, cut from
healthy young vines of the required sort, are
about eighteen inches long. They are cut off
about Christmas, and the sooner they are got
into the ground afterwards, the better. The
plant, too, succeeds better if buried in the
fresh-dug earth as soon as the trench is
opened. On this account circumstances are
less favourable when the cuttings to be
planted have to be brought from any con-
siderable distance, or when frost sets in
suddenly and prevents all tillage. In such
cases, the chapons are tied in bundles, and
their larger ends are put into buckets of water
to the depth of six inches. But when kept
too long in this way, many of the cuttings
rot, and if the planter does not examine them
carefully the proprietor sustains a heavy
loss. Some better mode might be employed.
Hot water near the boiling point is a well-
known means of reviving languished vege-
tative powers. A curious fact, related by
Klobe, is that when the early colonists of the
Cape of Good Hope failed in their attempts
to propagate the vine, a German conceived the
idea of slightly burning the extremity of the
cuttings which he planted. Observe, those
were cuttings from Vollenay on this very Cote-
d'Or. The pineau of Burgundy produces the
Constantia wine of the Cape. When the
ground is ready, the vintager, working in a
single row, straight from the top to the bottom
of the hill, makes a long trench, and lays the
baby vine reposing sixteen inches under-
ground, with the remaining two peeping
above. If there are more than two eyes, he
prunes them back to that.

The first operation of vine culture the
pulling up of the stakes, begins immedi-
ately after the vintage. They are laid in
heaps at regular distances, after having any
broken or rotten point sharpened by the
women, and are then taken care of to be
replanted in March, April, or the beginning of
May, at the latest. The winter's work con-
sists in separating the rooted layers from the
parent plant, in pruning the cheve!6e or super-
abundant roots, and covering them again with
earth. The plant is thus prepared to resist the
rigours of winter, sometimes with the aid of a
little warm manure. Then, there is the
stubbing-up of bad stools, and the half-
digging of holes to supply their places by
layers. When the cold is so intense that
nothing can be done to the vines themselves,

the vigneron has not the more leisure for that
The soil on a sloping vineyard is washed down
by every shower of rain to the lowest part
of the declivity, where it is stopped by little
walls that are raised for the purpose. The
upper portion of the vineyard, thus denuded
of earth, would at last become so poor that
the vines would perish. To replace the loss,
the vigneron carries on his back hodsful of
earth from the deposit at the bottom, to the
impoverished summit of the hill. He does
his best to oppose the law of nature, which
decrees that every hill shall be levelled with
the plain. This earth-carrying task is of the
greatest utility, and is performed about once
in three years. The new soil is most precious
manure, whose effect is immediately seen in
the produce.

About St. Valentine, pruning commences
on the Cote. It takes place later on the
plain, whei'e frosts are more to be appre-
hended. All the top branches are cut away ;
nothing is left but one or more stems (accord-
ing to the strength of the cep) nearest to the
old wood. Two or three eyes are usually left
to each stem ; greedy vhie-growers leave as
many as five, but they pay for it afterwards by
the speedy exhaustion of the stool. At pruning-
time, choice is made of branches to make
layers with. The best way is to make the
selection just before the vintage, marking the
plants which produce the greatest abundance
of first-rate fruit. The best tool to prune
with is a serpette, or an English pruning-
knife, when it can be had, just such a one as
the good old servant which sometimes cuts
my wayside bread and cheese or thumb-piece,
and sometimes helps me to put rose-trees in
order. There is an instrument called a
secateur, a combination of pincers and
scissors, and a great favourite with ignorant
vine-dressers and lazy gardeners, because it
helps them to get over the ground quickly.
I mention it, in order to advise its utter
rejection for any but the roughest purposes.

Full-grown and established vines, which
are entirely cultivated by hand labour, should
receive a tillage four times during every
summer ; in mid-March or April, in May, in
June or July, and the fourth in August. Il
one of these is more essential than the other,
it is the second. The first, called bScher
though no digging is employed, is performed
with a peculiar hoe, named a meille, whose
iron is perfectly triangular, except that the
point is elongated. The handle of the meille
is slightly curved to help the labourer, and
the iron is bent towards tne handle at a very
sharp angle. It thus forms a sort of hand-
plough as the vigneron draws it towards
himself. This work is performed by men
who toil with naked feet among the rocky
vineyards, where the heat during the summer
tillage sometimes makes it an ordeal, as we
should think, equivalent to walking over
red-hot ploughshares. After the belcher, the
stakes are planted, which enter more readily

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

the fresh-stirred earth. This task mostly
lulls to the lot of the women. It is their
office also to tie up the viues with rye-straw
or osier two or three times iu the course of
the season, as well as to disbud and remove
all troublesome aud unnecessary shoots. If
the vine-shoot is long and weak, and if it is
not carefully tied to its stake, at the first
storm alter the appearance of the blossom-
bud and the development of the earliest
leaves, the twigs beat one against the other,
and the ground is covered with their pre-
mature ruins. During summer, the vignerons
are obliged, time after time, mercilessly to
cull back the rampant branches. At hist, by
admitting sunshine and air, and by preventing
the vigour of the vine from exhausting itself
unnecessarily, the berries swell and the
bunches ripen.

On the C6te-d'0r, the vineyards are often
full of little hollows, which are left to nurse
a favourite currant-bush or millet plant in,
or sometimes, I think, for the mere pleasure
of walking up and down hill. The grand
final cause of these numerous hollows is
the necessity of making a preparation
for the layering of vines. That operation
renders the vine immortal, if the soil
on which it is planted is good. There
are renowned vineyards at Vollenay, Poin-
mard, Beaune, and elsewhere, whose plan-
tation dates from time immemorial. But to
insure this happy result, the vines must not
be neglected for a single season. Every year,
layers must be made in proportion to the
number of ceps that have perished, whether
from age, inclement seasons, or the still worse
evil of injudicious management. Note, that
when a layer is well made, it gives a few
grapes the first year ; in the second, it has
attained its full strength.

To make good wine, you must catch Jean
Raisin at the exact point of ripeness. For
red wines, a little too soon is better than a
little too late. When the day is fixed by the
wise men of the village, troops of vintagers
of all ages and sexes throng in, from ten,
twelve, and fifteen leagues distance, to enjoy
the pleasure of eating their fill of grapes
under the pretence of earning wages. The
vintage, in different localities, commences
on a different appointed day. This is
partly a matter of necessity, as the vin-
tagers go in bauds from one place to
another. And to make good wine, it must be
concocted with a certain degree of celerity
aud decision. Good grapes, as in quite the
south of France, often produce bad wine for
no other reason than that the makers are
sluggish about the business ; exactly as, in
the beet-sugar manufacture, the slightest halt
in the march of the establishment brings
about a serious check.

"When these errant ladies and gentlemen
and children are introduced into a viney.-inl,
they are ranged in line, and each individual
walks straight before him, her, or it, cutting

every bunch lie, she, or it, finds under his,
her, or its noses, and putting them into
little flat baskets. One hand ought to
support the bunch, while the other adroitly
severs the stem. When the fruit is over
ripe, the basket should be set at the foot
of the vine, to catch the loose grapes that
would otherwise fall on the ground and
be lost. The little baskets, when full, are
carried off by a man, styled from his office
vide-panier, or basket-emptier, and their
contents are transferred into the grands
paniers or baskets proper, which are pre-
viously set down at proper intervals within
the area of the vineyard. The whole scene
is often overlooked by a stern gaunt woman,
perhaps the proprietor's wife, who sees that
nothing is lost, and who wastes her energies
on the thankless task of persuading the glut-
tons to eat as few grapes as they can.

The baskets proper are then emptied into
balonges, or large oval tubs, each standing
ready upon its own cart. The balonge, when
brimful, is wheeled away to the pressoir, a
word which the dictionary interprets wine-
press, but which on the C6te-d'Or means the
apartment, large or small, wherein wine-
press, tubs, and other wine-making tools are
congregated. The first grapes thrown into
the first balonges, are trampled on by wooden-
shod men upon the spot. The balouges
themselves, arriving at the pressoir, are
emptied into vast round tubs, called cuves.
When the contents of the first balonge are
thrown into the cuve, a vigneron jumps in,
and tramples them as cruelly as he can, to
make what is called the levain, or leaven.
Upon this leaven are cast all the rest of the
slightly crushed or uncrushed grapes as they
are brought from the vineyard. And that is
all that is done to commence or accelerate
the fermentation, the progress of which
is ascertained, amongst other means, by
listening.

Sometimes the grapes are entirely or par-
tially egrappes, or stripped from the stalks be-
fore being put in the cuve. There are occasion-
ally years in which although the bunches are
abundant, each bunch only bears some five
or six berries. Little else is to be seen but
a crop of stalks. Stripping then is necessary,
because the stalks would absorb so much
juice as to occasion great loss. Some propri-
etors, in less disastrous years, remove a cer-
tain proportion of stalks. The grapes are
put into a large concave wicker sieve, called
an egrappoir, the osiers composing which
cross each other at sufficient distances to
allow something larger than the largest
sized grape to pass between them. The
bunches are thrown into this egrappoir and
the vintager's hand roughly rolls them about.
The berries roll off without being too much
crushed, and the stalks remaining are tossed
aside as useless. But most wine-masters do
not egrapper their grapes at all.

In warm weather, fermentation is soon

Charles Dickens.]

THE HILL OF GOLD.

established, and the cuve can be emptied of
its contents in from twenty-four to thirty-six
hours ; but, in cold seasons, fermentation does
not begin till the third or fourth day, and
the emptying of the cuve on the sixth.
When the mass of bunches of fruit has
sufficiently fermented, it is fouled, or trod-
den by a man without clothes (sometimes
there are several), who enters the tub, and
squeezes out the juice as well as he can
for about an hour, by stamping, kicking, and
hugging the fruit, pressing it against his
chest, and embracing it in his arms till he
becomes himself a perfect red-skin. This
vinous bath is sometimes so overpowering
that the treader is obliged to give up the
task through absolute tipsiness, and allow
another andasoberer man to take his place in
the bacchanalian fountain. The operation
lets loose into the cuve a large quantity of
saccharine matter, which has not yet fermented,
and the sweetness of the cuve is much in-
creased. The fermentation re-commences
violently ; and if it is found that the grapes
are still insufficiently crushed, the red-skin
Indians renew their onslaught.

As soon as the treading-out is finished,
the whole contents of the cuve grapes,
stones, stalks, and all are transferred into
the actual pressoir, or wine-press. Pressoirs
vary considerably in construction.

From the pressing-place, the pieces are
carried at once into the cellar, and there
left to fine, perfect, and finish themselves,
with no other interference than what is pro-
duced by the eye of the master, in all cases
a most potent agent.

Simple as the making of burgundy wine
thus appears to be, it requires great nicety,
careful watching, experience, forethought,
and skilful application of the rule of thumb,
to insure success both with the cuve and the
insensible fermentation afterwards in the
cask. Many little precautions and guiding
symptoms are traditionally transmitted from
father to son, from one generation of cellar-
men to that which succeeds it. Bad methods
are also adhered to with equal obstinacy,
which accounts for the permanent unpalata-
bleness of the wine produced in several
favourable localities in France. Large esta-
blishments are able to avail themselves of
mechanical aid. Thus, at Clos Vougeot, the
new wine runs from the pressoir to the
cellars through closely fitted pipes. All the
pure C6te-d'Or burgundies are the wines for
great and wealthy people to drink. For
second-class folk there are second-class wines,
known on the spot as passe-tout-grain, which
are made from vineyards planted with a
mixture, mostly half noirien and half gamay.
In good years, passe-tout-grain is excel-
lent, brilliant in colour and high in flavour.
It is less liable to change, and bears longer
keeping than many of the finer wiues ; nay,
aristocratic liquors are often obliged to call
in the aid and intreat the alliance of the

plebeian fluid, in order to preserve their own.
body and reputation. And the hard-working
vigneron, when he is thirsty, what has he to
drink at home 1 After the grapes are
squeezed in the press, he fills some tubs with
marc or refuse, carefully excluding the air
during winter. In spring, he fills up the
tubs with water, lets them stand a week or
ten days, taps one, and draws a drink which
if it does him no great good, at the same time
does him no great harm.

The management of wine in the caski
infinitely intricate. One wrinkle may be
useful to housekeepers. M. Pomier, an apo-
thecary of Salins, has discovered a simple
mode of removing the odious smell and taste
from wine which has been put into a mouldy
hogshead. It consists in mixing a certain
dose of olive oil with the injured wine, and
agitating the mixture violently. In four-and-
tweuty hours the oil is all at the top, charged
with the ill savours which it has absorbed
from the wine. The experiment has been
repeatedly tested. It has also been recom-
mended to oil the inside of old mouldy casks,
because the tubs thus lose their disagreeable
smell, and the wine put into them acquires
no unpleasant taste. It appears that the
substance which injures the x wine in such
cases is of a nature similar to that of essential
oils. If fixed oils are violently shaken to-
gether with distilled aromatic waters, the
latter entirely lose their aroma, which com-
bines with the fixed oil. One more wrinkle
to amateurs of burgundy. Import your wine
as soon as you can get it out of the grower's
cellar, and let it perfect itself in your own.
At its culminating point of ripeness it is too
delicate to stand a journey, even from one
end of a town to the other.

Though the Burgundy wines are the
most delicious in France, their consumption
is more local and sparse than that of
any others of the first class. You get good
ordinary burgundies in Paris, but not gene-
rally elsewhere. The grand requisite for
a more extended enjoyment of the golden
draught, is a European peace, enabling the
French to make more cross-country railroads,
and allowing the English (though we might
do that at once) to reduce the duties on
French wines to what they ought to be :
namely, to the merest trifle. We shall attain
these happy results "by and by. It ought to be
known that, by opening our cellars, we may
do as much good to our allies and neighbours
as to ourselves. The grand wine-fountain,
though perennial, has its spring-tide ami its
neap. At the present moment, it is at lowest
ebb, and wine is dearer and dearer every day.
Thousands in France will have to go without
it this year. But there occur successive years
of over-abundance,when the owner really does
not know" what to do with the produce ; and
these epochs return from time to time after
an indefinite lapse of years. A tub has been
filled with wine, in exchange for an empty

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

tub ; crops of grapes have been abandoned to
whomsoever chose to help himself, or have
been suffered to fall and rot on the ground,
because wine was (locally) so cheap that it
would not pay to gather them. The revolu-
tion of eighteen hundred and forty-eight was
preceded and followed by five successive very
abundant and consequently very expensive
vintages, which crushed all but large capita-
lists, and filled the cellars to overflowing.
The same state of things is sure to occur again.
The quantity of good second-class wines (as
good as any reasonable man wants), is capable
of incalculable increase in France. London
might drink claret (not burgundy), at a
cheaper rate than Paris does.

I now wish to post two great facts side
by side : Here, is a people who like wine,
who want wine, who will pay for wine, and
who have not wine : There, is another people,
just over the way, a friendly people, a conve-
nient people, who have often much more wine
than they want, who would be glad to sell it,
who cannot sell it. Such a state of things is
an unstable equilibrium, which must set itself
right, sooner or later, by the force of gravity
alone.

FIFTY-TWO, WEIOTHESLEY PLACE.

SOME years ago, more than I care to tell,
Mrs. Euleit was at the head of a very select
ladies' school in Wriothesley Place, Russell
Square. I don't know what she termed it ;
but she would neither have it called a school,
nor an establishment, nor a seminary, nor a
house. Such names she rejected, as low; or, to
use her favourite expression " twopenny." It
was simply Mrs. Euleit's, Wriothesley Place.
On the same principle the girls were not
called young ladies, whatever their rank or
station ; they were only " the girls." The
school had fallen off considerably before I
went. From twelve pupils, which was the
limit, it was reduced to five : there must have
been some prejudice at work somewhere ;
for, before my going was quite decided, our
old friend, Mr, France, the clergyman took
pains to inquire from the family of one of the
pupils what they thought of the school, and
received for reply, " Oh, we like the school
very well, and the masters are very efficient ;
but we don't think sincerity is taught there."
I suppose my father trusted I had learnt sin-
cerity before, though I never had a sincerity
master. At all events I went; but, with a cau-
tion not to repeat what I had heard on any
account, and this secret lay like a load of
lead upon my mind, all the time I was there.

Mrs. Euleit and her daughter, with the
teacher Miss Eadley, and we five girls, com-
posed the household ; Miss Eadley slept in
our room, walked out with us, and never left
UB. She was about thirty years of age, with
coarse red hair, white eyebrows, and a turn-
up nose. What a life she had with us ! for
we were more frequently impertinent than

polite ; and how lonely too ! for she belonged
neither to ua nor to Madame. At half-past six
in summer it was her duty to call us, and
about seven we came down stairs. One of ua
was then sent off to the piano in the front draw-
ing-room, another to the piano in the back,
and a third to the piano in the parlour below,
to practise till breakfast. It was a long time
for growing girls to wait ; but we often stayed
our appetites with a hard biscuit. At nine,
Madame came down, and prayers were read
by one of the girls ; after that, breakfast of tea
and solid squares of bread and butter, which
was very good every morning except Mondays,
when it was a day old. We lived entirely iu
the study a good room with a view of 'the
back walls of the mews. There was a long
deal-table with a form down each side in the
centre of the room, and forms all round close to
the wall. These forms contained lockers for our
books no carpet, only a hearth-rug before
the fire which was a forfeit to cross. We were
quite satisfied with our accommodation ; for
the terms of the school were called high
two hundred a-year so we felt very genteel
and select, and never missed the carpet.
Breakfast over, Mrs. Euleit placed herself at
the head of the table and heard one of us
read French, which was all the teaching she
understood herself ; except assiduous attention
to our deportment and carriage, to which last
task she was gradually falling a sacrifice,
according to her own account. She was very
short and very stout ; but we were constantly
assured she was worn to a thread with en-
treating us to hold up nay, to a ravel-
ling.

Monday morning brought Mr. Gresley the
English master, whose lessons were held in
the deepest reverence; for Mrs. Euleit wisely
considered that, to speak and write Eng-
lish in purity, was far better than middling
French, or imperfect Italian. The idea of
German was never entertained. We should as
soon have learnt Eunic. A tradition existed
that Mr. Gresley had sold his head to the sur-
geons, and there was something imposing iu
being taught by a head that was worth buy-
ing ; so we were all very attentive, and a little
awe-struck. We read poetry with him,
besides the grammar and parsing lessons, and
sorely tried he must have been at times. I
recollect a tall girl, nearly twenty, who had
been at various schools all her life, repeating
Young's lines :

" But their hearts, wounded like the wounded air,
Soon close, where past the shaft, no trace a
found."

He interrupted her with, " Miss G., what do
you mean by the shaft ? " " Something be-
longing to a cart, sir." How he grinned,
clapped his hands, and shuddered !

Our instructor iu French was a little, shri-
velled, old emigrant without teeth, who mum-
bled his language all to mash. He had a per-
petual cold, too, and was for ever using his

Ciiarlts Diciens.]

FIFTY-TWO, WEIOTHESLEY PLACE.

handkerchief, and interrupting the reading
with "Mon riez me demand." He corrected the
exercises, heard us read in Epochs^ d'Angle-
terre, and got as far in the beauties of La
Fontaine, as " Une grenouille vit uii bceuf."

Two mornings in the week, we came down to
breakfast in full evening-dress, for Monsieur
Eoverre the dancing-master, a dapper little
gentleman (ballet-master at the opera, who
came in his own carriage), preceded by Mr.
Chip with his fiddle in a green-bag, who sat
near the door playing it during tlie lesson.
Oh ! his earnest endeavours to make us grace-
ful ; his despair in our elbows ; his hopeless-
ness in our backs, and his glare of indignation
at our mistakes ! But what could we do 1
English girls are not French girls, who are born
dancers. We did our best and he ought to
have known it ; but he didn't : so we hated
him as school-girls only can hate, and revenged
ourselves by calling him when nobody heard
Old Eoverre.

Music was the great end of education at
Mrs. Euleit's, and an evening of excitement
was that when Mr. Dragon gave his lesson.
Then Mrs. E. and her daughter sat with
coffee in the front parlour, and each of
us in turn with her music in her hand
had to enter the room, curtsey, and take her
seat at the piano, with three sets of the most
formidable eyes in the world fixed upon her.
I am agitated now to think of those Tuesday
evenings. After all those odious practisings in
the front drawing-room, without fire, to find
your fingering erroneous, your time defective,
taste and feeling wanting, and diligence ques-
tioned ; and, finally, as you left the room to
hear, with a contemptuous sigh, "She will
never make anything of it," was more
than a girl's nature could bear. How thank-
ful I was to get to bed after it, and be soothed
to sleep by the boy in the mews calling, "Beer !
beer !" Happy boy^ to have no music-master !

On Wednesday mornings we were gene-
rally indulged at breakfast with a running
commentary on the shortcomings of the pre-
ceding evening, accompanied by plaintive
lamentations on the inferiority of the present
set of girls as compared with those of former
years, in everything worth knowing generally
and music in particular. Then we heard, for
the twentieth time, of Miss Timmins, who so
appreciated the advantage of learning from
such a master as our Dragon, that she could
scarcely be induced to leave the piano. Ske
never complained of the cold in the back
drawing-room, or that the instrument in the
front parlour had several dumb notes. Miss
Timmins knew her duty, and did it, and may be
doing it yet, and I hope is. I never saw her;
but I hated Miss Timmins.

I did better in drawing than music, and
had one master, in hessian boots, all to myself ;
for I drew chalk heads, which no other girl
did. I felt very grand standing at my easel
with my port-crayon, rubbing in a large head
of Calypso, or a great ugly Syrian woman.

from the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, which
I talked of as "after Eaphael." But the
crowning triumph was copying Canova's
Hebe from the cast, or, as we technically
called it, the round. Then I felt indeed an
artist. Our studies were suspended at one
o'clock by the entrance of a plate of dry
bread for luncheon. Mrs. Euleit shut up
her desk and sailed out of the room, while
we proceeded upstairs to dress for our
walk. Two whole hours we spent every
fine day in the nursery gardens in
Euston Square. But we were not com-
pelled to keep together ; so I often took a
book, and, in the cold weather, was much in
the greenhouse, and in warm by the side of
the pond under shade of a large white thorn
that hung over it. I wonder where the pond
and the large white thorn are now 1 We
returned home, in time to dress for dinner, at
four. This was a plain, substantial meal,
soon over ; and, after it, we were left to our
own devices and Miss Eadley, until tea at
seven. The interval was filled up with
reading, talking, or learning lessons. Our
stock of entertaining books was not very
extensive. Countess and Gertrude, Eosanne,
The Poetical Keepsake, The Swiss Family
Eobinson, and Paul et Virginie, were all I
remember. Then was the time for revela-
tions to each other of our previous lives and
experiences. Only one of us, (it was not
myself) had ever had a lover that grand
object of attainment to a school-girl: and
that secret was not spoken loud out, but only
to me in the retirement of the nursery-gardens.
It was an officer in the East India Company's
service, never likely to come to England
again, and who had never made a direct offer;
so he was but a shadowy kind of lover after
all : 6nly it did to talk about, as we had
nothing better. But one of the girls had
spent the last holidays with a beautiful
cousin, who was engaged to an officer in an
English regiment, whose name was Manner-
ing ; and this engagement served as an illustra-
tion of all the sentiment and love-making that
could be at any time broached. Meantime,
Miss Badley read, or worked, or walked
backward and forward in the study, hold-
ing a backboard ; and, when it grew dusk,
arid she thought we could not see, mounted a
hairpin across her nose, in the vain hope of
curbing its aspiring tendencies. If by
chance she heard the word gentleman, we
were instantly interrupted by some question
as to what age we were, or how many
brothers and sisters we had at home. She
did not like so well to tell her own age ; for
once, when we got on the subject of ages, she
asked us how old we thought her ? We all
believed her thirty, but thought it would be
very ill-bred (and we piqued ourselves on our
good-breeding) to tell her that she had
arrived at that age when hope is outlived,
and despair even survived : so we unani-
mously said twenty- seven; and she would not

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

tell us the truth after all. She rebuked me
once viciously for saying, " an old lady of
fifty." I understand it now, alas ! but then
I thought it very unjust : fifty is not so old
as it once was.

When caudles came, Miss Eadley gathered
us round her, and heard us read the Bible,
or questioned us in ancient and modern
history, or heathen mythology, and some-
times we read poetry. She was of a
tender, sentimental turn, iu spite of red
hair and a turn-up nose ; and, in moments of
confidence, would show us a little box oi
treasures to be gazed at lovingly when we
were asleep. The gem of the collection was
what I took to be a paper of tobacco, the
contents being about that colour and texture,
with this inscription outside, "The sweet
remembrance of my beloved brother." She
soon set my error at rest, by explaining that
it was her brother's whiskers, which he had
cut off on returning from the wars ; and she
had treasured them up ever since. This was
a remarkable brother too ; for he was very
deaf when he went into battle, and the roar
of the cannon did something to his ears, for
he heard quite well when he came out.

At this time of the evening we were
allowed, now and then, to subscribe, and
send the housemaid out for hardbake,
parliament, apples, or biscuit, or a cocoa-
nut, which we peeled, sliced, and boiled in
brown sugar, then turned out on a dish, and
called ambrosia. Seven o'clock brought tea,
and Madame took her place again at the
head of the table ; each girl had a large
breakfast cup full, we might have more if
we liked, but we never had. After tea, one
read aloud in that cheerful specimen of polite
literature, Eollin's Ancient History (I have
never looked into it since), while the rest
worked. I hate Cyrus to this day. We had
a very little joke upon Darius, who was nick-
named Dosen, because he made promises that
he did not keep, like our next door neighbour
Mr. Moses, who promised to send Mrs. Euleit
a bag of coffee, and didn't ; so we called him
" dosen," and held him in contempt. At nine
o'clock we put up our work, the prayer-book
was brought out, and we knelt in a circle
before Madame. Prayers were read by the
girls in turn ; and, after " bon soir," we were
dismissed for the night ; not without sus-
picion that Mrs. Euleit and her daughter had
something good to eat after we were gone,
but this was never confirmed, and cook would
not tell

Our Italian master, Signer Gagliardini,
only taught the girls who could sing; for, to pro-
nounce the words of Italian songs properly,
was the chief object of the instruction; occasion-
ally he brought his little boy who informed
us in a thin, shrill voice, that his name was,
" Titus Telemaque Terence Themistocle ;" the
weight of his name seemed to have crushed
his growth. The Siguor gave a concert on a
t>lan common enough at the time. A lady in

Upper Brook Street lent her house for the
evening, on condition of having a certain
number of tickets for herself and friends.
Mrs. E. took two or three of us herself, ac-
companied by Cadney, a neighbouring green-
grocer, dressed in black, and whom we were
told to call " James " (his name was Isaac),
when he went out with us, that he might look
like our own footman. The concert was in the
dining-room, and the suite of drawing-rooms
was open to the company ; who examined
the ornaments, lolled on the sofas, read the
cards, and counted the candles, under the
very eyes of the owner herself, for anything
they knew. The notes and cards of the
greatest and most fashionable acquaintances
were uppermost, as usual. The unfortunate
giver of the concert must have passed a
wretched evening. Signor Eonzi de Begnis
was late, Sapio never came at all, the lady
singers were capricious ; so, between hoping
and fearing, and filling up gaps himself, and
apologising, and a wonderful air with varia-
tions on the harp, and Adelaide by a gentle-
man sorely afflicted within, the concert
terminated.

One of the girls was to be left at home for
the night in Hanover Square ; and, as we
watched the footman give her a bed candle
and saw her glide up the painted staircase,
we drew ourselves up and affected to think it
very grand but very comfortless, as all people
do who are not grand themselves. I don't
know that we had any such very particular
comforts in Wriothesley Place ; but we thought
the Hanover Square carriage might have
taken us, but it didn't. So it was pleasant to
despise carriages and luxuries in general.

But, all this time, my secret about sincerity
lay heavy on my mind ; and, one unlucky
morning (the first of September, I remember
it well), for want of a secret to tell about a
lover for I had not one I confided this
to one of my companions in return for
the excitement I experienced about the
shadowy captain in the East Indies. 1
repented it from that moment; for if she
should reveal it I was a lost character. I
pictured to myself the disgrace I should fall
into at home with good Mr. France, with the
family who told us in confidence, and, above
all, the disturbance it would cause in
Wriothesley Place. Oh, what I suffered ! I
had no pleasure in the thought of going
home the sunshine was taken out of my
life I had committed a breach of trust
society couldnot overlook. My distress reached
its climax, when, one morning, Madame
received a letter from a friend in the country
saying she considered it her duty to tell her
that Mrs. Horseman, our neighbour over the
way, had been visiting in the country, and
there said, in company, that there was one
school in London where she would not send a
girl, and that was Madame, liuleit's ; and
this opinion was calculated to do great injury,
as Mrs. Horseman was called intellectual, and

Charles Bickens.J

VAMPYEES.

looked up to by a certain set who would like
to be intellectual too. The excitement amongst
us was intense : we freely used the words
calumnv, malice, falsehood and one girl, a
soldier's daughter, said " lying." But it was
all right in such a cause ; for the more vehe-
ment our indignation the more complimentary
to Madame. I was in a fright, to be sure,
lest my confidante should, in the excitement,
forget her solemn promise not to tell, and let
out my secret. The subj ect was discussed, day
by day by us, to please Madame by Madame
in sad earnestness. At length she requested
her friend Miss Montague, a great lady in Gros-
venor Square, to ascertain the truth of the
matter; forshe knew a little of Mrs. Horseman's
sister, and could ask her, which I suppose
she did, for in a few days she came to Sirs.
Ruleit with the result of the interview. Miss
Chickworth, the sister, wishing to be well
with Grosvenor Square, denied it in toto,
" felt convinced her sister had never said a
word in disparagement of Madame, but trusted
Miss Montague would excuse her being told
of the occurrence," as "it would infinitely
distress her, and might be prejudicial, as she
was a nurse ; " we knew nothing about being
a nurse, how should we 1 so we decided it
was only a ruse ; and when we went out to
walk, relieved our feelings by looking daggers
at the houses opposite.

When the holidays came, we went home,
and the school dwindled, and dwindled, and
poor dear Madame drooped, and drooped,
until she was compelled at last to let her
house and accept the kind offer of some rela-
tives to make her home with them. I never
saw her more, but I retain a grateful recol-
lection of her painstaking anxiety for my
improvement ; and f learned from the anguish
I witnessed there, never to say one word
lightly, or unadvisedly, in disparagement of
& ladies' school.

VAMPYBES.

OF all the creations of superstition, a Vam-
pyre is, perhaps, the most horrible. You are
lying in your bed at night, thinking of no-
thing but sleep, when you see, by the faint
light that is in your bed-chamber, a shape
entering at the door, and gliding towards you
with a long sigh, as of the wind across the
open fields when darkness has fallen upon
them. The thing moves along the air as if
by the mere act of volition ; and it has a
human visage and figure. The eyes stare
wildly from the head ; the hair is bristling ;
the flesh is livid ; the mouth is bloody.

You lie still like one under the influence
of the night-mare and the thing floats slowly
over you. Presently you fall into a dead sleep
or swoon, returning, up to the latest moment
of consciousness, the fixed and glassy stare of
the phantom. When you awake in the morn-
ing, you think it is all a dream, until you
perceive a small, blue, deadly-looking, spot on

your chest near the heart; and the truth
flashes on you. You say nothing of the mat-
ter to your friends ; but you know you are
a doomed man and you know rightly. For
every night comes the terrible Shape to your
bed-side, with a face that seems horrified at
itself, and sucks your life-blood in your sleep.
You feel it is useless to endeavour to avoid
the visitation, by changing your room or your
locality: you are under a sort of cloud of
fate.

Day after day you grow paler and more
languid : your face becomes livid, your eyes
leaden, your cheeks hollow. Your friends
advise you to seek medical aid to take
change of ah' to amuse your mind ; but you
are too well aware that it is all in vain.
You therefore keep your fearful secret to
yourself ; and pine, and droop, and languish,
till you die. When you are dead (if you will
be so kind as to suppose yourself in that pre-
dicament), the most horrible part of the busi-
ness commences. You are then yourself
forced to become a Yarn pyre, and to create
fresh victims ; who, as they die, add to the
phantom stock.

The belief in "Vampyres appears to have
been most prevalent in the south-east of
Europe, and to have had its origin there.
Modem Greece was its cradle ; and among
the Hungarians, Poles, Wallachians, and
other Sclavonic races bordering on Greece,
have been its chief manifestations. The early
Christians of the Greek Church believed that
the bodies of all the Latin Christians buried in
Greece were unable to decay, because of their
excommunication from that fold of which the
Emperor of Bussia now claims to be the
sovereign Pope and supreme Shepherd. The
Latins, of course, in their turn, regarded
these peculiar mummies as nothing less
than saints ; but the orthodox Greeks con-
ceived that the dead body was animated by a
demon who caused it to rise from its grave
every night, and conduct itself after the
fashion of a huge mosquito. These dreadful
beings were called Brucolacs ; and, according
to some accounts, were not merely manufac-
tured from the dead bodies of heretics, but
from those of all wicked people who have
died impenitent. They would appear in divers
places in their natural forms ; would run a
muck indiscriminately at whomsoever they
met, like a wild Malay ; would injure some,
and kill others outright ; would occasionally,
for a change, do some one a good service ;
but would, for the most part, so conduct
themselves that nothing could possibly be
more aggravating or unpleasant. Father
Kichard, a French Jesuit of the seventeenth
century, who went as a missionary to the Archi-
pelago, and who has left us an account of the
Island of Santerini, or Saint Irene, the Thera
of the ancients, discourses largely on the sub-
ject of Brucolacs. He says, that when the
persecutions of the Vampyres become intol-
erable, the graves of the offending parties are

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

opened, when the bodies are found entire and
uncorrupted ; that they are then cut up into
little bits, particularly the heart ; and that,
after this, the apparitions are seen no more,
and the body decays.

The word Brucolac, we are told, is derived
from two modern Greek words, signifying,
respectively, " mud," and " a ditch," because
tfie graves of the Vampyres were generally
found full of mud. Voltaire, in the article
on Vampyres in his Philosophical Dictionary,
gives a similar account of these spectres. He
observes, in his exquisite, bantering style :
" These dead Greeks enter houses, and suck
the blood of little children ; eating the sup-
pers of the fathers and mothers, drinking their
wine, and breaking all the furniture. They
can be brought to reason only by being
burnt when they are caught ; but the pre-
caution must be taken not to resort to this
measure until the heart has been torn out,
as that must be consumed apart from the
body." What a weight of meaning and
implied satire is there in that phrase, " They
can be brought to reason only by being
burnt ! " It is a comment upon universal
history.

Pierre Daniel Huet, a French writer of
Ana, who died in seventeen hundred and
twenty-one, says, that it is certain that the
idea of Vampyres, whether true or false, is
very ancient, and that the classical authors
are "full of it. He remarks, that when the
ancients had murdered any one in a trea-
cherous manner, they cut off his feet, hands,
nose, and ears, and hung them round his neck
or under his arm-pits ; conceiving that by
these means they deprived their victim of
the power of taking vengeance. Huet adds,
that proof of this may be found in the Greek
Scholia of Sophocles ; and that it was after
this fashion that Menelaus treated Deiphobus,
the husband of Helen the victim having been
discovered by ./Eneas in the infernal regions
in the above state. He also mentions the
story of Hermotimus of Clazomene, whose
souihad a power of detaching itself from its
body, for the sake of wandering through dis-
tant countries, and looking into the secrets of
futurity. During one of these spiritual jour-
neys, his enemies persuaded his wife to have
the body burned ; and his soul, upon the next
return, finding its habitation not forthcom-
ing, withdrew for ever after. According
to Suetonius, the body of Caligula, who had
been violently murdered, was but partially
burned and superficially buried. In conse-
quence of this, the house in which he had
been slain, and the garden in which the im-
perfect cremation had taken place, were every
night haunted with ghosts, which continued
to appear until the house was burned down,
and the funeral rites properly performed by
the aistera of the deceased emperor. It is
asserted by ancient writers that the souls of
the dead are unable to repose until after the
body has been entirely consumed ; and Huet

informs us that the corpses of those excom-
municated by the modern Greek Church are
called Toupi, a word signifying "a drum,"
because the said bodies are popularly sup-
posed to swell like a drum, and to sound like
the same, if struck or rolled on the ground.
Some writers have supposed that the ancient
idea of Harpies gave rise to the modern idea
of Vampyres.

Traces of the Vampyre belief may be
found in the extreme north even in remote
Iceland. In that curious piece of old Icelandic
history, called The Eyrbyggja-Saga, of which
Sir Walter Scott has given an abstract, we
find two narrations which, though not identi-
cal with the modern Greek conception of
Brucolacs, have certainly considerable affinity
with it. The first of these stories is to the
following effect : Thorolf Bsegifot, or the
Crookfooted, was an old Icelandic chieftain
of the tenth century, unenviably notorious for
his savage and treacherous disposition, which
involved him in continual broils, not only
with his neighbours, but even with his own
son, who was noted for justice and generosity.
Having been frustrated in one of his knavish de-
signs, and seeing no farther chance open to him,
Thorolf returned home one evening, mad with
rage and vexation, and, refusing to partake of
any supper, sat down at the head of 1 the table
like a stone statue, and so remained without
stirring or speaking a word. The servants
retired to rest ; but yet Thorolf did not
move. In the morning, every one was horri-
fied to find him still sitting in the same place
and attitude ; and it was whispered that the
old man had died after a manner peculiarly
dreadful to the Icelanders though what may
be the precise nature of this death is very
doubtful. It was feared that the spirit of
Thorolf would not rest in its grave unless some
extraordinary precautions were taken ; and
accordingly his son Arnkill, upon being sent
for, approached the body in such a manner as
to avoid looking upon the face, and at the
same time enjoined the domestics to observe
the like caution. The corpse was then re-
moved from the chair (in doing which, great
force was found necessary) ; the face was con-
cealed by a veil, and the usual religious rites
were performed. A breach was next made
in the wall behind the chair in which the
corpse had been found ; and the body, being
carried through it with immense labour, was
laid in a strongly-built tomb. All in vain.
The spirit of the malignant old chief haunted
the neighbourhood both night and day ;
killing men and cattle, and keeping every one
in continual terror. The pest at length be-
came unendurable ; and Arnkill resolved to
remove his father's body to some other place.

On opening the tomb, the corpse of Thorolf
was found with so ghastly an aspect, that he
seemed more like a devil than a man ; and
other astounding and fearful circumstances
soon manifested themselves. Two strong
oxen were yoked to the bier on which the

Charles Dickens.]

VAMPYRES.

body was placed ; but they were very shortly
exhausted by the weight of their burdeii.
Fresh beasts were then attached ; but, upon
reaching the top of a steep hill, they were
seized with a sudden and uncontrollable
terror, and, dashing frantically away, rolled
headlong into the valley", and were killed. At
every mile, moreover, the body became of a
still greater weight ; and it was now found
impossible to carry it any farther, though the
contemplated place of burial was still distant.
The attendants therefore consigned it to the
earth on the ridge of the hill an immense
mound was piled over it and the spirit of the
old man remained for a time at rest. But
" after the death of Arnkill," says Sir Walter
Scott, "Beegifot became again troublesome,
and walked forth from his tomb, to the great
terror and damage of the neighbourhood,
slaying both herds and domestics, and driving
the inhabitants from the canton. It was
therefore resolved to consume his carcase
with fire ; for, like the Hungarian Vampyre,
he, or some evil demon in his stead, made
use of his mortal reliques as a vehicle
during the commission of these enormities.
The body was found swollen to a huge size,
equalling the corpulence of an ox. It was
transported to the sea-shore with difficulty,
and there burned to ashes." In this narra-
tive, we miss the blood-sucking propensities
of the genuine Vampyre ; but in all other
respects the resemblance is complete.

The other story from the same source has
relation to a certain woman named Thor-
guuna. This excellent old lady having, a
short time previous to her death, appointed
one Thorodd her executor, and the wife of
the said Thorodd having covetously induced
her husband to preserve some bed-furniture
which the deceased particularly desired to
have burnt, a series of ghost-visits ensued.
Thorgunna requested that her body might be
conveyed to a distant place called Skalholt ;
and on the way thither her ghost appeared
at a house where the funeral party put up.
But the worst visitations occurred on the
return of Thorodd to hia own house. On
the very night when he reached his domi-
cile, a meteor resembling a half-moon glided
round the walls of the apartment in a direction
opposed to the apparent course of the sun (an
ominous sign), and remained visible until the
inmates went to bed. The spectral appearance
continued throughout the week ; and then one
of the herdsmen went mad, evidently under
the persecutions of evil spirits. At length he
was found dead in his bed ; and, shortly after,
Thorer, one of the inmates of the house,
going out in the evening, was seized by the
ghost of the dead shepherd, and so injured
by blows, that he died. His spirit then went
into partnership with that of the herds-
man, and together they played some very
awkward and alarming pranks. A pestilence
appeared, of which many of the neighbours
died ; and one evening something in the

shape of a seal-fish lifted itself up through the
flooring of Thorodd's house, and gazed
around.

The terrified domestics having in vain
struck at the apparition, which continued to
rise through the floor, Kiartan, the son of
Thorodd, smote it on the head with a ham-
mer, and drove it gradually and reluctantly
into the earth, like a stake. Subsequently,
Thorodd and several of his servants were
drowned ; and now their ghosts were added
to the spectral group. Every evening, when
the fire was lighted in the great hall, Thorodd
and his companions would enter, drenched
and dripping, and seat themselves close to
the blaze, from which they very selfishly ex-
cluded all the living inmates ; while, from the
other side of the apartment, the ghosts of
those who had died of pestilence, aud who
appeared gray with dust, would bend their
way towards the same comfortable nook,
under the leadership of Thorer. This being
a very awkward state of affairs in a climate
like Iceland, Kiartan, who was now the mas-
ter of the house, caused a separate fire to be
kindled for the mortals in an out-house,
leaving the great hall to the spectres ; with
which arrangement their ghostships seemed
to be satisfied. The deaths from the pesti-
lence continued to increase ; and every death
caused an addition to the phantom army.
Matters had now reached so serious a pitch,
that it was found absolutely necessary to take
some steps against the disturbers of the
neighbourhood. It was accordingly resolved
to proceed against them by law ; but, previ-
ously to commencing the legal forms, Kiartan
caused the unfortunate bed-furniture, which
had been at the bottom of all the mischief, to
to be burnt in sight of the spectres. A jury
was then formed in the great hall ; the ghosts
were accused of being public nuisances within
the meaning of the act in that case made and
provided ; evidence was heard, and finally
a sentence of ejectment was pronounced.
Upon this, the phantoms rose ; and, protest-
ing that they had only sat there while it was
lawful for them to do so, sullenly and mut-
teringly withdrew, with many symptoms of
unwillingness. A priest then damped the room
with holy-water a solemn mass was per-
formed, and the supernatural visitors were
thenceforth non est inventus.

The incident of the seal in this narrative
will remind the reader who has properly
studied his Corsican Brothers and (as it is
customary to ask on these occasions) who has
not 1 of the appearance of the ghost of the
duellist as he comes gliding through the floor
to the tremulous music of the fiddles. The
whole tale, in fact, falls in a great measure
into the general class of ghost stories ; but the
circumstance of each person, as he died, adding
to the array of the evil spirits, and thus
spreading out the mischief in ever-widening
circles, has an affinity to the distinguishing
feature of the Brucolac superstition. Still,

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

for the perfect specimen of the genus Vain-
pyre, we must revert to the south-east of
Europe.

Sir Walter Scott says that the above " is
the only instance in which the ordinary ad-
ministration of justice has been supposed to
extend over the inhabitants of another world,
and in which the business of exorcising
spirits is transferred from the priest to the

judge."

Voltaire, however, in treating of Vain-
pyres, mentions a similar instance. " It is
in my mind," says the French wit and phi-
losopher, "a curious fact, that judicial pro-
ceedings were taken, in due form of law,
concerning those dead who had left their
tombs to suck the blood of the little
boys and girls of the neighbourhood. Cal-
met relates that in Hungary two officers ap-
pointed by the Emperor Charles the Sixth,
assisted by the bailiff of the place, and the
executioner, went to bring to trial a Vam-
pyre who sucked all the neighbourhood, and
who had died six weeks before. He was
found in his tomb, fresh, gay, with his
eyes open, and asking for food. The bailiff
pronounced his sentence, and the executioner
tore out his heart and burnt it : after which
the Vampyre ate no more."

Voltaire's levity has here carried him (in-
advertently, of course) with a smiling face into
a very appalling region. It is an historical fact
that a sort of Vampyre fever or epidemic spread
through the whole south-east of Europe, from
about the year seventeen hundred and twenty-
seven to seventeen hundred and thirty-five.
This took place more especially in Servia and
Hungary ; with respect to its manifestations
in which latter country, Calmet, the celebrated
author of the History of the Bible, has left an
account in his Dissertations on the Ghosts
and Vampyres of Hungary. A terrible in-
fection appeared to have seized upon the
people, who died by hundreds under the
belief that they were haunted by these
dreadful phantoms. Military commissions
were issued for inquiring into the matter ;
and the graves of the alleged Vampyres being
opened in the presence of medical men, some
of the bodies were found undecomposed, with
fresh skin and nails growing in the place of
the old, with florid complexions, and with
blood in the chest and abdomen. Of the truth
of these allegations there can be no reasonable
doubt, as they rest upon the evidence both of
medical and military men ; and the problem
seems to admit of only one solution. Dr. Herbert
Mayo, in his Letters on the Truths contained
in Popular Superstitions, suggests that the
superstitious belief in Vampyrism, acting
upon persons of nervous temperaments, pre-
disposed them to full into the condition called
death-trance ; that in that state they were
hastily buried ; and that, upon the graves
being opened, they were found still alive,
though unable to speak. In confirmation of j
this ghastly suggestion, Dr. Mayo quotes the

following most pathetic and frightful account
of a Vampyre execution from an old German
writer : " When they opened his grave, after
he had been long buried, his face was found
with a colour, and his features made natural
sorts of movements, as if the dead man
smiled. He even opened his mouth as if he
would inhale the fresh air. They held the
crucifix before him, and called in a loud voice,
' See, this is Jesus Christ who redeemed your
soul from hell, and died for you.' After the
sound had acted on his organs of hearing
and he had connected perhaps some ideas with
it, tears began to flow from the dead man's eyes.
Finally, when, after a short prayer for his
poor soul, they proceeded to hack off his
head, the corpse uttered a screech, and
turned and rolled just as if it had been alive
and the grave was full of blood." The
wretched man most assuredly was alive ; but
Superstition has neither brain nor heart ; and
so it murdered him.

A story similar to the foregoing has been
preserved by Serjeant Mainard, a lawyer of
the reign of Charles the First ; and may be
here repeated as a curious instance of the
hold which the most puerile superstitions
maintained in England at a comparatively
recent period, and the influence which they
were allowed to exercise even in io grave a
matter as a trial for murder. In the year
sixteen hundred and twenty-nine, somewhere
in Hertfordshire, a married woman, named
Joan Norcot, was found in bed with her
throat cut ; and, although the inquest which
was held upon her body terminated in a ver-
dict of felo-de-se, a rumour got about that
the deceased had been murdered. The body
was accordingly taken out of the grave thirty
days after its death, jn the presence of the
jury and many other persons ; and the jury
then changed their verdict (which had not
been drawn into form by the coroner), and
accused certain parties of wilful murder.
These were tried at the Hertford Assizes,
and acquitted ; " but," says the Serjeant, " so
much against the evidence, that the Judge
(Harvy) let fall his opinion that it were
better an appeal were brought than so foul a
murder should escape unpunished." In con-
sequence of this, "they were tried on the
appeal, which was brought by the young
child against his father, grandfather, and
auut, and her husband, Okeman ; and, be-
cause the evidence was so strange, I took
exact and particular notice of it. It was as
followeth, viz. : After the matters above men-
tioned and related, an ancient and grave per-
sou, minister of the parish where the tact was
committed, being sworn to give evidence, ac-
cording to the custom, deposed, that the body
being taken out of the grave, thirty days
after the party's death, and lying on tjie
grass, and the four defendants present, they
were required, each of them, to touch the
de;ul body. Okeman's wife fell on her knees,
and prayed God to show token of their inno-

Charles Dickens.]

ME. POPE'S FKIEND.

cency, or to some such purpose ; but her very
[i.e., precise] words I forgot. The appellers
did touch the dead body; whereupon, the
brow of the dead, which was of a livid or
carrion colour (that was the verbal expres-
sion in the terms of the witness) began to
have a dew or gentle sweat, which ran down
in drops on the face, and the brow turned
and changed to a lively and fresh colour, and
the dead opened one of her eyes, and shut it
again ; and this opening the eye was done
three several times. She likewise thrust out
the ring or marriage-finger three times, and
pulled it in again ; and the finger dropt
blood from it on the grass."* This being
confirmed by the witness's brother, also a
clergyman ; and other evidence (of a more
human character, but, as it appears to us,
very insufficient) having been adduced ; Oke-
man was acquitted, and the three other
prisoners were found guilty : a result which
there can be little question was mainly
brought about by the monstrous story of the
scene at the exhumation.t That the details of
that story were exaggerated, according to the
superstitious habit of the times, seems obvious;
but the query arises, whether the body of the
woman might not really have been alive.
It is true that thirty days had elapsed since
her apparent death ; but some of the alleged
Vampyres supposed by Dr. Mayo to have
been buried alive had been in their graves
three months when their condition was in-
spected. Not being possessed of the requisite
medical knowledge, we will forbear to pro-
nounce whether or not life could be sustained,
under such circumstances, for so great a
length of time ; but what seems fatal to the
supposition, in the last instance, is the fact of
the woman having had her throat cut.

Vampyres have often been introduced into
romance. There is an old Anglo-Saxon poem
on the subject of a Vampyre of the Fens ;
and the Baron von Haxthausen, in his work
on Transcaucasia, has told a story of one of
these gentry, which may be here appended as
a sort of pleasant burlesque after the fore-
going tragedies : " There once dwelt in a
cavern in Armenia a Vampyre, called Dak-
hanavar, who could not endure any one to
penetrate into the mountains of Ulmish
Altotem, or count their valleys. Every one
who attempted this had, in the night, his
blood sucked by the monster from the soles
of his feet, until he died. The Vampyre was,
however, at last outwitted by two cunning
fellows. They began to count the valleys,
and when night came on they lay down to

* The bleeding of the dead hody of a murdered
person upon the approach of the murderer is an old
opinion, to which Bacon, in his Natural History,
seems inclined to give some weight.

)" The notes from which this story is derived, were
made by the Serjeant from what he himself heard on
the trial. (See the Gentleman's Magazine for July,
1851.)

sleep, taking care to place themselves with
the feet of the one under the head of the
other." (How both could have managed to do
this, we leave to the reader's ingenuity to ex-
plain.) " In the night, the monster came,
felt as usual, and found a head ; then he felt
at the other end, and found a head there also.
' "Well,' cried he, ' I have gone through the
whole three hundred and sixty-six valleys of
these mountains, and have sucked the blood
of people without end ; but never yet did I
find any one with two heads and no feet ! '
So saying, he ran away, and was never more
seen in that country ; but ever after the
people have known that the mountain has
three hundred and sixty-six valleys."

In South America, a species of bat is found,
which sucks the blood of people while asleep
(lulling them with the fanning of its wings
during the operation), and which is called the
Vampyre bat from that circumstance. If
this creature belonged to Europe, we should
be inclined to regard it as the origin of the
Vampyre fable.

ME. POPE'S FEIEND.

THERE is a custom, I have been told, pre-
valent among the junior officers on board some
of her Majesty's ships of war, and by means
of which the monotony of cockpit life is
agreeably diversified, called " swop." When
a swop takes place, the contents of the
youngsters' sea-chest are strewn on the
cabin table, and an ingenious and ex-
citing scene of barter ensues, of gold-laced
bauds against jars of mixed pickles ; sup-
plies of stationery against razor-strops and
shaving-brushes; corngts - a- piston against
quadrants ; and locks of sweethearts' hair
against clasp-knives a flageolet, a clothes-
brush, or a cake of chocolate, being occa-
sionally thrown into a bargain by way of
ballast or make-weight. Swop may also,
perhaps, be recognised by some of my young
friends now or lately at home for the Christ-
mas vacation as a favourite half-holiday
pastime at the establishments where they
receive their education, and where (it is to be
hoped) none but the sons of gentlemen are
received. I retain, myself, lively reminis-
cences of my school swops. In these the
chief articles quoted were toffy, plum-cake,
peg-tops, marbles, pocket-combs-, jew's-harps,
slate-pencil, white mice, silk-worms, trowser-
straps (much coveted, these), common prayer-
books, and illustrated copies of the Adventures
of Philip Quarll, together with twopenny
cakes of water-colours, of which dragon's
blood and saturnine red were most in
demand : chiefly, I think, by reason of their
romantic and adventurous names, and not
with any reference to their artistic uses.
At a large public school, also, of which I
know something so large that its conductors
had quite failed in keeping pace with the re-
quirements of the boys, and in the endeavour

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

had dropped behind a trifle of two hundred
years or so swop existed, and flourished ex-
ceedingly under the name of pledging, the
barter being mainly confined to the provisions
furnished to the pupils by the establishment.
Thus the boys pledged their dinner pudding
against potatoes their meat against pudding.
Pledging in this form was sanctioned by the
authorities; but there was also much illegal
bartering, detection in which (there was a
legend that one boy had positively pledged
his leathern small-clothes a relic of monastic
costume against a pair of tumbler pigeons),
subjected the contrabandist to the punish-
ment of the rod.

Lest I should be betrayed into an elaborate
essay upon the different forms of barter
current among ancient and modern nations
from Hercules swopping the deliverance of
Troy from the Sea Monster against Laome-
don's thorough-bred horses ; from the mess
of pottage for which Esau pledged his birth-
right to Jacob, to the swops in usage between
the burghers of the Manhattoes and the
Indians in the early days of the colony of
New York when a Dutchman's foot was
by mutual agreement understood to weigh
ten pounds I may as well, and at once,
explain what connection exists between
swops and Mr. Pope's friend.

Some friends of mine who live, as I do, in
a large gloomy hotel in the Quartier Latin,
and in the fair city of Lutetia ; when the
weather is too wet for a walk on the boule-
vards or for study at the Bibliotheque
Imp6riale ; when the Palais Eoyale has no
delights, the billiard-tables no charms, and
the English newspapers (as it frequently
happens) have been stopped by the police,
and there is nothing worth reading (which
there scarcely ever is) in the French journals ;
when I myself have invoked the Muses in
vain, and find that they persist in keeping
themselves coy at the very top of Mount
Parnassus Lempriere only knows how
many thousand miles off; and when my
neighbour the doctor with the beard has
deferred till to-morrow his visit to the dis
secting-room of the clamart (which visit he
has been deferring about three hundred and
forty times a-year for the last three) ; are
accustomed to meet in a cheerful sederuut,
and kill the hours with swop. Few things
are too exalted or too humbie for our com-
mercial interchanges ; and a complete da-
guerreotype apparatus has been known to be
in the market at the same time with a vil-
lauous clay-pipe never before worth more
than a sous, but now supposed to possess
some extrinsic value by having been smoked
till it is very dirty. Swops are also made of
boots, clothes, small articles of jewellery,
postage-stamps (which are always in great
demand among foreign sojourners in Paris,
and though always on sale cannot always be
bought), pomatum, surgical instruments, and
especially books. For, a studious man cannot

read, with pleasure, any but his own
books ; and as his means forbid him to
accumulate a large library, swop conies to
his aid very usefully and pleasantly ; and
when he has well read and meditated one
book, through, he can exchange it for another.
The prices demanded and the value placed
upon articles are frequently somewhat fanciful
and capricious. Coals are not always coals,
but occasionally run up almost as high as
diamonds ; and it is now and then necessary
to threaten an appeal to the tribunal of
Ca?sar, represented by the marchand d'habits
or old clothesman, who is always hovering
about the courtyard below, like a vulture,
with three hats and a moustache. I recently
became the possessor, at a perfectly exorbitant
rate of barter, of a certain cross-barred
velvet waistcoat the transaction being
saddled with the additional disadvantage of
its being impossible to wear the garment
with propriety in any of the capitals of
Europe in which I propose to take up my
residence. The waistcoat (which would be
really a most splendid and effectively ornate
article of apparel if it had a new back and
were looked after a little about the pockets
and button-holes), is as well known in the
Hue du Palais de Laecken at Brussels, as on the
Boulevard des Italiens ; in the Cafe Grecco
in Borne, as on the Glacis at Vienna. It has
been on the press in London on the manly
chest of more than one sub-editor at diffe-
rent intervals during the last forty months ;
and, as I am not just now prepared with the
passage-money to Constantinople (and even
there I daresay our own correspondent, come
from the Crimea to Pera to purchase a
stove, a fur tippet, and a pair of American
over-shoes, would recognise it immediately),
the only European capital where I can see a
chance of wearing it without the risk of
detection in having second-hand clothes upon
me, is Venice. I hope to go there shortly ;
and should you happen to go there too, and
see an untidy man in a cross-barred velvet
waistcoat sauntering about the Place of St.
Mark, gazing at the dusky Ducal Palace,
and the muddy canal, and the black gon-
dolas, you may with tolerable certitude
affirm the wearer to be the writer of ths
paper.

Swop and the cross-barred vest were the
means of my being introduced to Mr. Pope's
friend. For, as I grumbled a little at the
terms demanded for the transfer of the wais-
coat, its original possessor, touched, perhaps
by compunction, perhaps by generosity,
offered to throw into the bargain as a bonne -
bouche, pot-de-bin, or bonus, a copy of
Fenton. " And who the Blank," I asked,
"is Feiiton?"

Whereupon, he handed me a little starved
duodecimo volume, with tarnished gilt edges,
and bound in mottled calf, the ragged state of
which suggested that several penknives of the
last century had been sharpened upon it.

Charles Dickens.]

ME. POPE'S FRIEND.

Opening it, I found, by the title page,
the book to be The Poetical Works of Elijah
Fenton : With the Life of the Author. Em-
bellished with Superb Engravings. London :
Printed for the Booksellers. Seventeen
hundred and odd. The superb engravings
I found comprised in one bald little plate,
in which an overgrown Cupid was repre-
sented fighting in a most ungallant manner
for the possession of a bow with a lady with
powdered hair, a short waist, and no shoes or
stockings. The superb engraving was sur-
rounded by a border, in which more bows and
arrows, a comic mask, some clouds, the
Roman fasces, a wreath of laurel, and the
.Royal arms, were tastefully intermixed.
Lastly, on the fly-leaf of the cover, it was
recorded that Samuel Burrell was the happy
possessor of Fenton fifty-seven years ago
said Samuel, in the pride of possession, ex-
pressing the most uncharitable wishes towards
whoever stole this book. Beneath, there was
some little private trade-mark a large
figure of four and a small d; which, together,
led me to suppose that the book must have
been, in the long run, stolen from Burrell, or
that after his death it had been, at the sale
of his effects, disposed of by public auction,
and that ultimately it had been offered for
sale at a bookstall for fourpence.

Now, who was Fenton ? I hope ladies and
gentlemen will not be ashamed to avow
their ignorance if they never heard of Fenton
before. A man may have read eight hours
a day for half a century and have never
read Fenton : a man may be as wise as
Solomon, and Fenton still be a sealed book to
him. I came across, the other day, some re-
marks of Fuller's about schoolmasters. He
mentions " that gulf of learning, Bishop
Andrews." How many ordinarily well-read
men could tell anything now about Bishop
Andrews, and his gulf of learning ? The
gulf has swallowed him up altogether, and
he is learned at the bottom of Lethe.

All that I had ever known of Fenton be-
fore I took his poetical works in the swop
with the cross-barred waistcoat, was that his
life had been written by Doctor Johnson in
the Lives of the Poets, and that I had always
skipped it in turning over that voluminous
work in quest of the glorious biographies of
Milton and Savage ; next, that Fenton had
something to do with Pope. Whether he was
Pope's Homer, or one of the heroes of Pope's
Dunciad, I was, Heaven help me, quite uncer-
tain. I am proud now, after studying his life,
to inform my readers that he was Mr. Pope's

j* * 1 *

mend.

I know, now too, that Mr. Pope's friend was
the hero of a joke a joke, not quite seasoned
enough for the spicy company of Joe Miller,
but risible enough to find admission to some
" Wit's companion," or "Collection of humour-
ous and diverting anecdotes."

"Fenton," says the historian, "was one
day in the company of Broome, his associate,

and Ford* a clergyman, at that time too well
known, whose abilities, instead of furnishing
convivial merriment to the voluptuous and
dissolute, might have enabled him to excel
among the virtuous and the wise. They de-
termined all to see " The Merry Wives of
Windsor," which was acted that night ; and
Fenton, as a dramatic poet, took them all to
the stage door, where the doorkeeper inquir-
ing who they were, was told they were three
very necessary men : Ford, Broome, and Fettf
ton ; as composing a part of the characters
in the comedy : and it is to be observed that
the name in the play which Pope restored to
Brook was then Broome. It is not stated
whether the door-keeper admitted the three
very necessary men for their joke's sake ; nor
do I know of what stuff, penetrable or not,
the janitors of theatres were made of in the
reign of Queen Anne ; but I should not
counsel any humourist of the present day to
essay penetration through the stage door of
a London theatre on the strength of a witti-
cism. I am afraid, even, that the funniest of
government clerks, if his name happened to
be Box, and his friend's, in the post-office,
Cox, would be sternly refused ingress at the
stage-door of the Lyceum, were he to claim
admission on the score of self and friend
being two " very necessary men."

Let us see how Elijah Fenton came to be
Mr. Pope's friend, and what his friendship
brought him. It appears by *my book, the
narratives of Jacobs and Shiels, and the
Life by Doctor Johnson, that Elijah was de-
scended from an ancient and honourable
family at Shelton, near Newcastle-under-
Lyne; that his lather possessed a considerable
estate, but that he, being a younger son, was
precluded from heirship ; was educated at a
grammar school ; then entered as a student
at Jesus College, Cambridge^ ; but retaining
an attachment to the family of the Stuarts
refused to qualify himself for public employ-
ment by taking the necessary oaths, and left
the university without a degree. The mala-
droit Elijah thus managed to make a stumble
upon the very threshold of life. As a non-
juror he was not even eligible for the post of
a tide-waiter, or a parish constable. Medio-
crity seemed determined to mark him for her
own.

" As obscurity," his biographer finely re-
marks, " is the inseparable attendant upon
poverty " (of which I am not quite certain,
though I know that poverty is the inseparable
attendant upon obscurity), "the incidents of
his life cannot be accurately traced from year
to year, or the means traced from which he
derived a support." With what sonorous
comprehensiveness does the historian gloss
over Mr. Pope's friend's probably desperate
battle for bread. Poor Elijah ! Who shall say
how many times he slept upon bulks, or
among the cabbage stalks in Fleet Market,

Hogarth's " Parson Ford."

HOUSEHOLD WOKDS.

[Condncted by

or walked the streets all night shelterless !
How many times he refected his famished
sides at a St. Giles's cook-shop, or fancied he
could choke, like Otway, with a penny roll, if
he only had a penny to purchase a roll to
choke himself withal. Did he ever enact
griffins, ships, or Towers of Babel, at the
u motion " plays at Bartholomew Fair, like
that other poet, the unhappy Elkanah Settle?
Was he ever one of Swift's Little Britain
translators that lay three in a bed ] Was he
one of the historians that Mr. Curll kept at
the public house in Holborn, and fed on tripe
and strong waters ? He lived somehow this
poor non-juring mediocre man ; for, he lived
to be tutor to the Earl of Orrery, the re-
nowned translator of Pliny, and afterwards
to be master of the charity school at Seven
Oaks in Kent, which situation he quitted in
seventeen hundred and ten, through the per-
suasion of Mi-. St. John, afterwards Lord
Bolingbroke, who made him promises of a
more honourable and profitable employment.
"In process of time," I quote his biographer
here, " as he became more and more attached
to the muses, whom he had courted from early
life, he became more moderate in his political
opinions ; for though a non-juror he was
lavish in his eulogiums on Queen Anne, and
extolled the name of Marlborough beyond
the very echo of applause." Poor Fenton !
was he not getting hungry ? Was it not
natural for the poetical non-juror, condemned
to teach the charity-school boys of Seven
Oaks, and to dance the young Earl of Orrery
like a bear through his humanities Ah ! if
the truth were known, I will be bound that
honest Elijah had more to do with Pliny angli-
cised than the renowned translator cared to ad-
mit to yearn a little after the loaves and
fishes ? Though Queen Anne occupied the
throne of King James, is it not natural that
an empty stomach of years' standing should
at last thaw the Jacobite ice into a stream of
lavish eulogiums, and tune the High Tory
harp to extol the name of the Whig Marl-
borough beyond the very echo of applause ?
Even more than this did Elijah do. He tes-
tified his regard for the Churchill family, in
Florelio, an elegiac pastoral on the death of
the great captain's son, the Marquis of Bland-
ford ; in which Doctor Johnson observes, " he
could be prompted only by respect or kindness,
for neither the Duke nor Dutchess desired
the praise, or liked the cost of patron-
age." I am sorry to say that I am at issue
with Bolt Court upon this point. John
Churchill, the great Duke of Marlborough,
could swallow anything. Blue ribbons, gar-
ters, places, pensions, coronets, palaces, par-
liamentary grants, pilferings from the soldiers'
pay, and profits upon their shirts and fire-
locks ; his great avarice had stomach for them
all He was more bespattered with praise
(as, afterwards with obloquy), than any man
of his age ; and it is to be presumed that he
liked as much to be praised as to be General-

issimo of the allied forces, and proprietor of
Blenheim. And his Duchess "Old Sarah,"
is the Doctor to assert that she dis-
liked praise ? Was she not a woman was
she not a Duchess a Duchess, living in the
days when Duchesses were estimated by
poets (at so many gold pieces per line) as
something very little short of divinities!
It might have been the Duchess of Marl-
borough's chaplain (for reverend Praisers were
multiplied exceedingly in those days), who,
preaching a funeral sermon over a deceased
Peeress, took occasion to inform his congrega-
tion that " he had no doubt that her Grace was
at that moment occupying that, distinguished
position in Heaven to which her exalted rank,
and shining virtues entitled her ! " Close-fisted,
moreover, as Duchess Sarah may have been,
she would scarcely have grudged a meal of vic-
tuals in the kitchen of Marlborough House,
and half a score of broad pieces to the author
of Florelio.

In seventeen hundred and nine, Elijah
Fenton acquired the esteem of the literati.
He also acquired the esteem of Southerne,
and lastly the friendship of a little crooked
catholic gentleman, who lived in a little house
with a grotto at Twickenham, from whence,
now and then, he rode to town in. a little
coach and who was called Alexander Pope.
The little waspish, spiteful, kind-hearted bard
was the first to patronise and pat on the back
the forlorn Elijah. They must have been a
curious couple. Fenton was a tall, bulky,
gross, lazy man, on whom his landlady's criti-
cism was, " that he would lie a-bed, and be
fed with a spoon." His clothes were not
good ; his wig was probably uncombed, his
shoes down at heel, his buckles rusty, his
steenkirk unbleached. He was " very sluggish
and sedentary," says the biographer, " rose
late, and when he once had sat down to his
books, would not get up again." He must
have been a sort of dull, heavy book, this
Elijah, in unreadable type, that went down to
oblivion with most of its leaves uncut.

Elijah was not tired, poor fellow, of dedica-
tions yet. To a collection of poems called
the Oxford and Cambridge Verses he prefixed
a very elegant dedication to Lionel, Earl of
Dorset and Middlesex ; and in seventeen
hundred and sixteen he produced his Ode to
Lord Gower. Mr. Pope hastened to show
his friendship on the occasion, by stamping
the poem with his approbation. He pro-
nounced it to be the next ode in the English
language to Dryden's Alexander's Feast.
Here are a few of Elijah's lines, taken at
random from the Ode :

From Volga's banks th' imperious Czar
LeaJs forth his puny troops to war,
Foud of the softer southern sky :
The Soldan galls th' Illyrian coast,
But soon the miscreant mooney host
Before the victor cross shall fly.

Humph ! Miscreant mooney host. Again :

Charles Dickens.]

ME. POPE'S FRIEND.

O Gower ! through all that destined space
What breath the pow'rs allot to me
Shall sing the virtues of thy race,
United and complete in thee.

Fancy the unfortunate bard exhausting
his lungs until the day of his death, in one
unceasing paean of praise of the Bight Hon-
ourable John Lord Gower ! The Ode ends
with a description of "Honour's Bright
Dome," where

Phocion, Lselius, Capel, Hyde,
With Falkland seated near his side,

prophesy the happier fame of his Lordship ;
while the muse to receive his radiant name,
selects a whiter space.

The Ode to Lord Gower, I opine, can only
be called the next to Alexander's Feast
upon the principle that when there are two
boys in a class and one is at the top of it, the
second boy is the next to him.

Mr. Pope's friendship soon afterwards
showed itself to Elijah in recommending him
to the notice of Mr. Secretary Craggs, who
engaged him as a sort of half-secretary, half-
literary companion. The poet had now had
some prospect of ease and plenty, for, to
quote Johnson again, " Fenton had merit, and
Craggs had generosity ; " which is as much
as to say that Fenton had feet and Craggs
boots ; or Fenton a stomach and Craggs beef.
But Fate never seemed tired of making Elijah
a rival of Murad the unlucky; for, Mr. Craggs
besides having generosity had also the small
pox of which he died, leaving Mr. Pope's un-
fortunate friend stranded again.

Mr. Pope, untiring in his friendship, soon
afterwards set Fenton hard at work in trans-
lating the Odyssey, in which he had for coad-
jutor another friend of Mr. Pope Mr.
Broome. Fenton translated four books ;
Broome translated eight, besides writing all
the notes, "The judges of poetry," says
Johnson "have never been able to distinguish
their books from those of Pope." Lucky
Fenton and Broome ! if they had not had the
advantage of Mr. Pope's friendship, or had
failed in their translations, I wince to think
what pitiable figures Mr. Pope's friends would
have cut in Mr. Pope's Dunciad. Gildon's
debts and Dennis's want of dinners would
have been as nothing compared to the scarifi-
cations they would have received.

In seventeen twenty-three, Fenton did
what most dull men, and all unlucky men,
do. You may think I mean that he mar-
ried. Not exactly that, but he wrote a play.

It was a ponderous production a tragedy
founded upon the story of Herod and Ma-
riamne, related in the Spectator, and taken
from Josephus. Marianme is written in lines
of ten syllables. It is long, slow, lazy, dull,
uniform a very Bridgewater canal of a play.
Fenton is said to have been assisted by
Southerne, with many hints as to incident and
stage effect ; the navigation of the canal was
not much improved thereby, however.

When Mariamne was presented to Colley
ibber, the monarch of the stage not only
rejected it, but added insolence to illiberality,
advising the author to direct his attention to
some industrious pursuit, in order to obtain
that subsistence which he in vain expected
from his poetical efforts. I suppose he ad-
vised Fenton to turn to bellows-mending for
a livelihood. The manager was insolent, as
managers ordinarily are ; but not altogether
wrong. Managers seldom are.

However, Mariamne, produced at the
rival theatre, succeeded, even beyond its
author's expectations ; the profits accruing
from it amounted to nearly a thousand pounds.
Here we have at last, Elijah Fenton, the
favourite of fortune. After ignoring his
ixistence for years, the fickle goddess at length
railed upon him. A thousand golden
pounds ! What did Elijah with his lump of
money 1 Did he purchase an annuity ; did he
invest his capital in South Sea Stock like
Gay and win or lose more thousands ; did
he lend it out at usury, or hide it in a hole in
the ground 1 Alas ! no. Fortune threw the
lump of gold at him much as one pelts a
dog with marrow-bones. She hurt him while
he enriched him. The thousand pounds were
not destined to become the foundation of a
plum or even to ba modestly put out at in-
terest to gild the tops of the trees of honest
Elijah's winter. It is recorded that our
author appropriated the sum to the dis-
charge of a debt, incurred by purchasing-
many expensive articles, for supporting an
appearance necessary for his attendance at
court.

Oh vanity ! Oh fallacy of human wishes,
hopes, and labours ! Oh gold, turned to dry
leaves ! A few glass coaches, full bottomed
wigs, silver hilted swords, clouded canes, and
red heeled shoes ; a diamond snuff-box, per-
haps ; a china monster or two, given as
presents to Lady Bab or the Honourable
Miss Betty ; a ride in my Lord's chariot ; a
card for my Lady's Drum ; a night at the
Groom-porters' ; a squeeze at St. James's at
a birthday drawing-room; and Elijah's only
windfall had taken to itself wings, and flown
away !

In vain, Elijah, didst thou afterwards edit an
edition of Milton's Poems, with a biography
of the poet, written with tenderness and
integrity. In vain didst thou publish an
elegant edition of Waller, with notes so
drearily extended by long quotations from
Clarendon, bringing upon thee in after years
the censure of the stern critic who wrote
Easselas ; and who says grimly that, " illus-
trations drawn from a book so easily con-
sulted, should be made by reference rather
than transcription." Fast wert thou sinking
into the miserable condition of a bookseller's
hack ; when the friendly Pope once more
stepped forth, only indeed to rescue thee from
Grub Street, by restoring thee to the quon-
dam profession of bear-leader.

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

Poor Fenton seems through life to have
been endeavouring to shake out of his hand
the birch and ferule of the pedagogue, but
always failed. The last kind office done for
him by his friend at Twickenham was to
procure him employment with Lady Trumbal,
widow of Sir William Trumbal, to superin-
tend the education of her son, whom he first
directed in his studies at home, and after-
wards * attended " to Cambridge. When the
young heir was fairly licked into shape, Elijah
was not turned adrift, but, being found a
harmless, easy, useful, willing kind of man,
her ladyship retained him in her household
at Easthampton, in Berkshire, as auditor of
her accounts. He passed the remainder of
his life in a " pleasing retirement," and died
at the seat of Lady Trumbal in seventeen
hundred and thirty. He had written a
tragedy, translated the Odyssey, educated the
" renowned translator of Plyiy," appeared at
Court, produced an Ode "next to Alexander's
Feast," possessed a thousand pounds, and
been the friend of Mr. Pope. He ended his
days " in a pleasing retirement " in a posi-
tion something between that of a pensioner
and a house-steward ; checking the accounts
of Mrs. Frugal the housekeeper ; auditing
the incomings and outgoings of Mr. Spigot,
the butler's cellar, and Dorothy Draggletail's
dairy. I dare say he took the vice-chair at
a rent- dinner with much dignity and affa-
bility, and there wore those famous court
clothes, in the purchase of which his thousand
pounds had melted away like smoke.

Mr. Pope's friendship did not end with his
friend's life. He behaved most handsomely
to his memory. In a letter to his other
friend, Mr. Broome, he says, speaking of
Fenton, " No man better bore the approaches
of his dissolution (as I am told), or with less
ostentation yielded up his being. . . He died
as he had lived, with secret though sufficient
contentment. . . As to his other affairs, he
died poor but honest (!), leaving no debts or
legacies, except of a few pounds to Mr.
Trumbal and my lady, in token of respect,
gratitude, and mutual esteem. I shall with
pleasure take upon nie to draw this amiable,
quiet, deserving, unpretending Christian and
philosophical character in his epitaph."

Here is the philosophical character as
di-awn by Mr. Pope :

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can,

May truly say, Here lies an honest man ;

A poet blessed beyond the poet's fate,

Whom Heaven kept secret from the proud and great,

Foe to loud praise and friend to learned case,

Content with science in the vale of peace.

Calmly he looked on either side, and here

Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear ;

From nature's temp' rate feast rose satisfied,

Thank'd Heav'n that he liv'd and that he died.

Such is the testimony of Pope.
I am sorry ; I really am very sorry ; but I
must add one more extract from a letter

which does not place the friendship of Mr.
Pope in quite so shining a light.

" Mr. Fenton," says Lord Orrery, in a letter
to a friend written in seventeen hundred and
fifty-six, " was my tutor ; he taught me to read
English, and attended me through the Latin
tongue from the age of seven to thirteen
years. He translated double the number of
books in the Odyssey that Pope has owned.
His reward was a trifle an arrant trifle. He
has even told me that he thought Pope feared
him more than he loved him. He had no
opinion of Pope's heart, and declared him to
be, in the words of Bishop Atterbury, ' mens
curva in corpore curvo ' a crooked mind in
a crooked body. Poor Fenton died of a
great easy chair and > two bottles of port a
day. He was one of the worthiest and most
modest men that ever belonged to the court
of Apollo."

Such is the testimony of Lord Orrery. I
w.ouder whose is the true one Pope's
or his !

So, this is all I have to set down about
Mr. Pope's friend. I hope a great many
people know much more about him than *I
do ; should the contrary be the case, some
day, when the lives of Obscurorum Virorum
come to be written, these pages may serve
the historian in some stead.

SUPPOSING.

SUPPOSING that a gentleman named MR,
SIDNEY HERBERT were to get up in the House
of Commons, to make the best case he could
of a system of mismanagement that had filled
all England with grief and shame :

And supposing that this gentleman were to
expatiate to the House of Commons on the
natural helplessness of our English soldiers,
consequent on their boots being made by one
man, their clothes by another, their houses
by another, and so forth blending a senti-
mental political economy with Eed Tape, in
a .very singular manner :

I wonder, in such case, whether it would
be out of order to suggest the homely fact
that indeed it is not the custom to enlist the
English Soldier in his cradle ; that there
really are instances of his having been some-
thing else before becoming a soldier; and
that perhaps there is not a Eegiment in the
service but includes within its ranks, a num-
ber of men more or less expert in every
handicraft-trade under the Sun.

This day is published, for greater convenience, and
cheapness of binding,

THE FIRST TEN YOLUMES

HOUSEHOLD WORDS,

IN FIVE HANDSOME VOLUMES,
WITH A GENERAL INDEX TO THE WHOLE.

Price of the Set, thus bound in Five Double instead of Ten
Single Volumes, 2 10s. Od.

Publihed at the Office, No. 1G. IVellmmon Street .North, Strand. Printed by BR*OIIUI & EVAHI, \VhltefrirB, London.

"Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS." SHAKESPEARE.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL,
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

- 256.]

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1855.

[Pl

PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE.

ONCE upon a time, and of course it was in
the Golden Age, and I hope you may know
when that was, for I am sure I don't, though
I have tried hard to find out, there lived in a
rich and fertile country, a powerful Prince
whose name was BULL. Pie had gone through
a great deal of fighting in his time, about all
sorts of things, including nothing ; but, had
gradually settled down to be a steady, peace-
able, good-natured, corpulent, rather sleepy
Prince.

This Pnissant Prince was married to a
lovely Princess whose name was Fair Free-
dom. She had brought him a large fortune,
and had borne him an immense number of
children, and had set them to spinning, and
farming, and engineering, and soldiering, and
sailoring, and tloctoring, and lawyering, and
preaching, and all kinds of trades. The coffers
of Prince Bull were full of treasure, his cellars
were crammed with delicious wines from all
parts of the world, the richest gold and silver
plate that ever was seen adorned his side-
boards, his sous were strong, his daughters
were handsome, and in short you might have
supposed that if there ever lived upon earth
a fortunate and happy Prince, the name of
that Prince, take him for all iu all, was as-
suredly Prince Bull.

But, appearances, as we all know, are not
always to be trusted far from it ; and if they
had led you to this conclusion respecting
Prince Bull, they would have led you wrong,
as they often have led me.

For, this good Prince had two sharp thorns
in his pillow, two hard knobs in his crown, two
heavy loads on his mind, two unbridled night-
mares in his sleep, two rocks ahead in his
course. He could not by any means get ser-
vants to suit him, and he had a tyrannical
old godmother whose name was Tape.

She was a Fairy, this Tape, and was a
bright red all over. She was disgustingly
prim and formal, and could never bend herself
a hair's breadth this way or that way, out of
her naturally crooked shape. But, she was
very potent in her wicked art. She could
stop the fastest thing in the world, change
\ he strongest thing into the weakest, and the
most useful into the most useless. To do this
she had only to put her cold hand iipon it,

and repeat her own name, Tape. Then it
withered away.

At the Court of Prince Bull at least I
don't mean literally at his court, because he
was a very genteel Prince, and readily yielded
to his godmother when she always reserved
that for his hereditary Lords and Ladies in
the dominions of Prince Bull, among the great
mass of the community who were called in the
language of that polite country the Mobs and
the Snobs, were a number of very ingenious
men, who were always busy with some inven-
tion or other, for promoting the prosperity of
the Prince's subjects, and augmenting the
Prince's power. But, whenever they sub-
mitted their models for the Prince's approval,
his godmother stepped forward, laid her hand
upon them, and said " Tape." Hence it came
to pass, that when any particularly good dis-
covery was made, the discoverer usually car-
ried it off to some other Prince, in foreign
parts, who had no old godmother who said
Tape. This was not on the whole an advan-
tageous state of things for Prince Bull, to the
best of my understanding.

The worst of it, was, that Prince Bull had
in course of years lapsed into such a state of
subjection to this unlucky godmother, that he
never made any serious effort to rid himself
of her tyranny. I have said this was the
worst of it, but there I was wrong, because
there is a worse consequence still, behind.
The Prince's numerous family became so
downright sick and tired of Tape, that when
they should have helped the Prince out of the
difficulties into which that evil creature led
him, they fell into a dangerous habit of
moodily keeping away from him in an impas-
sive and indifferent manner, as though they
had quite forgotten that no harm could
happen to the Prince their father, without its
inevitably affecting themselves.

Such was the aspect of affairs at the court
of Prince Bull, when this great Prince found
it necessary to go to war with Prince Bear.
He had been for some time very doubtful of
his servants, who, besides being indolent and
addicted to enriching their families at his
expense, domineered over him dreadfully ;
threatening to discharge themselves if thej)
were found the least fault with, pretending
that they had done a wonderful amount
of work when they had done nothing,

VOL. XI.

256

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

making the most unmeaning speeches that
ever were heard in the Prince's name, and
uniformly showing themselves to be very
inefficient indeed. Though, that some of
them had excellent characters from previous
situations is not to be denied. Well ! Prince
Bull called his servants together, and said to
them one and all, " Send out my army against
Prince Bear. Clothe it, arm it, feed it, pro-
vide it with all necessaries and contingencies,
and I will pay the piper ! Do your duty
by my brave troops," said the Prince, "and do
it well, and I will pour my treasure out like
water, to defray the cost. Who ever heard
ME complain of money well laid out ! " Which
indeed he had reason for saying, inasmuch as
he was well known to be a truly generous
and munificent Prince.

When the servants heard those words, they
sent out the army against Prince Bear, and
they set the army tailors to work, and the
army provision merchants, and the makers
of guns both great and small, and the gun-
powder makers, and the makers of ball, shell,
and shot ; and they bought up all manner of
stores and ships, without troubling their
heads about the price, and appeared to be so
busy that the good Prince rubbed his hands,
and (using a favourite expression of his),
said, " It's all right ! " But, while they were
thus employed, the Prince's godmother, who
was a great favourite with those servants,
looked in upon them continually all day long,
and whenever she popped in her head at the
door, said, " How do you do, my children ?
What are you doing here 1 " " Official busi-
ness, godmother." " Oho ! " says this wicked
Fairy. " Tape ! " And then the business
all went wrong, whatever it was, and the
servants' heads became so addled and mud-
dled that they thought they were doing
wonders.

Now, this was very bad conduct on the
part of the vicious old nuisance, and she
ought to have been strangled, even if she had
stopped here ; but, she didn't stop here, as
you shall learn. For, a number of the Prince's
subjects, being very fond of the Prince's
army who were the bravest of men, assembled
together and provided all manner of eatables
and drinkables, and books to read, and clothes
to wear, and tobacco to smoke, and candles to
burn, and nailed them up in great packing-
cases, and put them aboard a great many
ships, to be carried out to that brave army
in the cold and inclement country where
they were fighting Prince Bear. Then, up
comes this wicked Fairy as the ships were
weighing anchor, and says, " How do you do,
my children ? What are you doing here 1 "
" We are going with all these comforts to
the army, godmother." " Oho ! " says she.
"A pleasant voyage, my darlings. Tape ! "
And from that time forth, those enchanted
ships went sailing, against wind and tide and
rhyme and reason, round and round tbe
world, and whenever they touched at any

port were ordered off immediately, and could
never deliver their cargoes anywhere.

This, again, was very bad conduct on the
part of the vicious old nuisance, and she
ought to have been strangled for it if she had
done nothing worse ; but, she did something
worse still, as you shall learn. For, she got
astride of an official broomstick, and muttered
as a spell these two sentences " On Her Ma-
jesty's service," and "I have the honour to
be, sir, your most obedient servant," and
presently alighted in the cold and inclement
country where the army of Prince Bull were
encamped to fight the army of Prince Bear.
On the seashore of that country, she found
piled together, a number of houses for the
army to live in, and a quantity of provisions
for the army to live upon, and a quantity of
clothes for the army to wear : while, sitting
in the mud gazing at them, were a group of
officers as red to look at as the wicked old
woman herself. So, she said to one of
j them, " Who are you, my darling, and how
do yow do 1 " " I am the Quarter-master
General's Department, godmother, and I am
pretty well." Then she said to another,
" Who are you, my darling, and how do you
do ? " "I am the Commissariat Depart-
ment, godmother, and / am pretty well."
Then she said to another, " Who are you, my
darling, and how do you do ] " " I am the
head of the Medical Department, godmother,
and 1 am pretty well." Then, she said to
some gentlemen scented with lavender, who
kept themselves at a great distance from the
rest, " And who are you, my pretty pets, and
how do you do 1 " And they answered, " We-
aw-are-the-aw- Staff- aw -Department, god-
mother, and we are very well indeed." " I
am delighted to see you all, my beauties,"
says this wicked old Fairy, " Tape ! " Upon
that, the houses, clothes, and provisions, all
mouldered away ; and the soldiers who were
sound, fell sick; and the soldiers who were
sick, died miserably ; and the noble army of
Prince Bull perished.

When the dismal news of his great loss
was carried to the Prince, he suspected his
godmother very much indeed ; but, he knew
that his servants must have kept company with
the malicious beldame, and must have given
way to her, and therefore he resolved to turn
those servants out of their places. So, he
called to him a Roebuck who had the gift of
speech, and he said, " Good Boebuck, tell
them they must go." So, the good Eoebuck
delivered his message, so like a man that you
might have supposed him to be nothing but
a man, and they were turned out but, not
without warning, for that they had had a long
time.

And now comes the most extraordinary part
of the history of this Prince. When he had
turned out those servants, of course he
wanted others. What was his astonishment
to find that in all his dominions, which con-
tained no less than twenty-seven millions' of

Charles Dickens.]

A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE.

people, there were not above five-and-twenty
servants altogether ! They were so lofty
about it, too, that instead of discussing
whether they should hire themselves as ser-
vants to Prince Bull, they turned things topsy-
turvy, and considered whether, as a favour,
they should hire Prince Bull to be their
master ! While they were arguing this
point among themselves quite at their
leisure, the wicked old red Fairy was inces-
santly going up and down, knocking at the
doors of twelve of the oldest of the five-
and-twenty, who were the oldest inhabi-
tants in all that country, and whose united
ages amounted to one thousand, saying,
" Will you hire Prince Bull for your master ?
Will you hire Prince Ball for your master 1 "
'To which, one answered, " I will, if next
door will ;" and another, " I won't, if over the
way does ;" and another, " I can't, if he, she,
or they, might, could, would, or should."
And . all this time Prince Bull's affairs were
.going to rack and ruin.

At last, Prince Bull in the height of his per-
plexity assumed a thoughtful face, as if he were
struck by au entirely new idea. The wicked
old Fairy, seeing this, was at his elbow directly,
and said, "How do you do, my Prince, and what
are you thinking of?" "I am thinking, god-
mother," says he, " that among all the seven-
and-twenty millions of my subjects who have
never been in service, there are men of intellect
and business who have made me very famous
both among my friends and enemies." " Aye,
truly 1 " says the Fairy. " Aye, truly," says
the " Prince. " And what then 1 " says the
Fairy. " Why, then," says he, "since the re-
gular old class of servants do so ill, are so
hard to get, and carry it with so high a hand,
perhaps I might try to make good servants
of some of these." The words had no sooner
passed his lips than she returned, chuckling,
"You think so, do you ? Indeed, my Prince ?
Tape ! " Thereupon he directly forgot
what he was thinking of, and cried out
lamentably to the old servants, " O, do come
and hire your poor old master ! Pray do !
On any terms ! "

And this, for the present, finishes the story
of Prince Bull. I wish I could wind it up by
saying that he lived happy ever afterwards,
but I cannot in my conscience do so ; for,
with Tape at his elbow, and his estranged
children fatally 1'epelled by her from coming
near him, I do not, to tell you the plain
truth, believe in the possibility of such an
end to it.

A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE.

IN childhood we have all of us revelled in
tales about magical vases and marvellous
bottles, whence issued irritated genii or face-
tious devils-on-two-sticks ; and our won-
der was, and still remains, how they man-
aged to get into them. In manhood, and
sometimes too soon in youth, our attention

ias been occasionally riveted by the wonders
performed by a bottle of champagne ; but I
venture to assert that not one person in a
aundred has the least idea of how much
there is inside one of these mystic phials, nor
by what elaborate and cabalistic incantations
the imprisoned sprites were confined therein.
With some amount of perseverance and cou-
rage, I have penetrated to the subterranean
laboratories, and have witnessed how the
reluctant demons are thrust, and kept fast
prisoners, within the glass walls of a
cylindro-conical dungeon. I have stalked
through part of the six English miles of
cellar, and traversed sundry of the fifty-five
;alleries, the longest extending about four
lundred yards ; I have stared at some thou-
sands of the three million bottles that are wait-
ing to get out and be drunk from the bright,
barrack -like establishments of Messieurs
Jacquesson et Fils, of Chalons-sur-Marne ; I
have descended, like a second ./Eneas, to the
lowest deep of the Tartarean grottoes pos-
sessed by Messrs. Moe't and Chandon, of Eper-
nay ; I have gone down the steps beside which
a black marble tablet, with letters of gold,
informs the visitor that Napoleon the Grand
did exactly the same thing, in I did not
think it necessary to note what year ; I
dived through stories of thrice-triple caves ;
I reached an ancient portion of catacomb-
like cellar no longer in use, which they
call Siberia : I tapped at the door where-
in ice is treasured, not only to chill the
sample wines of entertainment for the pro-
prietor's table, but for more important pur-
poses, as you shall hear ; and I have emerged
by the stairs where another gilt tablet in-
formed me that Jerome Bonaparte, ex-king
of Westphalia, had had the honour of pre-
ceding me. After a good hour- and -half's
scientific ramble in the bowels of the earth,
the air and sunshine were a delicious treat,
worth all the bottles of champagne in the
world ; but still it appeared to me that a
few details might be useful to the public,
if only to help housekeepers to make and
manage their gooseberry wine.

To begin with the province of Cham-
pagne itself: there is poor Champagne and
rich Champagne. If you traverse the former
from south to north, you have a series of
tiresome plains, which are not exactly flat,
but slightly hollow and undulating The
face of the country, even where abundantly
rich, is far from being prepossessing in its
appearance, unlike its rival Burgundy. The
laud puts you in mind of an enormous sheet
held out to catch some giant Garagantua,
who is expected soon'to jump down from the
skies and display his traditional powers of
consumption. With patience, you at last
reach the city of Troyes, an old-fashioned
town, a hundred years behindhand, with but
rare foot-pavements and with plenty of open
wells in the streets. Many of the houses are
built of wood framework, filled up with plaster,

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

like those we see at Shrewsbury and Chester.
Bonneterie is the staple manufacture, com-
prising stockings, nightcaps, gloves, and mit-
tens. Numerous stocking-frames are seen at
work, as well as the circular tricot, or knit-
ting round by machinery. A Champenois,
(but un-French) fashion, to be witnessed at
Troyes, is the custom of employing young
men to act as chambermaids. Altogether,
once in one's life is often enough to have
been at Troyes, in spite of its ancient im-
portance and repute. After another long,
dull, monotonous ride over the same ever-
lasting open plains, you perceive a pair of
twin steeples in a verdant hollow. You then
descend, through pleasant and promising en-
virons, to the fortified town of Vitry le Fran-
9ais ; wherein all the streets run at right
angles to each other from a central square,
with a fountain in the middle. If you eat,
drink, or sleep at Vitry, take care to go to
the H6tel des Voyageurs, which is one of the
most satisfactory inns in all Champagne. For,
be it known, the people of Champagne are
not popular with their own compatriots.

The inhabitants of several districts of
"France have borne a traditional character
amongst their countrymen from time imme-
morial, just as the Scotch and Yorkshireinen
have in England. The Bourguiguon has
always been a favourite ; the Champenois
exactly the reverse. The leading feature of
his mind is supposed to be silliness. " Ninety-
nine sheep," say the French, " and one
Champeuois make together a hundred block-
heads." In a certain vaudeville, a lady and
gentleman make an acquaintance at a roadside
inn. Gentleman : " I am just arrived from
Troyes." Lady : " I thought so." Gentle-
man : " What ! do I look so foolish as that ? "
An analogous saying makes a hundred block-
heads consist of ninety-nine Flemings an done
hog. I like the Fleming better than the Cham-
penois ; he is cleanlier, and moreover a first-
rate gardener. The genuine type of Cham-
pagne dulness is not the sheep, but rather
the goose, the phalansterian emblem of the
artful peasant, a cunning simpleton with a
purposely vacant look. The Champenois
never forgets to take care that you shall pay
enough. Beware how you touch his grapes !
or he will make you the subject of a proems
verbal. His very vines are often trained in
such a way, that besides bearing fruit, they
serve as hedges and inclosing fences. Honest-
hearted Jean Raisin is degraded to the rank
of a rural policeman. He is compelled to
stretch out an arm to bar the passage, and
to shout " No thoroughfare ! " The ban
or proclamation of the date when grape-
gathering is to be first allowed in each dis-
trict, shows a nervous fear of being robbed,
which strongly contrasts with the Burgundian
open-handed practice. There things are con-
ducted in such a style as this: "Monsieur
wishes to walk through my vines 1 " a Chablis
proprietor asked of my guide. " With plea-

sure." He then added, with a good-humoured
smile, "The best, as you know, are on the
hill La Moutonne ; but don't eat too many
grapes;" thereby implying, that though
the crop was very short, we were heartily
welcome to taste in moderation. But the
Mayor of Troyes sternly informs the public
that the opening of the vintaging of vines in
such a territory is fixed for such a day ; and
for such other, for such another day. All,
whether owners or tenants of vineyards, are
warned that if they contravene the ban by
beginning before their neighbours, and so
taking the opportunity of plundering them
they shall be delivered over to the Tribunal of
Simple Police. Moreover, all persons what-
soever, except the owners, are forbidden to
enter the vineyards at any time, on any pre-
text. Jean Raisin is watched and guarded
as carefully as a wealthy novice in a convent..

From Vitry, through Chalons, to Epernay,
you are in rich Champagne, in the valley of
the Marne. There are vines : but not even
at Chalons are you yet arrived at the cham-
pagiie-wine-producing district. At Epernay
you reach it at last ; and if you stroll over
to Ai, to admire its lovely site in the lap of
hills, or stretch as far as Sillery, you are
still amongst the vines which do actually
produce champagne. The wine made and
matured in M. Jacquesson's vast establish-
ment at Chalons is not grown on the spot ;
but is brought there in hogsheads previous
to being bottled from his vineyards in the
neighbourhood of Ai and elsewhere. But
the truth is that, even in France, nobody but
the wine-merchant, and not always he him-
self, knows where champagne wine does come
from. A good deal is made in Burgundy ;
some in Germany ; and, in the white wine
districts, great quantities are bought up and
carried away and no one knows whither.
They are kidnapped, burked, dissected, trans-
mogrified, and successfully resuscitated with
a change of title.

This year, the vintage is comparatively a
blank at Epernay ; but we may safely pre-
dict that, though prices will rise, there will
be no perceptible deficiency in the general
supply. No one who can pay for a bottle of
champagne during the years fifty-five and
fifty-six is likely to be compelled to go with-
out it ; although possibly the cider and sugar-
and water of fifty-four will be as famous in,
its way as the wine of 'forty-six. It is much
easier to make good champagne wine beyond
the limits of the ancient province, than it
would be to manufacture burgundy wine far
away from Burgundy. You can fabricate
pinchbeck, but you cannot make gold. Cham-
pagne wine is so completely a factitious
thing, that if the duty on French wines wero
taken off in England, champagne could, and
would be prepared in London, so good as to
threaten a serious rivalry to the genuine
article from Chalons-sur-Marne. The cham-
pagne grower's capital really and truly lies

Charles Dicker.?.]

A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE.

in his cellar ; that is his plant, his mill, his
factory. The Burgundian's consists iu his
vineyard. There is but one cote d'or, and
human skill cannot create another ; there
are scores of architects 'and thousands of
masons in Great Britain and Ireland, and
money moreover to pay them with, who
would outdo with ease the vastest store-
houses of Chalons, Epernay, Sillery, or
Reims.

Notwithstanding which, the above-men-
tioned cellars really are a sight to see.
M. Jacquesson's, the most modern, dates
from eighteen hundred, and is considered
by sticklers for the old routine to be rashly
light and airy in its construction. In fact,
there is little that is cellarlike about it. No
damp, no fungus, no mouldy smell, and
almost no darkness. For an ordinary visit
you have no need to be lighted about with a
candle. Champagne cellars are made to
contain wine in bottles, not in casks ; hence
an immense difference in their aspect and
atmosphere. Jacquesson's establishment
crowns the top of a hill, just outside the
town, near the railway station. It is white
and clean, shining with neatness and good
repair ; and a plain square tower, at one
corner of the range of buildings, is sufficiently
ornamental and solid iu its proportions to
show that the owner is no common trades-
man. A like hint is given by the pheasantry
at the other end a handsome enclosure
of shrubs and evergreens all covered in with
a vast roof of netting. The courtyard, too,
-of M. Jacquesson's residence in the town
displays an assemblage of orange-trees (of
course in tubs) that would do no discredit to
a royal garden. Champagne wine is clearly
lucrative. Heavy taxes are cheerfully paid
when part of the money is to be returned
in pleasure.

The cellars are hardly underground ; that
is, though pierced in the side of the hill,
they are nearly level with the adjoining
road. Here in cool grot, in one of the
galleries, is a private tramway communicating
with the Chalons station close by, and all for
the convenient conveyance away, by trucks -
full, of armies of well-drilled and disciplined
champagne, not to mention receiving the raw
recruits or empty bottles that have to be
brought in, and dispatching to their fiery
funeral in the glass-house the shattered
corpses or broken bottles that must be
carried out. The last-mentioned sufferers
form a heavy item. Outside, at various
distances, you observe a series of small glass
domes. Within, you find they light the
cellars most effectually. The rays, descend-
ing perpendiculai'ly from the sky, are caught
on large sheets of polished tin, inclining at
an angle of forty-five degrees, and are thence
reflected horizontally throughout the whole
length of the galleries which they respec-
tively command. At a distance, the reflection
is so powerful and brilliant, that you might

1 fancy the place was splendidly furnished
| with a set of superb plate-glass mirrors. On
each side of these long straight galleries,
which cross each other at right angles, are
ranged the bottles in frames of wood, called
tabletas, mostly containing a hundred and
eight bottles each. At various points the
temperature of the cellar can be regulated
by folding doors which exclude the external
air at pleasure. The place in the cellar
which the bottles occupy, and the position in
which they are laid in the rack, depends
upon their age and the point to which their
education has advanced. Much more than
this, to see, there is not ; except perhaps
the wine-press and the packing-room.

Epernay lies in a lonely valley. The view
thence consists of vine-clad hills, the less pro-
ductive summits of which form a purple
background on the opposite side. But if
you walk past those self-same vineyards, you
will see a broad Champenois hint not to touch
anything which does not belong to you, in
the streaks of whitewash that are dabbed on
grapes growing dangerously close to the
public path. The town is a small compact
little place, whose chief ornament consists in
the princely mansions in which the wine-
merchants have contrived to house them-
selves. I could not but look at them and
marvel at the results obtained from a little
frisky wine. For though by no means castles
in the air, we may assert that they are built
with carbonic-acid gas, cemented with sugar,
and founded on froth. The numerous
fabriques and magasins of bouchons d'Es-
pagne, or shops of cutt.'3rs of Spanish corks,
may be looked upon as the arsenals of balls
and bullets that are to be fired off by the pro-
duce of Jean Eaisin's own powder-mill. But
Jean, I believe, mostly shoots with an air-gun.

M. Moet, on presentation of a recommen-
datory letter, at once acceded to my request,
not only to travel through his unseen domi-
nions, but also to watch his confidants at
work ; and in less than five minutes, I waa
tripping downstairs, candlestick in hand, as if
it were bedtime. The plan of this great
alembic of cosmopolitan luxury is exceed-
ingly simple, and is easily carried away iu
the head. Here, no daylight streams in from
above, nor too much air. On descending to
the first grand level, you are conducted
through a series of straight, dark-brown,
dampish galleries, which cross each other
right and left, and whose general plan is a
short parallelogram or inexact square. With-
out the picturesque festoons and tapestry of
funguses which decorate the London Docks,
there is yet enough of long-standing mouldi-
ness to give M. Moe't's caves an unmis-
takably respectable and ancestral character.
And for vastness, run as quick as you will, it
would take more than three good hours to
traverse them completely. From four to five
millions of bottles are their contents ; there-
fore on you go, and on and on, with regiments

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

of bottles drawn up on each side, and some-
times saluting you with a pop as you pass.
You have no contrast of big tubs and small ;
no variety of ports, sherries, capes, and ma-
deiras, in pipes, butts, hogsheads, and all the
rest of it ; but everywhere bottles of the
same shape and the same size, except where
pints or half-bottles take the place of whole
ones. It is as well to walk carefully, else
you may slip by stepping into the uuctnous
and sweet-smelling puddles that are formed
by companies of explosionists on each side ;
and falls are best avoided in a country where,
if you come to the ground, some fleshy por-
tion of your precious person may chance to
come in contact with a bit of broken glass.
You look into black depths, whither the eye
cannot penetrate ; you pass by the massive
square buttresses and pillars which support,
like Atlas, the upper world on their broad
bare shoulders ; you see the sharp decided
shadows following you close, as you and your
candle travel along ; and you are conscious
that if your guide were evil-minded and were
to leave you alone in a malignant fit of ill-
temper, you would lose yourself as hopelessly
as a child straying in the catacombs of Paris.
You descend from cellar to cellar. All these
different depths and various degrees of tempe-
rature and dampness offer an extensive choice
of climate, which the experienced owner doubt-
less well knows how to turn to the best advan-
tage. As means of communication between
these stages for tubs of wine, for instance,
that are condemned to be let down and bled
to death and bottled in darkness there are
trap-doors cut in the floor in places where
you would never look for them. From time
to time, you come upon groups of sepia-
coloured men busily employed at their sub-
terranean tasks. By the light of their candles,
they hardly look alive. At a few yards' dis-
tance, they strike you rather as spirited
sketches done in burnt umber by some
modern Rembrandt, than as breathing, warm-
blooded fellow-creatures. There is closeness
and mystery in the caverns of Epernay, as
there was light and space in the grottoes of
Chalons. M. Moe't might summon a con-
ference of the gnomes ; while M. Jacquesson
is almost privileged to invite the sylphs to
shelter themselves in a cool retreat when
oppressed by the sultriness of the summer air
on the top of the hill. You depart from both
in wonderment that such vast, ponderous,
and costly machinery should be employed in
a work of no greater utility or necessity than
that of furnishing a tickling draught to fasti-
dious palates.

We call champagne a sparkling wine ;
which is quite a mistake. We might as well
talk about sparkling ginger-pop. Ihe French
more correctly style it mousseux, or frothy.
It does not sparkle so brightly as soapsuds.
Adewdrop sparkles, a diamond sparkles better
still. In the way of gems, the only thing to
which champagne makes the slightest ap-

proach, is to seed pearls dancing on the surface
of a glass of water. Burgundy fills the glass
like a liquid ruby ; claret shines softly with a
more purple glow ; effervescing champagne
offers no brilliancy to the eye. It is only
bright when it is still, or in the popular
notion, good for nothing. Both frothy wines
and white wines differ greatly in their mode
of preparation from those that are respectably
still and red. One rule, however, holds good
for all : the best vineyards produce the best
liquor, and the quality is equally distinguish-
able whether the bottle is meant to go off
like a duelling pistol, or to be opened quietly
and noiselessly. If the juice obtained from the
grape has onlyundergone a sortof half fermen-
tation if a slight piquancy has commenced, it
is called vin bourru. White grapes are mostly
treated thus, and the liquor is in great re'-
quest amongst certain persons during the
vintage. It possesses all the faults and in-
conveniences of sweet wine, purges like it,
and is windy and indigestible. Its admirers,
who belong to the old school rather than the
new, assert that it is diuretic, solvent, purifi-
cative, and so on. When corked in bottle, it
bursts a great many, after the fashion of
champagne wine, to which it approaches in
its nature. Left in open vessels, it completes
its fermentation, and passes into the state of
ordinary wine ; only much inferior, from the
circumstance of not having regularly gone-
through all the steps of the process, and in
the proper time. There are certain sweet
wines, sometimes called liqueurs, such as
Bergerac, Arbois, Condrieux, Lunel, Frontig-
nan, Rivesalte, which are prepared almost
without fermentation. The bunches, most
generally of Muncat grapes, are cut very late,
just before the frosts come on, after they have
undergone the evaporation of nearly one half
of their substance, and are become shrivelled
and wrinkled. They are carefully picked,
almost berry by berry, crushed, and the juice,
at once put into the hogshead, finishes its
working and clears itself there. These wines
keep for an indefinite period. Similar wine
is made in the isles of Greece, in Spain, in
the Canaries and Madeira, where spirit is
mostly added ; as to port wine, especially
when it has to travel. The English rarely
taste any but alcoholized wines ; pure wine
being notoriously too insipid to please the
British palate. The consequence is that
we seldom have the chance of tasting it
pure. But the list of articles formerly used
in France itself to adulterate wine is really
frightful. To begin with innocent water,
there follow perry, cider, and beet-root juice;
then come elder, privet and other berries,
with logwood ; decoctions of elder flowers,
celery, and sage, doctored up with alcohol;
and last, sugar of lead, which, if it failed to
pai'alyse and kill the wine-bibber, gave him
painter's colic as a mild form of disease. Its
use is now said to be discontinued by the
Parisian wine-doctors, as involving too great a

Charles Dlckens.l

risk for themselves as well as for their cus-
tomers. What they now employ instead, I
know not. Even in France, wine is said to be
occasionally made without a single drop of
grapejuice in it. Verily, one ought to rejoice
greatly after swallowing a bumper of genuine
wine.

Amongst the French there is a wide-spread
and firmly-rooted opinion that their white
wines, as an habitual beverage, are less whole-
some than the red. They are believed to
shake the nervous system, and to be capiteux,
or to fly to the head. Myself would not con
firm this judgment, as a rule, knowing that
the effect complained of is nothing more than
the natural effect of the quantity and strength
of the liquid imbibed. Most white wines
either slip down so easily, that you have not
the slightest suspicion how much you have
taken, or are so strong that they surprise you
before you are aware of it, when you thought-
lessly consume your usual allowance. But
wine, besides its stimulating properties, also
contains medicinal elements ; and white wines
are partially deficient in these, from the ab-
sence of the red particles and the other tonic
and strengthening contents of the skin which
are associated with them. Amongst French-
men, too, white wine (champagne excepted,
because it costs so dear), reckons for nothing.
A bottle of Chablis, or Sauterne, at dejeuner
(a repast which does not correspond to the
English breakfast), is looked upon merely as
a bottle of water, just serving to wash down
a few shell-fish, or other little preliminary
whet, before the serious business of the meal
begins. As a somewhat exaggerated sample
of the prevalent idea, we may take the cele-
brated feat of the Parisian oyster-woman,
who betted that she would eat twelve dozen
oysters, and drink twelve glasses of ehablis.
while the clock of Saint-Eustache was strik-
ing twelve ; which she executed, thus : on
the pewter counter of the Commerce de Vina
where the performance came off, there were
ranged, in regimental row, a dozen tumblers,
in each of which a dozen small oysters were
floating in a limpid bath of ehablis wine. At
the first stroke of the clock, down went the
contents of tumbler number one ; the rest
glided down in steady succession ; and she
won her bet.

The luscious sweet wines, surcharged with
sugar and the principles contained in the flesh
of the grape such as Muscat-Frontignan
though medicinal and restorative in small
doses, and reputedly injurious in larger
draughts, are too cloying to fear much danger
of their being taken in excess. Yet I
have seen a bottle quaffed at a sitting with
evident satisfaction and benefit, by an indivi-
dual whose bodily constitution was pining
after saccharine and viscous material.
Some people are mad at times after a draught
of sweet wine ; just as deer are irresistibly
attracted by the American salt-licks. The
great fault of champagne is that you can never

have enough of it. In my time, I have had
enough port ; occasionally (if only a glass) too
much of cape and sherry ; enough burgundy.
But champagne, after it is down your throat,
cries '' More ! more ! " as fiercely and unde-
niably as a famished ogress panting for blood.
When I feel that the demon has taken pos-
session, the only way to dislodge her is to
slake my thirst with a pint of bordeaux.

For the manufacture of champagne, the
grapes, instead of being taken to the pressing-
place in balonges, are carefully carried thither
in baskets, after being gathered in the cool of
the morning. Great pains is taken not to
shake them more than can possibly be helped.
Because in good years, the juice that would
be squeezed out by the mere weight of the
bunches piled on each other, which is the
finest portion of the liquor, would all be
lost ; and hot sunshine, by hastening the
dissolution of the skin in the juice so let
out, would tinge the must with colouring
matters. It is really a no more wonderful
phenomenon that white wine should be made
from black grapes, than that a black hen should
lay a white egg; the juice of black grapes
being naturally white, except in a few less
common species, as the Teinturier. The main
point in order to keep the wine colourless is,
that the grapes should be unbroken and not
allowed to ferment in the least, either in a
cuve, or in the baskets on their way to one.
They do not go into a mashtub at all, but
are immediately put into the press, and are
squeezed a first, second, third, and even a
fourth time. The liquor from the last press-
ing is apt to be coloured, and is inferior in
quality to that from the two first.

New tubs are then filled three-quarters full
with, the juice produced by these different
squeezings. They are left open to ferment
for a fortnight, at the end of which period,
they are filled completely and tightly stopped
with a close-fitting bung. It is a great point
with white wines to preserve them colourless.
One mode is to be careful in keeping the tub
always full. This precaution prevents the
absorption of oxygen, which, incorporating
with the wine, would turn it yellow, and cause
it to lose a portion of its perfume and light-
ness. Some time in the month of January,
the wine is racked off, or drawn from the
lees, and immediately clarified by means of
isinglass or gluten. Six weeks afterwards,
it is clarified again ; and if, in April, it ia
found that the wine has not the requisite
transparency, it is drawn off a third time and
dosed with animal jelly. In the course of
April or May ii> is bottled, and into each
bottle is put a dose of liquor composed of
equal parts of the wine itself and sugar candy.
For pink champagne, the liquor is made with
red wine. About three per cent is the ordinary
dose of sirop. The cork is tied down, fastened
with wire, or, as at M. Moe't's, with an iron
clasp called an agrafe, and deposited in
a cellar, where it can enjoy the nearest

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

approach to a uniform temperature. For
now comes the tug of war. A regiment
of champagne bottles, at this stage of their
existence, are terribly mutinous and ex-
citable. You wouldn't believe Jean Raisin
to be of so peppeiy a temperament ; but
at the least provocation, he becomes a per-
fect bottle-imp, bursts into a rage, breaks a
blood-vessel, maims himself for life, and falls
a sacrifice to the violence of his passions. If
the weather is too incendiary, the riot act is
often read, by bringing a cargo of ice ; but
the tranquillisiug arguments generally arrive
too late, after all the mischief is done.

Champagne spends the summer reclining
thus, though too often not reposing, in a hori-
zontal position. The bursting of the bottles is
simply caused by the formation inside of a
greater quantity of carbonic acid gas than the
vessel of glass has strength to contain. Pur-
chasers prefer the wine which has exploded in
the largest proportion, and make strict inqui-
ries as to its performances in this line. If it
had not burst at all, they would have nothing
to say to it. About fifteen per cent is a very
respectable amount of burstage, satisfactory
to all parties. Sometimes it rises to more
than thirty per cent, and then becomes
ruinous to the manufacturer.

In September, and later, after the internal
fermentation and gas-making is nearly
complete, there forms at the lower part of
the bottle a quantity of dark, loose sedi-
ment, looking something like curdled soot,
which would quite spoil the brilliancy
and even the cleanliness of the sample, if
suffered to remain. To get rid of this is
the delicate task that has now to be un-
dertaken. The bottles have to be placed
sur pointe, as it is called, in their bottle-
racks ; that is, leaning with their necks
downward, at an angle of not quite forty
degrees. The sediment has thus a tendency
to sink towards the cork. Each individual
bottle has then to be moved or slightly
twisted, with the least perceptible shock, or
coup de main (increasing the inclination from
time to time), every day for a month or six
weeks, according to the season and the qua-
lity of the wine. It seems an endless and
impossible job to treat in this way the multi-
tudinous contents of such a cellar as M.
Moet's ; but one clever active man can turn
and shake, upon a stretch, as many as fifteen
thousand bottles a day. At last, when the
dark deposit is all got down to the cork, the
wine is ready to submit to the operation
called " d6gorger," or disgorging. The work-
man, or d6gorgeur, who performs it is remark-
ably light-fingered. Each bottle is handed to
him, and taken from him, by an attendant
slave on either side. He holds it horizontally,
removes the wire or the iron clasp, takes out
the cork, lets a spoonful of froth spurt out
with a fizz (carrying with it the ugly dregs),
raises the bottle perpendicularly, replaces
the cork, and the feat is done. Like all other

clever tricks, it looks easy enough when
performed adroitly ; although, were you and I
to attempt it, we should probably empty the
bottle before we knew that the cork had
stirred. Home-made champagne, to approach
perfection, ought to be treated according
to the same legerdemain.

A first disgorging is seldom sufficient ; it
generally has to be followed by a second and j
a third. The bottle has again to be laid
sloping, heels upwards, in the rack. An ad-
ditional drop of liquor is, now and then,
put in at the subsequent operations. At
the last disgorging, its doom is finally
fixed by a band of five or six execu-
tioners, who sit in silent and solemn row,
with their instruments of torture before
them. The fir-st man wipes off the perspira-
tion which has settled on its face at the anti-
cipation of its approaching fate ; the second
bleeds it afresh at the neck, as before de-
scribed ; the third claps it under an iron
vice, in which there is a cylindrical hole of
the same size as the inside of the neck of the
bottle, a screw compresses the cork suffi-
ciently to go in, the man relentlessly knocks
it down with a punch, and the bottle is
gagged ; the fourth secures the cork with
string ; the fifth secures the string with
wire ; and a sixth seizes the iron-bound
victim, and hurries it incontinently nobody
knows where. You guess though, when you
behold, on reaching daylight, a trio of com-
passionate women nursing the poor afflicted
sufferers upstairs. The first female wipes off
the sweat of agony with which it is bedewed ;
the second binds up its wounds with a heal-
ing-plaister of paste and lead- leaf ; the third
wraps it in a paper winding-sheet, and hands
it to a man, the sexton of the champagne
cemetery, who entombs it in a wicker basket,
and scrupulously buries it in clean rye straw.
The sacrifice is ended now. Jean Raisin's
relentless pursuers may at last suck his blood
at their ease.

Champagne is not fit to be thus delivered
up before the May of the second year ; so
that a bottle of frothy wine cannot be drunk
till from eighteen to twenty months after it
has been vintaged, at the very soonest. It is
better even the thirtieth month after it has
quitted the parent vine. This, with the trou-
ble, the loss, and the cellar-rent, make it
impossible that genuine, properly-prepared
champagne should be otherwise than costly.
The maker, merely to pay his outlay, must
dispose of it at a heavy price. Cham-
pagne, therefore, is the wine of the wealthy.
At a second-rate inn in Epernay, the Siren,
which is not without its own particular fasci-
nations, I paid four francs for a bottle of Ai.
Wine-merchants on the spot cannot let you
have passable Sillery for less than two francs
and a half per bottle. But let not those who
cannot afford to drink champagne envy too
bitterly those who can. The loss is by no
means so great as they fancy. " Which shall

Charles Dickea.]

BANOOLAH.

we have, champagne or bordeaux ? " said I to
a Frenchman whom I wanted to reward for
talking, as well as to set him talking a little
more. " Champagne is the more noblej" he
answered, after deep consideration ; " but it
is five franca the bottle. The bordeaux here
is good, and costs only thirty sous. One
bottle of bordeaux will fortify our stomachs
better than two bottles of champagne ; and
for one bottle of champagne we can have
three of bordeaux, with ten sous to spare for
something else. Let us drink bordeaux, mon-
sieur, if you please." And bordeaux we did
drink.

I have heard of physicians prescribing port,
madeira, hock, sherry, and even brandy-and-
water, to their convalescents ; I have known
them order effervescent drinks, as seltzer,
soda, and other waters, mixed solutions of
acids and alkalis that throw off, on meeting,
a whiff of fresh-made gas ; but I never knew
a doctor recommend champagne. On the
contrary, French medical men have told me
that persons who make a daily practice of
drinking champagne at their meals, although
not in excess, do themselves no good by it.
Before the invention of chloroform, a Parisian
surgeon, observing that drunken men often
inflicted serious injury upon themselves with-
out suffering pain from it at the time, con-
ceived the idea of inebriating his patients
with champagne before operating upon them.
Some cases succeeded well ; in others, the
reaction had baneful effects ; in a few the
patient was excited to frenzy, and became
unmanageable. The system was not per-
severed in.

Champagne is deficient in one of the most
meritorious qualities of wine the length of
time it may be kept to advantage. Cham-
pagne, unlike friendship as it ought to be,
does not improve with the lapse of years. I
was surprised to be told that the oldest wine
in M. Jacquesson's cellars was of the forty-
nine vintage. The old age of champagne is
inglorious. A bin of leaky bottles, with the . f l !
string rotted, the wires rusty, the gas escaped,
and the sweetness turned to bitter mould and
fiat mustiuess, is a thing to be got rid of at
once with as little ceremony as possible.
Burgundy and port often terminate their
spun of existence with all the glories of a
gorgeous sunset ; champagne, if suffered to
survive so long, is apt to go out like a tallow
candle burnt into the socket.

Nowhere is champagne the common be-
verage of the people (which diminishes its title
to respect, and is almost a just ground for
separating and distinguishing it from wine
proper), any more than pastry is anywhere
their daily bread. Champagne is the con-
fectionary of wine-making; and both that and
pastry are superfluous luxuries. Neither a
garrison in a state of siege, nor a populous
island on which provisions ran short, with no
immediate supply at hand, would think of
brewing champagne or making puff tarts.

The precise epoch during a repast at which
champagne is usually drunk is different in
England from what it is in France, John
Bull proving himself the more sensible.
We trifle with the seducer during din-
ner ; the French yield themselves up to
him at dessert, and when they once begin,
they often go on. If a feast must be ennobled
by the presence of champagne, in compliance
with the ladies' wishes (who, ever since the
days of Eve, have desired to partake of what
does them least good), my dictum is, to serve
to each person present one large well-filled
glass, containing not less than a quarter of a
pint, and to make it instantly vanish, bottles
and wine, for the rest of the evening from the
dining-room. Champagne's real place is not
at a dinner, but at a ball. A cavalier may
appropriately offer, at propitious intervals, a
glass now and then to his danceress. There,
it takes its fitting rank and position amongst
feathers, gauzes, lace, embroidery, ribbons,
white satin shoes, and eau de Cologne. It is
simply one of the elegant extras of life ; and
far should I be from condemning it in its
way. But we must not let it give itself too
many airs because it is a dandy gentleman.
It ought not to push into the background of
neglect and disesteem, the more solid and
generally useful elixirs of life.

BANOOLAH.

"LET go the anchor!"- Grating and harsh the sound
As the rougli chain unwound its shrieking coils,
And after noiseless motion, scarce perceived,
Our gallant ship swung slowly, bows to land.

Then grew the bay all picture ; sound was none.
A thousand sails deep-tinted, strange of shape,
Swell'd seaward; thousand paddles flapp'd the calm;
A thousand dusk)' faces soon look'd up,
Laige-eyed, and ivory-tooth'd, and gen tie- voiced,
And spoke in syllables that died away
Like music; and at intervals a hand,
Small, feminine, with grace in every move,
Holds up a flower. Oh ! beautiful the forms

lose lithe Naiads, with the simple band
Pendant from flexile waist; and soft the smiles
They shed, impartial, over all the ship,
On captain, bronzed with fifty years of storm,
Staid mate, important, stepping stem and stern,
And middy, wild with wonder at the scene.

Shoreward, white tents were dotted round the bay,
With statelier buildings mix'd, but simple all,
Rough trunks close-fitted, yet with chinks between
Where herbage grew, cross-barr'd with bands of pine,
And roof d with glistening canes. There kings reside,
Kings and great lords, stewards and chamberlains,
Stickless as yet, unstarr'd, unribbanded,
The half-clothed marquises of Owaihee !

Far inland, like cathedral's lifted dome,
Rose a rude shape, half-lost amid the blue,
A cloud, unchanging in its form so still
The summer air self-balanced as a tower.
Fit canopy of gloom and grandeur, piled
Above the molten sea that seethes and boils
Within the lofty hill where Belah dwells,
Belah, dread goddess ! whose low-whisper' d name
Shattered, the stoutest hearts like words of doom.

HOUSEHOLD WOKDS.

[Conducted by

Our surgeon told this legend of the days
Ere Christ was known and Belah held her rule.
And many a sigh the sad narrator heaved
While, leaning oil the taffrail, looking down
On the unnumber'd thousands in the boats,
And countless swimmers raising watchful eyes
All round the ship, he told the piteous tale.

Hast thou, O man ! when midnight, girt with storms,
Shrieks through the wood and heralds Belah'g path,
No dread that in the pauses of the wind
The shapeless lips shall syllable thy name ?

Paomi waked, and trembled as he lay ;
For in the howlings of that midnight gust
Rose to his ear the name he loved the best,
Banoolah What ? Banoolah, with rich hair,
Giving its tint to the white brow and neck,
Like crimson sunset on the snow his child !
He wakes the dark-eyed mother of his babe,

" Belah has called Banoolah !" was the word

That smote her ear and still'd her beating heart,

While with wide nostril, and pale, parted lips,

He sate and listen'd for the awful sound.

" Rightly," that wife replied, and smote her breast,

" Rightly has Belah called, for are we not

Servants of Belah ? Are we not the work

Of Belah's hands ? and trampled 'neath her heel

Since we forgot the tribute to her shrine?"

"What tribute ?" answered tremblingly the man.

" All that we love ! Have we not kept the child,

Vowed ere its birth, Banoolah, yellow-hair'd?"

Silent the man lay, shaking all the couch

With the strong agony of remorseful fear.

" Three years our crops have fail'd, our boat retuvn'd

Empty, and now the sea contains it all

Riven plank and broken mast, and shiver'd oar.

Belah's hot breath o'erwhelm'd it, and it sank,

And beggars us."

" What remedy ? "

"But one!"

In silence lay they both ; and fresh arose
The sweeping wind. The trees bent crashing boughs,
Rock'd the frail hut. " But one !" again she said,
She calls! Hark!"

Terror gave articulate voice,
And through the tranced caverns of their hearts
They heard, " Banoolah feed me on her life,
Or you and all your house shall surely die."

Meanwhile, in shudderings of a fearful dream,
The child, which lay, leaf-cover'd, on the floor,
Sighed "Mother! mother!" and relapsed to sleep.
" But must we die?" whispered the wife, " or, worse,
Live 'neath the curse of Belah, in the scorn
Of happier mothers, who have paid the price
Of Belah's love, and walk in innocence
For that they have fulfill'd her holy law ? "-
" When ? " said Paomi, with a start of thought
That pierced the future.

" To delay is death,"

Replied Nooravah. And again the dream
Pass'd through the shaken fancies of the child,
" Oh ! father ! father ! take Banoolah home !
The waves are rough." So said she as she dream'd.

Loud as 'mid shouts of battle when the spear
Shakes ere it flies, his voice burst through the gloom.
" Now ! ere the deed has time to pass beyond
The shade it casts upon my soul ! Now ! Now !"
Has fury seized him? He has left his lair,
Cast his short mantle round, and elutcli'd the child.

From slumber with a shriek of pain she woke,
For his hot grasp was on her shoulder laid,
And dinted all his fingers in her flesh.
At one fierce drag he raised her from the ground :
" Help, mother !" cried the child with piteous sobs.
But silent in the stragglings of her soul
And breathing wildly with convulsive clasp,
Guarding the blanket which immured her face,
The mother lay. " Will you not look on her,
On the sweet flower you punctured on her breast,
Sign of our house, the daisy yellow-ring'd ? "
" Go ! go ! I will not see her lest I die.
Spare not the richest of your goods, the child,
Belah will smile. Go ! go !" And he was gone.

There was no moon that night ; the land lay dead

Beneath the wood, thick matted, which by day

Made midnight on the path to Belah's home.

Through the thick shrubs Paomi led the child ;

Up the steep hill Paomi led the child;

Close to the edge he led the child, and stopt.

" Home go, Banoolah ! " said the tottering voice,

" Home to Nooravah ! Home, Banoolah, go !"

Paomi shudder'd as he heard the words,

And fancied the sweet eyes he could not see.

He felt the timid clinging of her hand,

The little hand that lay so close in his.

" Home ! ay, Banoolah shall go home," he said,

And lift his eyes and saw a gush of flame

Pierce the red cloud. " Banoolah shall go home

And dwell with mighty gods and famous men,

And never thirst nor hunger any more.

Come onward ! " On the giddy brink they stood,

And heard far down the billows of dark fire

Dashing, like ocean, 'gainst a rocky shore.

" Banoolah, do you love me?" in quick words

Paomi said, and touch'd her on the arm.

" Banoolah loves Paomi," said the child,

" And loves Nooravah too." Down the black chasm

He look'd, and upward rose, with hideous bound,

Black fringed and red within, a flood of fire,

And closed him round, and stifled all his breath ;

And shuddering, shaken in his limbs, he slept

Backward a space, and panted, and revived.

Then, struggling with himself, and mad with rage,

He grasp 1 d the child and hurried to the abyss.

But silent through the darkness moved a form,

With noiseless step, and touched him where he stood.

" Stay, murderer!" said the voice, "repent and live !

God is not here." " Who speaks?" Paomi said.

" I, Melville, your king's friend, and yours the man
That tells you how to live and how to die
I've seen you in the crowd when I've proclaim'd
Christ our Redeemer Christ our only King !"
" I know not Christ Belah demands my child,"
Paomi said. " But Christ is mightier far ;
Mighty to save," said Melville. " Leave with me
The innocent child ; leave her to me and God ! "
" And Belah Hark ! she thunders ! "

With soft hand

Melville has drawn Banoolah to his side.
" Will you love Christ, my little maid ? " he said,
" And he will give you life." Upon her knee
Sank the frail child, and kiss'd the preacher's hand :
" Banoolah will love Christ." " Then come with me,"
He said, and raised her in his loving arms,
And bore her gently to the downward path.
And rack'd 'tween love and fear, the father stood,
Unable to resist the yearning thought
That his Banoolah should be saved, yet wild
With terror at the doom Banoolak sends.

Charles Dickens.]

BANOOLAH.

Meanwhile, brave Melville bore Banoolah down
Swiftly, and left the path, and wound and wound
Through treadless ways, to baulk pursuing feet,
But none pursued.

The morning faintly broke
Upon the topmost trees, and on the ridge
Where Belah's breath hung heavy. In the shade
Stood, motionless, Paomi, gazing up
To the thick vaporous cloud that changed itself
In rapid-fading forms, but dreadful all,
And threatening vengeance. Seated on hot throne,
Belah stretch'd forth her hand, and shook her curse
From open palms. Paomi turu'd to go,
And, breathless, lifts the latch : Nooravah wakes ;
" Our life is crush' d into a minute's space,
And we must die, for Belah follows fast !"

Nooravah sat and murmur'd under breath

Half syllables of prayer to move the Fiend,

With gaspings at her throat that choked her words ;

But swaying to and fro to rock the pain,

She caught with deaden'd sense Paorui's voice :

" The child Banoolah lives ! " When this she heard.

Oh ! with a start, a sudden shriek she pour'd

Straight from her woman's heart, and stood dilate,

With hand outstretch'd, and lips kept wide apart,

All eye, all ear. " She lives ! " at last she said ;

' Yea ; I have blest the gods for many gifts,

For plenteous summers in the olden time;

For fruit, for flowers, for fish from the deep sea ;

For love like yours, Paomi ; and, best of all,

For the light step that sounded on the floor,

And the blithe voice that caroll'd at the porch,

And the fair hair that fell o'er all her neck,

And the deep eyes that settled on my face;

But never, never did I bless the gods

With such fond heart as now Banoolah lives ! "

Sudden a tremor shook the solid ground ;
Thick smoke fill'd all the hut. A rattling noise
Of crashing boughs and splitting trunks went by,
And earthquake heaved the soil. " Away, away !"
Paomi cried ; and madden'd with wild fear,
They. fled. But whither? Upward, in a crowd,
Shrieking and dancing in delirious grief,
Came thousands, waving arms, and swinging high
Sharp spears ; and at their head, with eyeballs fix'd
And rigid sinews, lifting moveless hands,
Moved Belah's priest. At such a sight, the hearts
Of the two tremblers wither'd like a leaf
Firestruck ; and, 'mid the silence that fell down
Upon the heaving crowd, as in a storm
Comes calm when at the wildest, rose the voice
Strain'd, harsh, as from an organ not his own.
The words unconscious flowed, of Belah's paest,
And cried, " Paomi, who has done this thing?"
Prone on his face Paomi bent and fell,
Prone on the ground, yet reeling with the shock,
And heated with the molten sea beyond.
" 'Tis I," he said ; " I waken'd Belah's wrath,
And robb'd her of her gift, and this the end ! "
Then told he all ; how, year by year, his life
Grew harder, as the Power forbore her smile ;
How, though his veins were redden'd with the juice
Of kingly stems, his fortunes sank so low
That Hunger walk'd around his empty hut,
Narrowing its path, till in a wasted rtng
His home lay fireless. Then lie told at last
How Belah claim'd her gift, and how he toil'd,^
He and Banoolah, through the darken'd path ;
And how, when midst a glory from the shrine
The child seem'd girt with fire, an impious hand

Was laid upon him, and the gift withdrawn
From Belah's open'd lips.

Impetuous heaved

The dusky crowd, like surges on a shore
In moonless nights, with inarticulate sound ;
But found a voice, when piercing like a cry
Of eagles in the air, the priest exclaim'd,
" Woe, woe upon the guilty he must die !
Melville, the stranger who invents false gods,
And young Banoolah, both of them must die !
Brothers and men ! No deed like this is done
In all our years since flung from Belah's mouth
The pearl lay on the waters where we dwell.
This stranger seeks to entangle us with lies,
And tells of one who clomb to Belah's throne
Through whips and scorn, and an avenging tree.
Say, what shall be his doom, and what the child's?"

The crowd was silent for a minute's space :

" Let Melville die, and let Banoolah die,"

Said a weak voice ; and when men look'd, they saw

A woman with her hands upon her face,

And knew it was Nooravah " let them die !"

Lo ! there they come ! And thousand eyes were

turn'd

To where, emerging from the close-set trees,
The aged man came forward, leading slow
Banoolah by the hand ; her little feet
Bleeding, and all her motions dull'd with pain ;
A fair-hair'd child, like some sweet English girl
Tired with long journeyings in the woods in May,
When following the young flowers to make a wreath,
And heedless of the briars that plant their thorns
In naked leg and ruddy rounded arm,
But different in sad looks, and anxious eyes
That knew of danger near, yet knew not what.

Forth from the crowd two stalwart warriors prest,
And grappled Melville's unresisting hands ;
And one caught up Banoolah with harsh gripe,
And never from the ground Nooravah look'd,
And sad Paomi held Nooravah's hand,
And look'd upon the ground, as fathers look
Within the hollow of a daughter's grave !
But all the rabble was alive with wrath,
And howl'd triumphant songs, and bore the twain
Resistless to the beach. The ebbing sea
Lapp'd the calm shore, and in the slanting sun
The moisten'd pebble shone, and here and there
Danced a light skiff, or, half-afloat, half-dry,
Dinted with deepening prow the glistening sand.

Then spoke the priest : " Oh, God ! whose tent is

spread

In sightless levels of the hungry sea,
Where earth is all unknown, and lonely waves
Welter for ever without sound or form !
We give thee these, whom Belah's hands reject,
And fling from out the land where Belah dwells !
Engulf them in the jaws where ships go down,
And cleanse Earth's blessed soil of so much wrong !
For it is written in our changeless law
That Belah's foes shall perish in the deeps ! "

A boat was launch'd, a small and fragile boat,
And on its floor was placed a cocoa-cup,
With scanty water, and such tree-born bread
As might suffice a child her morning meal,
Naught else, and from the vessel they removed
Mast, oar, and sail, and in it placed the pair,
The white-hair'd preacher, and Banoolah.

Quick !

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

Push them away ! for, shouting, waving high
Her frantic arms, Nooravah through the crowd
Rush'd, blind to all but the insensate girl
Who lay in Melville's arms, and never more
Lifted her eyes, or moved, or broke in sobs.
But with a spring, that plash'd in blinding foam
The shallow wave, Nooravah clutch'd the boat,
And caught the child, and tore from its white breast
The mantle's fold, and kiss'd the filial sign,
The punctured daisy with the rings of gold,
And kiss'd and kiss'd with lips that drew the blood,
So savage was their press ! Then at a word
The child was seized, and placed in Melville's arms ;
And folding all her robe around her head,
Nooravah bent her down, as if to hear
Banoolah's voice, but silent was the child.

Then rose a shout when motion took the boat

And bit by bit, with fond returning prow,

From backward wave to wave still farther back,

The bark with idle liftings felt the call

Of the mid ocean, and released the land.

"Go !*' said the priest, " Belah, who dwells on high,

Looks from her throne of thunder and dark cloud,

And sees far off, beyond the reach of sight,

The waken'd tempest waiting for his prey.

Go ! Belah shakes the guilty from her lap,

And deai'h awaits you where no eye shall see ! "

And Ligh replied the old man from the boat,

" God's eye shall see us in the trackless waste ;

Yea ! and his love shall save us though we die !"

But soon his voice was lost, and on they sped

Far from the shore ; and with intentcst eyes

The crowd gazed on, with still unsated rage,

Till the small vessel sank into a speck,

And in the widening distance died away.

" Ah, wretched end ! " I said, when here the tale
Broke off, " What fate could be the hapless pair's ? "
" They must have perish'd either by the waves
Engulfing all, or by the crueller death
Of thirst and hunger on the breathless sea,
Or haply, as has chanced to native praams,
They may have drifted 'cross the homeward path
Of England's commerce, and been saved at last.
I heard, indeed, how once a Bristol ship
Had rescued a small child, which sat alone
Beside an old man's corse, too young for words,
Or crush'd by want and fear till memory died.
But here come all the brethren from the shore,
The Holy Preachers, who have brought this land
Into God's light. Oh ! great shall be their praise !
'Tis twenty years since Melville dree'd his doom.
And, lo ! the thing he pray'd for has been done !"

Beside us on the deck with glowing heart
Stood Edward Elliot ; and a soft white hand
Lay on his arm, and with fond loving eyes
His wife look'd on his face.

" God's will be done !"

He said; "dear Edith, this our field of toil,
This the dear home we've pictured in our talk
In the old time when first I took the vow
To spread God's name, and on an autumn eve,
Beside the little brook that girdled in
Your uncle's orchard with a zone of sound,
You whisper'd in a voice I scarce could hear,
That you would aid me in the cause I loved.
Have you repented of the word you spoke ? "
Silent stood Kdith Elliot for a time,
And guzed all round. The bay more fill'dhad grown,

With sail and shallop, and a thousand waves

Danced onward, with a thousand joyous boys

And splashing girls, wild with their ocean games,

Tumbling with shrilly laughter from the crest,

And diving to the depths, as if in shame.

Then turn'd she moisten'd eyes, and press'd his arm

And said " what answer more do you require ? "

Gay-pennon'd, with the Union at the mast,

And rowed by six young chiefs, who kept their way,

Heedless of light canoe, and fluttering bark,

Like charging squadrons on a battle day,

A boat gleam'd round the point, and in the stern

Sate reverend men, reverend, though young in years,

And matrons in their quiet English robes,

As if on some calm lake in Westmoreland,

All gazing on the ship. And Elliot gazed,

And Edith, for these looked-for visitors

Were brethren of the mission. Side by side

Their future course must be. Ah ! happy course.

Under the lifted banner of the Cross.

How sweet the meeting on the silent deck !

For no one spoke ; but in the matron's hands

Lay Edith's, trembling with uneasy joy,

And tears were in her eyes, and Elliot bent,

While hands were raised in prayer above his head.

Soon the three women, silently withdrew

On sign from Edith, and with noiseless steps

Moved down the cabin stairs, and stopt at last

Where slept a rosy child two summers old,

Heedless of trampling deck and noisy bay.

Edith bent down, and kiss'd it as it slept,

Then careful raised it from its tiny bed,

And laid it in the smiling sister's arms.

" Oh ! we will love the child," the sister said,

"And graft this bud of English innocent life

On the wild tree of this new waken'd land,

And watch its growth, till flower and fruit come forth

And all the Isle shall lie within its shade."

So Susan Marfeldt carried forth the child,

Childless herself; and Edith stood at gaze,

Watching the careful nurse from ship to boat,

From boat to shore, and up the shining beach,

Till the low, Mission dwellings took them in.

And shoreward went the Brothers, deep in talk,

With many a pause, as up the bay they moved,

And pleased was Elliot with his new-found home.

" Look ! " said the surgeon, and he touch'd my arm,

" The bark full sail'd upon our starboard beam !

That is the King's, Paomi." " What the wretch

Who slew Banoolah, is he now the king?"

" All things went well with him since that dread time J

Wealth, power, and vigorous hand, all built him up

Into the foremost man of all the isles.

And well he wears the crown and wields the sword,

Half-Christian Christian only with the head

His heart is with his idols as of old."

" And his more savage wife?" " Nooravah lives,

The fiercest worshipper of Belah's power

Of all who hear Christ's name and scorn his law.

See, there she stauds."

Triumphant as a king

Who drinks the shouts of battle, tall she stood,
A javelin in her hand, and with proud lips
Look'd upward to the deck. Beside her sate
Paomi, kingly robed, and great of form,
Like Ajax, self-collected in bis thought.

them all

Charles Dickens.]

BANOOLAH.

Edith \vas tent ; her every faculty
Intent on rescuing from the common heap
Her separate goods, like some sage shepherdess
Drawing her own from forth commingled flocks,
When moved Nooravah up to where she stood,
Flush'd with unwonted toil, her hair dispread
In lustrous folds her arm to the elbow hared.
And all her flexile limhs with gracious strength
Strung, like some Arab charger, fiery-eyed.
With sinewy power dilatiug all its form.

She took no heed ; but soon the savage Queen
Touch'd her, and smiled, and pointed to her heart,
And said in liquid words, that in their sound
Bore meaning, though the language was unknown,
" Nooravah loves you." Then she laid her hand
On the long tresses, smoothing them all their length,
And call'd Paomi. Edith smiled and spoke,
And felt a yearning to them in her heart
As those who yet should listen to her voice,
And follow where she led to pastures new.

Nooravah mark'd no other in the ship,
But fix'd her eyes on Edith all the day,
And help'd her in her troubles, gathering up
Parcels and veils and shawls, and laugh'd aloud
When she had raised boxes of mightiest size
Which Edith strove in vain to push to a side.
And when the boat return'd, and all was pack'd
Along her floor, and piled above the seats,
Till scarce the levell'd oars had room to move,
Nooravah would not part from Edith's side,
But slid impetuous down the dangling rope
And sate beside her; and when fear made pale
Her fair companion's cheek, as roll'd the bark
With gunwale down, she press'd her in her arms ;
And so in Queen Nooravah's fond embrace
Edith lay calm ; and love conjoin'd the twain.

And when they reach'd the house, Nooravah look'd

Well pleased round all the rooms, and followed close

On tiptoe to the chamber, dim and cool,

Where sat kind sister Marfeldt by a bed

Watching the child*. Nooravah stopt to gaze,

Her hand in Edith's. Then, as if at once,

A thought pass'd through her soul, she knew not what,

She darted to the couch, and lifted up

The sheet, and gentle-handed, turn'd aside

The shawl that wrapt the babe, and gazed and gazed

Upon her breast ; and then, with big round tears

In her full eyes, she shook her head and sigh'd,

As those who seek the thing they cannot find.

Was it Banoolah's image that rose up

Before the mother's heart, till all the chords

Of her deep inner being felt the stir

Of unaccustotu'd thoughts, like sudden gusts

That shake the sleeping woods, we know not why?

"Oh! blessed sight!" said Marfeldt, when at eve
The Christian band held commune, " blessed sight,
The tears that flow'd down fierce Nooravah's face,
And the sweet smile that follow'd Edith's steps,
And the awaken'd softness that well'd forth
On Edith's babe, for where such feelings dwell,
Behold ! our loving God is nigh at hand ! "

Then told they mutual stories of their lives,
Where each was born, what home they first bad known,
Their fathers' names. And when to Edith's turn.
These sweet unfoidings of the past came round,
Long time she paused, and blushing told at last
How all her years were dumb and had no voice
Till she was standing by her uncle's knee ;

Yet not her uncle, but a loving heart
Which found her friendless, cast aside by all,
Like flower, chance-scatter' d on a nameless grave
And gave her home beside him, home and love.
But never had she seen a father's smile,
Nor felt a mother's hand upon her head.

" Yet are you not unhappy," Elliot said,
" No, nor yet friendless, for who knows you best
Loves you the most." Then added with a smile,
'Our fathers were plebeians; mine rose high,
And once was mayor of a country town ;
But who can tell what great progenitors,
Howards, and mighty knights, and lords and earls,
Full quarter'd as the old Plantagenets,
Can boast a dear descendant such as you ?
Haply some morn the fairy of your fate
Will tap three taps upon your chamber-door
And say, ' Come forth, fair princess ; for the king,
Your royal father, longs to see your face.' "
They laugh'd, nor thought more meanly of their friend
That she had none to love but only them.

Next morning, soon as daylight touch' d the sea,
Nooravah lifted soft the wicket latch,
And laid a basket fill'd with fruit and flowers
Upon the window-sill where Edith slept,
And slow withdrew, with many a look behind,
To mark if haply to the lattice came
The face she wish'd to see. But no one moved.
And day by day Nooravah placed her chair
By Edi til's side, and taught her all the sounds
And soft inflexions of her Island tongue.
And soon with ready lips could Edith tell
Of Heaven and all its hopes ; and like a rain
In thirsty ground, her gentle words sank in.

As some lone tarn far up amid the hills,
Cloud-circled 'neath a thunder-laden sky,
Lies in thick gloom, till comes the mid-day sun
And shines upon its face ; so from the heart
Of dark Nooravah every shadow fell,
And night was brighten'd into perfect day.

Paomi died ; his hand in Edith's hand,

His eye with dying light on Edith's face.

" I go," he said, " to see the loving eyes

I ne'er shall see on earth ; to look again

On the light limbs, to hear the happy voice

Of young Banoolah, at the feet of God."

Long Edith sat beside the savage king,

Savage no more, and heard him, with faint breathy

Whisper " Banoolah ; " still, as if a charm

Lay in the sound, " Banoolah " to his lips

Came when he slept the uneasy sleep of pain,

Or when he waked within the shadow of Death.

A thousand thoughts flutter'd in Edith's heart,
Dim, fitful, with mysterious whisperings,
Like leaves in midnight on a breezy hill
But nought she spoke, as if her spirit lay
Imprison' d in a spell she could not break.

Slow-paced and sunken-eyed, Nooravah came
And sat whole days in Edith's little room,
In voiceless grief, and hung o'er Edith's child,
Her Rachel, whether playing wild with glee,
Or silent listening with her great round eyes
To tales her mother told. " But thirty moons
Had seen Banoolah when she pass'd away ;
And Rachel now has thirty moons," she said,
" And what a life before her fill'd with joy ! **

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

Then broke she forth in passionate sobs aud tears,

Like thunder-clouds in autumn, toss'd with storms :

" Why do I live to lift unhappy eyes

And read no pardon iu a brazen sky ?

Why do I lift blood-stained hands like these

In mockery to a God -who will not hear ?

Oh ! blessed are the mothers who have wept

O'er lidless coffins where their infants lay ;

Blessed their eyes, who, through the mist of tears,

Have seen fresh earth upon their children's graves ! "

" Nooravah ! " Edith said, " your eyes are dim,
And see not what is written on the Cross
Pardon and Rest. Oh ! heaviest sin of all,
And least deserving Mercy, is Despair ! "
Then led she upward from the Valley of Death,
Through tangled thorns, the steep ascending way,
Till on the Mount they stood where, clear and large,
Lay, 'mid the hills of Peace, the City of God.
And holiest comfort fill'd Nooravah's heart,
And from her ransom'd soul the chains fell down.

Yet as a bird that on the mountain peak
Has shrill'd for battle, if perchance it feel
The captive bond, and from its bruised heart
The thirst of blood depart, and pride of power,
Decays and pines, so, from Nooravah's life
Strength pass'd, and passionless and weak she lay.
" Nooravah ! is it sleep that dims thine eyes,
Or Death's advancing shadows o'er thy face ? "
Said Edith, whispering in the slumherer's ear.
" Give me a sign with thine uplifted hand
That thou hast entrance to the Ark of Christ."

The hand rose up ; the eye unclosed again,

The form dilated, and erect she stood.

" Yea ! I have peace. Yet in this hour of hope

One thought hangs heavy on my upward spring.

There is a light of something in thine eyes,

There is a sound of something in thy tone,

Thy hands' soft touch, thy smile, that ever more

Minds me of something ! " Then, with rapid steps

She press'd to Edith, and with lifted voice,

Shrieks " I adjure thee, tell me who thou art !

For I've had visions in the long dull nights

That fill my room with light !" Thn trembling hands

Cast off the shawl tbat fell on Edith's neck,

Tore loose the ties that bound her silken robe,

Held down its fold, and on the marble skin

What did she see ? With scream of wildest joy

Nooravah sank, and gazed with clasped hands

On the sweet flower that glow'd upon her breast,

The daisy, yellow-ring'd, the filial sign !

*' Banoolah ! my Banoolah ! " cried the Queen ;

"My daughter !" and with passionate strength she

strove,

And rose, and put her arms around the neck,
And kiss'd the flower, and looking long and deep
In Edith's face, with such a. smile as lies
Like holy sunshine round the lips of saints,
The mother loosed her hold, and falling slow,
Lay in triumphant rest at Edith's feet.

THE BLACK SEA FIVE CENTUKIES

AGO.

IN digging down through the strata of
past centuries, surprising contrasts wor-
thy to be contemplated, sometimes pre-
sent themselves. We have just turned over
the leaves of one of the volumes of the
Arab Ibn-Batutah's Travels, now publish-

ing by the Asiatic Society of Paris. The
name of Sinope arrested us. What was this
pious man from Morocco doing there, during
the first half of the fourteenth century ? He
had wandered through many African and
Asiatic regions, and was on his way to
visit a country, now interesting to our-
selves under the name of Southern Russia.
Sinope was already in the hands of the Turks,
although many infidel Greeks lived there
under protection of the Muslims. From one
of these a vessel was hired. The voyagers set
out ; but, three days afterwards, met with a
violent tempest, such as sometimes troubles
that sea about the equinox of spring. They
were driven back in sight of land ; but tried
their fortunes once more, and, after much
rough weather, appeared before the port of
Kertch, familiar now-a-days to the stu-
dents of war-maps. Some men upon the
mountain, however, for reasons not explained,
signed to them to keep off ; so they crossed to
the mainland and took ground there, at a
place where was a church attended by a
single monk. In those days Christianity and
Islamism were, so to speak, dovetailed one
into the other all along their frontiers, al-
though the former was gradually retiring
and the latter advancing triumphantly, out-
flanking the great Greek capital, before
daring to assault it.

Desht Kifjak, or the Wilderness or Stepp
of Kifjak, on the edge of which the traveller
had landed, was green and flowery, but
without mountain, or hill, or slope, or tree.
Nothing was to be obtained for firing but the
dung of animals, which even the great people
collected as a precious thing, and carried
home in the skirts of their garments. The
wilderness was said to extend for the space of
six months' journey, three of which were within
the territories of Mohammed Uzbek Khan,
whom the traveller desired to visit. He pro-
ceeded in the first place to Kaflk, a city built
on the shores of the sea, and inhabited by
Christians, for the most part Genoese, under
a chief named Demetrio. This mercantile
nation had factories all along the coasts of
the Black Sea, and remind us in their
manner of proceeding of our own early
and more successful exploits in India. They
allowed within their walls one mosque of the
Muslims, to which travellers of that nation
repaired on their arrival, as to an hotel.

This was the first time that the worthy
Ibn-Batutah had visited a city entirely in
the hands of Christians. He had not been
there long before he was struck by a remark-
able sound. The air thrilled with the ringing
of bells calling the "infidels" to church and he
boldly ordered his people to ascend the mina-
ret, read the Koran and recite the Muslim call
to prayer. He no doubt thought this was ne-
cessary, to avert what calamities might be
brought down from Heaven by that impious
ding-dong. This zeal, however, alarmed the
Kadi of the Muslims of that place, who

Chailes Dickens.]

THE BLACK SEA FIVE CENTURIES AGO.

donned his cuirass, snatched up his sword,
and ran to protect his co-religionists from
the effects of -what the good people of Kaffa
might consider an impertinence. But the
ringing of the bells had probably .drowned
the voice of the mueddin. At any rate, the
strangers were civilly treated.

The traveller describes Kaffa as a hand-
some town with beautiful markets, and an
admirable port, where more than two hun-
dred vessels of war or commerce were col-
lected. All the people, however, he repeats
in a compassionate parenthesis, are Kafirs.
So on he goes in a waggon to Kiram or
Solyhut, governed for Uzbek Khan by a man
named Toloktomour, who received the tra-
veller with hospitality. He lodged in the
hermitage of a sheikh, who with a singular
toleration told him in perfect faith of a
Christian monk who inhabited a monastery
situated outside the town, where he gave
himself up to devotional practices and fre-
quent fastings. He used sometimes to pass
forty days without food, and then only eat a
single bean. The result was wonderful mental
perspicacity, which made him discover the
most hidden things. The good sheikh wished
his guest to visit this monk; but Ibn-Batutah,
with a prejudice natural in a Morocco man,
refused, of which he afterwards repented. It
gave him greater pleasure to see the wise
and pious Moshaffer Eddin, a Greek by birth,
who had sincerely embraced Islamism, with-
out however losing his barbarous accent.
Leaving Kiram, the traveller set out in com-
pany with the Emir Toloktomour for Sera,
where Sultan Mohammed Uzbek held his
court. For this purpose it was necessary to
buy waggons great four-wheeled vehicles,
drawn sometimes by two or more horses,
sometimes by oxen and camels. The driver
armed with a whip and a goad, mounted
postilion-wise. On the chariot was raised a
kind of tent covered with felt or cloth, aired
by latticed windows. Here the traveller ate,
slept, wrote, or read during the journey.
The caravan started, according to the custom
of the Turks, immediately after the prayer of
dawn, rested from nine or ten. of the morning
until after midday, and then proceeded until
night. During the halt the horses, camels,
and oxen were let loose to graze at will. The
whole country was covered with cattle with-
out shepherds or guards ; for the laws of the
Turks were very severe against theft. He
who was found in possession of a stolen
horse was obliged to restore it along with
nine of equal value. If he could not do so, his
children were seized instead ; and if he had
no child, they cut his throat. The peo-
ple eat no bread nor any other hard
food, but lived on a kind of porridge
made of millet, with bits of meat sometimes
boiled therein. A bowlful, with curdled milk
poured over it, was served to each person.
They drank kimezz or soured mare's milk,
and a kind of fermented liquor made from

millet. Horseflesh was in great request ;
but all sweetmeats they abhorred. Ac-
cording to Toloktomour, the Sultan once
offered freedom to a slave who had forty
children and grandchildren, on condition that
he would devour a sugared dish, but received
for answer : " No ; not even if you kill me ! "
Eighteen stations from Kiram the caravan
reached, in the midst of the steppe, a vast
expanse of water, which it took a whole day
to ford, and a similar obstacle occuyred
further on ; but at length they arrived
at the city of Azak, where the Ge-
noese and other people came to trade. The
reception and consequently of his com-
panions, was splendid. Tents of silk and
linen were prepared for his reception, with
a wooden throne incrusted with gold. First
came the eating and the drinking, and then
an intellectual entertainment in the shape of
a mighty long sermon, delivered first in
Arabic and then translated into Turkish by
the same speaker. There was also marvellous
singing, and after that much more eating ;
and then more preaching and praying all day.
" Having rested some days, Ibn-Batutah
proceeded to Majar, one of the finest cities
then belonging to the Turks, situated on the
great river Kouma, and adorned with gardens
yielding many fruits. As usual, the traveller
got a lodging in a hermitage. His host, the
sheikh Mohammed with whom he prays
God to be satisfied had about seventy fakirs
with him, Arabs, Persians, Turks, and
Greeks ; some married, others not. All lived
on charity dispensed in those tunes, as ever,
chiefly by the hands of women. Ibu-Batutah
witnessed how a pious preacher prepared for
a journey. He made an excellent sermon,
and then some one got up and said : " He
who has spoken is going to travel, and wants
provisions for that purpose." Then he took
off his own tunic, saying, " This is my gift ; "
and being thus stimulated, the remainder of
the congregation began, some to strip, others
to subscribe a horse or else money ; and so
at last the worthy man was fitted out like a
prince.

"What struck Ibn-Batutah chiefly during
this journey was the great respect which the
Turks showed to women; who seemed to hold,
in fact, a higher rank than men. He men-
tions that on leaving Kiram he met a
princess, wife of an emir, in her chariot. It
was covered with costly blue cloth. The
windows and doors were open, so that he
lould see the lady, attended by four young
girls, exquisitely beautiful and wonderfully
dressed. Other chariots filled with hand-
maidens followed. She got down to visit
Toloktomour. Thirty girls held up the
skirts of her robe. The emir rose to
receive her ; and, after they had eaten and
drunk together, presented her with a dress of
aonour. Even the wives of merchants and
small dealers kept up great state ; and, in
travelling, had also two or three girls to bear

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

their train. It was always possible to see
their faces ; for, iu those times, the women of
the Turks were not veiled. When the hus-
band travelled he might often be taken for a
servant, wearing nothing but a pelisse of
sheepskin and a high cap called alcula, whilst
the wife's head-dress was incrusted with
jewels and adorned with peacock's fea-
thers.

At Majar the traveller learned that the
camp of the Sultan was at Beoh-Taw, or the
Five Mountains. They went in search of it ;
and, one day, after they had halted on the
summit of a hill, beheld the ordou or Im-
perial camp approach. It resembled a great
city moving along with all its inhabitants, its
mosques, and its markets. The smoke of the
kitchens rose through the air, for the Turks
did not always halt to cook their meals.
Innumerable waggons were filled with people.
On arriving at the halting ground, they
removed the tents and the mosques and the
shops from the waggons, and prepared to pass
the night. One of the Sultan's wives, seeing a
tent on a neighbouring hill, with a standard
set up in front to announce a new arrival,
sent pages and young girls to carry her salu-
tations ; and, having waited until they re-
turned, passed on to the place appointed
for her. Soon afterwards the Sultan him-
self arrived, and encamped in a quarter apart.

According to Ibn-Batutah, Sultan Uzbek
was one of the seven great sovereigns of the
earth. One of the titles given to him was
that of "Conqueror of the enemies of God,
the inhabitants of Constantinople the Great."
He was remarkable as well for his business
habits as for his splendour. In the descrip-
tion of his audience-days particular stress is
laid on the fact that he was always sur-
rounded by queens and princesses (with names
too hard to pronounce) ; and the importance
of women, as part of the machinery of that
empire, is constantly insisted on. Ibn-
Batutah came from different climes more to
the south, where different habits prevailed.
He enlarges complacently on the courts and
households of the four khatouns or queens ;
their waggons with domes of gilded silver ;
their horses covered with silken trappings ;
their wise duennas ; their beautiful slave girls ;
their costly wardrobes, and their etiquette.
Then he gives a peculiarly Oriental biogra-
phical account of those four ladies, one of
whom was Beialoun, daughter of the Emperor
of Constantinople the Great, Andronicus the
Third. When the traveller visited her she
was seated on a throne incrusted with stones
and precious stones, with silver feet. Before
her were a hundred young girls, Greek,
Turkish, and Nubian ; some sitting, some
standing. Eunuchs were near her, with
several Greek chamberlains. On hearing of
the distance from which the travellers had
come, she wept with tenderness and compas-
sion, and wiped her face with a kerchief she
held in her hand. No doubt she was thinking

of her own far-off country, and parents of a
different faith from her lord. She ordered a
repast to be spread, and then dismissed her
visitors with splendid presents of provisions,
money, garments, sheep and horses.

Ibn-Batutali, ever anxious to see strange
things, had heard of the wonderful shortness
of the night in one season, and of the day i/i
another season, observed at the city of Bol-
ghar, and accordingly marched ten days
northward to visit it. He arrived there
during the months of Ramadhan ; and, having
broke his fast at sunset, performed the even-
ing prayer, and then three other long prayers
when, lo ! the dawn began to appear. He
wished to visit what was called the Land of
Darkness; forty days still further off, but the
difficulty of the journey alarmed him. He
was told that people travelled there in sledges
drawn by dogs, some of which were valued
at a thousand dinars. Their master fed them
before he touched food himself. The trade of
the country was in furs, chiefly ermine, ex-
ported to China and India.

On his return to Beoh-Taw, Ibn-Batutah
witnessed the solemnity of the breaking of
the fast of the Ramadhan, performed with
wonderful barbaric splendour. After that the
ordou of the Sultan broke up and marched
to the city of Haj-Terkhan, now known as
Astrakhan. The word Terkhan amongst the
Turks signifies a place exempt from tax-
ation. The person who gave his name to the
city was a devout pilgrim or haj, who founded 1
it, and obtained from the Sultan the privilege
of exemption. It increased to a great size,
and became an emporium. It was the
custom of the Sultan to remain there until
the cold set in and the Volga was frozen over.

What next happened to Ibn-Batutah sug-
gests a strange contrast with the present
state of the East. Soon after arriving at
Astrakhan, the Khatoun Beialoun, daughter
of the King of the Greeks, asked permission
of the Sultan to visit her father at Constanti-
nople, in order to become a mother there,
promising to return immediately afterwards.
Her request was granted, and our traveller
begged to be allowed to accompany her, in
order that he might see the celebrated city of
the Christians. After some kindly opposition,
he received permission to do so, and was
overwhelmed with valuable presents. The
Sultan politely accompanied his Greek wife
for a day's march, and then left her to proceed
with an escort of five thousand soldiers. Her
own servants were to the number of five
hundred horsemen, for the most part slaves
or Greeks, and two hundred girls. She had
four hundred' chariots, two thousand horses,
three hundred oxen, and two hundred camels.
They marched first to the town of Okalc, a
well-built but small city, situated one day's
journey from the mountains inhabited by the
Russians, who were Christians with red hair,
blue eyes, ugly faces, and cunning dispo-
sitions. They possessed mines of silver which

Charles Dickens.]

THE BLACK SEA FIVE CENTUKIES AGO.

they exported in the shape of lingots, each
five ounces in weight, used as current money
in that country. This is all that Ibn-Batutah
has to say about the people which has since
spread its power like an inundation to the
east, to the west, and to the south.

Ten days farther on, the queen Beialoun, in
her progress, came to Sondak, situated on the
shores of the sea amidst gardens, and with a
fine and well-frequented port. It was inha-
bited partly by Turks, partly by Greek
artisans living under their protection. Not
long before, a violent insurrection of the
Christians had led to the massacre or expul-
sion of the greater number. The next station
was Baba-Salthouk, the last city belonging to
the Turks, between which and the commence-
ment of the Greek empire was a desert
eighteen days across, a great portion without
water. It is difficult to adapt this account
to modern geography ; and we do not exactly
recognise the fortress Mahtouly, situated at
the other extremity of the desert on the
limit of the Christian territory. Here Beia-
loun was received with great honours by her
people, and the Turkish escort returned by
the way it had come. The poor princess
breathed more freely. Thenceforward, the
custom of praying was abolished. " Among
the provisions brought to her," says Ibn-
Batutah, "were intoxicating drinks, of which
she partook, and hogs, of which one of her
people told me she ate. No one remained
with her who prayed, except a Turk, who
performed his devotions with us. Her secret
sentiments thus manifested themselves as
soon as we had reached the country of the
infidels ; but she requested the Greek Emir,
Nicholas, to treat me with due honour ; and
on one particular occasion that officer beat a
slave who had made fun at our prayers."
How strangely does all this read now !

The brother of the princess came to escort
her with an army, part of which consisted of
a body-guard composed of men in complete
coats of mail. Their gilded lances were
adorned witli pennons, and altogether a won-
derful display of riches and splendour was
made. Thus they proceeded across the Da-
nube and the plains of Eoumelia ; until, after
a long journey, they reached a spot within
ten miles of Constantinople, where they
halted for the night. " Next day," says the
traveller, " the population of that city men,
women and children came out to meet the
princess; some on foot; some on horseback; all
dressed in their best array. From the earliest
dawn the cymbals, and the clarions, and the
trumpets sounded. The Sultan (Emperor),
with his wife, mother of the Khatoun, and all
the great personages of the empire and the
courtiers, surrounded by horse-soldiers, issued
forth. Over the head of the Emperor was
carried a vast canopy, supported by horsemen
and footmen. The meeting of this procession
and our party was tumultuous. I could not
penetrate through the crowd, but am told

that when the princess approached her pa-
rents, she put foot to ground and kissed the
eartli at their feet, and the hoofs of their
horses, as did likewise her chief officers.
We entered Constantinople the Great, to-
wards midday. The inhabitants were ringing
their bells in full peal, so that the heavens
were shaken by the noise. When we reached
the first gate of the palace, we found there a
guard of a hundred men upon a platform. I
heard them saying ' The Saracens ! the Sara-
cens ! ' a word by which they designate the
Muslims and they prevented us from enter-
ing." This difficulty, however, was subse-
quently removed ; and Ibn-Batutah was not
only lodged in the palace, but received pre-
sents of flour, bread, sheep, fowls, butter,
fruits, and fish, with money and carpets.

Ibn-Batutah calls the Emperor of Con-
stantinople Takfour, a corruption of the
Armenian word Tagavor, which means king.
He was the son of the previous Emperor,
George, who had abdicated and become a
monk. The traveller visited the monarch on
the invitation of the Khatoun. As he entered
the palace he was searched, to see that he
had no weapon about him, according to an
ancient custom rigidly complied with. This
done, he was admitted, whilst four people
surrounded him, two holding his sleeves and
two his shoulders. Thus attended, he reached
a great hall, the walls oi which were adorned
with mosaics representing natural produc-
tions, animal and mineral. In the midst of
the hall was a piece of water, with trees bor-
dering it. Men stood upon the right and on
the left, without speaking. Three of them
received him from his guides, and likewise
took hold of his clothes. A Syrian Jew,
acting as interpreter, told him to fear nothing,
for strangers were always received thus. He
asked how he was to salute, and was an-
swered, " With the words Salam Alaykoum."

The Emperor was sitting on his throne,
with his wife and her brothers at its foot.
Armed men stood by his side and behind
him. He signed to the stranger to sit down
and rest awhile, and recover his presence of
mind, after which he questioned him con-
erning Jerusalem, and the Bock of Jacob,
and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre ; on
the Cradle of Jesus, on Bethlehem and
Hebron, on Damascus, Cairo, Persia, and
Asia Minor. Ibn-Batutah was astonished at
the interest the monarch took in these things,
and answered copiously. He was treated
with great respect, and received a dress of
cionour, with a horse saddled and bridled,
and one of the king's own parasols, as a
mark of protection. He asked for a guide
;o show him the wonders of the city, and
thus accompanied, went forth to satiate his
uriosity.

Ibn-Batutah describes the city of Constan-
tinople as situated on two sides of a river, by
which he means the Golden Horn. One por-
tion was called Esthamboul, inhabited by the

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted IT

Sultan, the grandees of the empire, and the
remainder of the Greek population. Its mar-
kets and its streets were broad, and paved
with flags of stone. Every trade occupied a
distinct place, and the markets were closed
by gates at night. From this description,
which would now apply to most Oriental
towns, we might infer that Constantinople
afterwards became the model city of the East.
But it is added, that in the fifteenth century
most of the artisans and shopkeepers were
women. The second quarter of the city was
called Galata, and was principally inhabited
by Christian Franks of many nations as
Genoese, Venetians, Romans, and French.
They were under the authority of the Em-
peror, who nominated what they call Alkomes,
or a court to govern them. They paid an an-
nual tribute, but often revolted and warred
against the Emperor, until the Pope, or
patriarch, interposed to make peace between
them. All were devoted to commerce. " I
have seen about a hundred galleys and other
great ships there," says Ibn-Batutah, " with-
out counting smaller craft. The markets of
this quarter are large but full of filth, and
are traversed by a dirty river. The churches
of these people are also disgusting, and con-
tain nothing good."

Then the worthy traveller goes on to talk
of the great church of St. Sophia, which has
V/een closed for so many centuries against
Christians, whilst remaining the pole-star of
orthodox popes. According to him, it was
founded by Assag, son of Barakia, who was a
son of Solomon's aunt. In those days the
Greeks had it all their own way, and set the
example of keeping strangers rigidly out.
Ibn-Batutah was not allowed to enter further
than the great enclosure. He describes the
exterior as very splendidly adorned, but men-
tions that shops existed within the sacred
limits. In order to be certain that none but
good Christians entered the church, guardians
were posted, who compelled every one to
kneel before a cross, which (says the tra-
veller) was greatly respected by those people.
It was a fragment of the real cross, pre-
served in a coffer of gold. Ibn-Batutah gives
a good many details of the religious customs
existing at Constantinople. The number of
monks and other people living by religion
seems to have been immense. What parti-
cularly struck him was a convent of five
hundred virgins, dressed in haircloth, with
felt caps on their heads, which were shaved.
These women, he says, were of exquisite
beauty, but the austerity of their life was
marked upon their faces. When he went to
see them, a young boy was reading the Gospel
to them in a voice of marvellous beauty.
Having told many other facts of the same
nature, the traveller exclaims again : " Verily,
the greater part of the population of this city
consists of monks and priests. The churches
were innumerable. All the inhabitants, mili-
tary or not, poor and rich, went about with

gi-eat parasols summer and winter." Do we
not now begin completely to understand the
great disaster which happened about a cen-
tury afterwards ?

One day Ibn-Batutah met an old man with
a long white beard and a handsome counte-
nance, walking on foot in a dress of horsehair
and a felt cap. Before him and behiad him
was a troop of monks ; in his hand was a
stick, and about his neck a chaplet. When
the Greek who had been given to our traveller
as a guide saw him, he got down from his
horse and said " Do as I do ; for this is the
father of the king." It was indeed George,
the father of Andronicus. He spoke to the
Greek, who knew Arabic, and said : " Tell
this -Saracen that I press the hand that has
been at Jerusalem and the foot which has
walked on the Rock of Jacob." Then he
touched Ibn-Batutah's feet, and passed his
hand over his own face. Afterwards, they
walked hand in hand together, talking of
Jerusalem and the Christians who were still
there, until they entered the enclosure of
St. Sophia. When he approached the prin-
cipal gateway a troop of priests and monks
came out to salute him, for he was one of
their chiefs. On seeing them, he let go the
hand of the traveller, who said to him: "I
wish to enter with thee into this church."
But the old king replied : " Whoever enters
must do obeisance to the Cross, according to
the law of the ancients, which cannot be
transgressed." So saying, he entered alone,
and Ibn-Batutah saw him no more.

It will be seen that our traveller looked at
everything from a particular point of view,
and was not very fertile in general observa-
tions. What he relates, however, will be
sufficient to suggest the wonderful change
that has come over those regions since he
wrote. Every thing and every race seems to
to have changed its place. The Russians were
then spoken of as an obscure tribe : the
Turks, recently emerged from the depths of
Central Asia, were indulging, under their
tents, in a foretaste of Imperial splendour ;
the Greeks were gradually sinking into the
slough of mere formal religion, and becoming
effeminate under their silken parasols. The
Franks appeared merely as strangers, freely
trafficking with either party, but trying here
and there to establish a footing. One of the
most curious parts of Ibn-Batutah's rapid
narrative is the sketch of the story of Beialoun.
She had been made over to Uzbek Khan
from political motives, but had probably not
won any extravagant share of his affections.
At any rate, by her conduct on her arrival in
Christendom, she seemed determined to have
no more of barbarian life. The Turks who
accompanied, soon saw that she professed the
religion of her father, and desired to'remain
with him. They asked her permission, there-
fore, to return; which she granted, after
bestowing presents upon them. Ibn-Batutah
also shared in her bounty. He received

CharlesDieVens.]

THE CHINESE ADAM.

three hundred dinars "of poor gold, how-
ever/' with two thousand Venetian drachms
and other matters ; and after having re-
mained a month and six days with the
Greeks, returned to Astrakhan.

CHIP.

LONG LIFE OF LOCUSTS.

A CORRESPONDENT, in reference to the
tenacity of life in locusts,* mentions "that
about twelve years ago an insect of the
locust tribe, about an inch and a half or
two inches in length (of body) flew or was
blown into the windows of a house on
Albury Heath. It was caught, and we
endeavoured to preserve it by washing it in
a solution of camphor ; but the camphor
would not kill it. 1 then applied prussic acid
of the quality usually dispensed by good
druggists. I washed it well with a feather
over its head, back, wings, and legs. As soon
as applied, the insect dropped all of a heap,
as the vulgar expression is, and would remain
apparently lifeless for about six or eight
minutes. Then it would revive gradually,
and apparently regain its full life and vigour.
I did this for several days, and on some occa-
sions repeating the dressing from time to
time as soon as it had revived, sometimes as
soon as it showed symptoms of revival. I
forget what became of it, but assuredly
prussic acid did not kill it."

THE CHINESE ADAM.

THE notions entertained by Chinese writers
on the subject of the first man and the
creation of the world, are very curious. They
begin, like our Scriptural account, with a
time when the earth was without form and
void ; from that they pass to an idea that was
of old part of the wisdom of Egypt. Chaos
was succeeded by the working of a dual
power, Rest and Motion, the one female, and
named Yin, the other male, and named
Yang.

Of heaven and earth, of genii, of men, and
of all creatures, animate and inanimate, Yin
and Yang were the father and the mother.
Furthermore, all these things are either male
or female : there is nothing in Nature neuter.
Whatever in the material world possesses, or
is reputed to possess, the quality of hardness
(including heaven, the sun, and day) is mas-
culine. Whatever is soft (including earth
the moon, and night, as well as earth, wood,
metals, and water), is feminine. Choofoots
says on this subject, " The celestial principle
formed the male ; the terrestrial principle
formed the female. All animate and inani-
mate nature may be distinguished into mas-
culine and feminine. Even vegetable pro-
ductions are male and female ; for instance,

See volume x. page 478.

there is female hemp, and there are male and
female bamboo. Nothing can possibly be
separated from the dual principles named
Yin and Yang, the superior and hard,
the inferior and soft." It is curious
to find that the Chinese have also a
theory resembling one propounded by Py-
thagoras, concerning monads and duads.
" One," they say, " begat two, two produced
four, and four increased to eight ; and thus
by spontaneous multiplication, the production
of all things followed."

As for the present system of things, it is
the work of what they call " the triad powers,"
Heaven, Man, and Earth. The following
is translated from a Chinese Encyclopaedia,
published about sixty years ago, " Before
heaven and earth existed, they were com-
mingled as the contents of an egg-shell
are." [In this egg-shell, heaven is likened
to the yellow, the earth to the white of
the egg.] " Or they were together, turbid and
muddy like thick dregs just beginning to
settle. Or they were together like a thick
fog on the point of breaking. Then was the
beginning of time, when the original power
created all things. Heaven and earth are
the effect of the First Cause. They in turn
produced all other things besides."

Another part of the tradition runs^ as
follows : " In the midst of this chaotic mass
Pwankoo lived during eighteen thousand
years. He lived when the heaven and the
earth were being created ; the superior
and lighter elements forming the firma-
ment, the inferior and coarser the dry land."
Again, " During this time the heavens in-
creased every day ten feet in height, the
earth as much in thickness, and Pwankoo in
stature. The period of eighteen thousand
years being assigned to the growth of each
respectively, during that time the heavens
rose to their extreme height, the earth
reached the greatest thickness, and Pwankoo
his utmost stature. The heavens rose aloft
nine thousand miles, the earth swelled nine
thousand miles m thickness, and in the
middle was Pwankoo, stretching himself be-
tween heaven and earth, until he separated
them at a distance of nine thousand miles
from each other. So the highest part' of the
heavens is removed from the lowest part of
the earth by a distance of twenty-seven thou-
sand miles."

The name of the Chinese Adam Pwankoo
means "basin-ancient," that is, "basined
antiquity." It is probably meant to denote
how this father of antiquity was nourished
originally in an egg-shell, and hatched like a
chick. Among the portraits commonly stored
up by native archaeologists, we find various re-
presentations of Pwankoo. One is now before
me that exhibits him with an enormous head
tipped with two horns. His hair, which is
of a puritanical cut on the brow, flows loose
and long over the back and shoulders. He
has large eyes and shaggy eyebrows, a very

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

flat nose, a heavy moustache and beard.
Only the upper part of his body is exhibited,
and one can scarcely tell whether the painter
represents it as being covered with hair,
leaves, or sheepskin. His arms are bare,
and his hands thrown carelessly the one over
the other, as if in complete satisfaction with
himself. Another picture represents him
with an apron of leaves round his loins, hold-
ing the sun in one hand, and the moon in
the other. A third artist has pictured him
with a chisel and mallet in his hands, split-
ting and sculpturing huge masses of granite.
Through the immense opening made by his
labour, the pun, moon, and stars are seen ;
and at his right hand stand, for companions,
the unicorn and the dragon, the phoenix
and the tortoise. He appears as a strong
naked giant, taking pleasure in the carv-
ing out of the mountains, stupendous pillars,
caves, and dens. During his eighteen
thousand years of effort, we are told that,
"his head became mountains, his breath
winds and clouds, and his voice thunder.
His left eye was made the sun, and his right
eye the moon. His teeth, bones, and mar-
row were changed into metals, rocks, and
precious stones. His beard was converted
into stars, his flesh into fields, his skin and
hair into herbs and trees. His limbs became
the four poles ; his veins, rivers ; and his
sinews formed the undulations on the face
of the earth. His very sweat was transformed
into rain, and whatever insects stuck to or
crept over his gigantic body, were made into
human beings! "

The uneducated Chinese are careless, and
the educated sceptical, about these things.
As a people they are not easily induced to
pay much regard to whatever has refer-
ence to more than everyday social wisdom.
The sort of doctrine common now among
the learned, is indeed found in the succeed-
ing passage from a Chinese author : " But
as everything (except heaven and earth)
must have a beginning and a cause, it is
manifest that heaven and earth always
existed, and that all sorts of men and beings
were produced and endowed with their va-
rious qualities, by that cause. However, it
must have been Man that in the beginning
produced all the things upon the earth. Him,
therefore, we may view as Lord ; and it is
from him, we may say, that the dignities of
rulers are derived."

PERE PANPAN.

"MONSIEUR PANPAN lives in the Place
Valois," said my friend, newly arrived from
London on a visit to Paris, "and as I am
under promise to his brother Victor to deliver
a message on his behalf, I must keep my
word even if I go alone, and execute my mis-
sion in pantomime. Will you be my inter-
preter ? "

The Place Valois is a dreamy little square
formed by tall houses : graced by an elegant
fountain in its centre ; guarded by a red-
legged sentinel ; and is chiefly remarkable in
Parisian annals as the scene of the assassina-
tion of the Due de JBerri. There is a quiet
melancholy air about the place which accords
well with its traditions ; and, even the little
children who make it their playground on
account of the absence of both vehicles and
equestrians, pursue their sports in a subdued
tranquil way, hanging about the fountain's
edge, and dabbling in the water with their
little fingers. Monsieur Paiipan's residence
was not difficult to find. We entered by a
handsome porte-cochere into a paved court-
yard, and, having duly accounted for our
presence tp the watchful concierge who sat
sedulously peering out of a green sentry-box,
commenced our ascent to the upper regions.
Seeing that Monsieur lived on the fourth
floor, and that the steps of the spacious stair-
case were of that shallow description which
disappoint the tread by falling short of its
expectations, it was no wonder that we were
rather out of breath when we reached the
necessary elevation ; and that we paused a
moment to collect our thoughts, and calm our
respiration, before knocking at the little back-
room door, which we knew to be that of Mon-
sieur Panpan.

Madam Panpan received us most gra-
ciously, setting chairs for us, and apologising
for her husband who, poor man, was sitting
up in his bed, with a wan countenance,
and hollow, glistening eyes. We were
in the close heavy air of a sick chamber.
The room was very small, and the bedstead
occupied a large portion of its space. It was
lighted by one little window only, and that
looked down a sort of square shaft which
served as a ventilator to the house. A pale
child, with large wandering eyes, watched us
intently from behind the end of the little
French bedstead, while the few toys he had
been playing with lay scattered upon the
floor. The room was very neat, although its
furniture was poor and scanty, and by the
brown saucepan perched upon the top of the
diminutive German stove, which had strayed,
as it were, from its chimney corner into the
middle of the room, we knew that the pot-au-
feu was in preparation. Madame, before
whom was a small table covered with the un-
finished portions of a corset, was very agree-
able rather coquettish, indeed, we should
have said in England. Her eyes were
bright and cheerful, and her hair drawn
back from her forehead a la Chinoise. In
a graceful, but decided way, she apologised
for continuing her labours, which were
evidently works of necessity rather than of
choice.

" And Victor, that good boy," she exclaimed,
when we had further explained the object of
our visit, " was quite well ! I am charmed !
And he had found work, and succeeding so

Charles 1 ickens.]

PEEE PANPAN.

well in his affairs. I am enchanted ! It is so
amiable of him to send me this little cadeau ! "

Monsieur Panpan, with his strange lustrous
eyes, if not enchanted, rubbed his thin bony
hands together as he sat up in the bed, and
chuckled in an unearthly way at the good
news. Having executed our commission, we
felt it would be intrusive to prolong our stay,
and therefore rose to depart, but received so
pressing an invitation to repeat the visit,
that, on the part of myself and friend, who
was to leave Paris*in a few days, I could not
refuse to comply with a wish so cordially
expressed, and evidently sincere. And thus
commenced my acquaintance with the Pan-
pans.

I cannot trace the course of our acquaint-
ance, or tell how, from an occasional call, my
visits became those of a bosom friend ; but
certain it is, that soon each returning Sunday
saw me a guest at the table of Monsieur Pan-
pan, where my convert and serviette became
sacred to my use ; and, after the meal, were
carefully cleaned and laid apart for the next
occasion. This, I afterwards learned, was a
customary mark of consideration towards an
esteemed friend among the poorer class of
Parisians. I soon learned their history. Their
every-day existence was a simple, easily
read story, and not the less simple and
touching because it is the every-day story of
thousands of poor French families. Madame
was a staymaker ; and the whole care and
responsibility of providing for the wants and
comforts qf a sick husband ; for her little
Victor, her eldest born ; and the monthly
stipend of her infant Henri, out at nurse
some hundred leagues from Paris, hung upon
the unaided exertions of her single hands, and
the scrupulous and wonderful economy of her
management.

One day I found Madame in tears. Panpan
himself lay with rigid features, and his wiry
hands spread out upon the counterpane. Ma-
dame was at first inconsolable and inexpli-
cable, but at length, amid sobs, half sup-
pressed, related the nature of their new
misfortune. Would Monsieur believe that
those miserable nurse-people, insulting as
they were, had sent from the country to
say, that unless the three months nursing of
little Henri, together with the six pounds
of lump sugar, which formed part of the
original bargain, were immediately paid,
cette pauvre bete (Henri that was), would
be instantly dispatched to Paris, and pro-
ceedings taken for the recovery of the debt.
Ces miserables !

Here poor Madame Panpan could not con-
tain herself, but gave way to her affliction
in a violent outburst of tears. And yet the
poor child, the cause of all this sorrow, was
almost as great a stranger to his mother
as he was to me, who had never seen him
in my life. With scarcely a week's exist-
ence to boast of, he had been swaddled
up in strange clothes ; entrusted to strange

hands ; and hurried away some hundred
leagues from the capital, to scramble
about the clay floor of an unwholesome
cottage, in company perhaps with some half-
dozen atomies like himself, as strange to
each other, as they were to their own
parents, to pass those famous mois de
uourrice which form so important and mo-
mentous a period in the lives of most French
people. Madam Panpan was however in
no way responsible for this state of things ;
the system was there, not only recognised,
but encouraged ; become indeed a part of
the social habits of the people, and it was.
no wonder if her poverty should have driven
her to so popular and ready a means of meet-
ing a great difficulty. How she extricated her-
self from this dilemma, it is not necessary to
state ; suffice it to say, that a few weeks
saw cette petite b<3te Henri, happily domi-
ciled in the Place Valois ; and, if not over-
burdened with apparel, at least released
from the terrible debt of six and thirty
francs, and six pounds of lump-sugar.

It naturally happened, that on the plea-
sant Sunday afternoons, when we had dis-
posed of our small, but often sumptuous
dinner ; perhaps a gigot de mouton with
a clove of garlic in the knuckle ; a fricassoe
de rabbits with onions, or a fricandeau ;
Panpan himself would tell me part of his
history ; and in the course of our salad ;
of our little dessert of fresh fruit, or cur-
rant jelly ; or perhaps, stimulated by the
tiniest glass of brandy, would grow warm in
the recital of his early experiences, and the
unhappy chance which had brought him into
his present condition.

" Ah, Monsieur ! " he said, one day, " little
would you think to see me cribbed up in this
miserable bed, that I had been a soldier, or
that the happiest clays of iny lite had been
passed in the woods of Fontainebleau, follow-
ing the chase in the retinue of King Charles
the Tenth of France. I was a wild young
fellow in my boyhood ; and, when at the age of
eighteen I drew for the conscription and found
it was my fate to serve, I believe I never was
so happy in my life. I entered the cavalry ;
and, in spite of the heavy duties and strict
discipline, it was a glorious time. It makes
me mad, Monsieur, when I think of the happy
days I have spent on the road, in barracks,
and in snug country-quarters, where there
was cider or wine for the asking ; to find my-
self in a solitary corner of great, thoughtless
Paris, sick and helpless. It would be some-
thing to die out in the open fields like a
worn-out horse, or to be shot like a wounded
one. But this is terrible, and I am but thirty-
eight."

We comforted him in the best way we could
with sage axioms of antique date, or more
lively stories of passing events ; but I saw a
solitary tear creeping down the cheek of
Madame Panpan, even in the midst of a
quaint sally ; and, under pretence of arrang-

[Conducted by

ing his pillow, she bent over his head and
kissed him gently on the forehead.

Pdre Panpan I had come by degrees to
call him " Pere," although he was still young ;
for it sounded natural and kindly con-
tinued his narrative in his rambling, gos-
siping way. He had been chosen, he said, to
serve in the Garde Royale, of whom fifteen
thousand sabres were stationed in and about
the capital at this period ; and in the royal
forest of Fontainebleau, in the enjoyment
of a sort of indolent activity, he passed
his happiest days ; now employed in the
chase, now in the palace immediately about
the person of the king, in a succession of
active pleasures, or easy, varied duties. Pan-
pan was no republican. Indeed, I question
whether any very deep political principles
governed his sentiments ; which naturally
allied themselves with those things that
yielded the greatest amount of pleasure.

The misfortunes of PeYe Panpan dated
from the revolution of eighteen hundred and
thirty. Then the glittering pageantry in the
palace of Fontainebleau vanished like a dream.
The wild clatter of military preparation ; the
rattling of steel and the trampling of horses ;
and away swept troop after troop, with sword-
belt braced and carabine in hand, to plunge
into the mad uproar of the streets of Paris,
risen, stones and all, in revolution. The Garde
Eoyale did their duty in those three terrible
days, and if their gallant charges through
the encumbered streets, or their patient en-
durance amid the merciless showers of indes-
cribable missiles, were all in vain, it was
because their foe was animated by an
enthusiasm of which they knew nothing,
save in the endurance of its effects. Panpan's
individual fate, amid all this turmoil, was
lamentable enough.

A few hours amid the dust ; the swelling
heat ; the yellings of the excited populace ;
the roaring of cannon and the pattering of
musketry ; saw the troop in which he served,
broken and scattered, and Panpan himself
rolling in the dust, with a thousand lights
flashing in his eyes, and a brass button
lodged in his side !

" Those villains of Parisians ! " he ex-
claimed, "not content with showering their
whole garde meuble upon our heads, fired
upon us a diabolical collection of missiles,
such as no mortal ever thought of before :
bits of broken brass ; little plates of tin
and iron rolled into sugar-loaves ; crushed
brace-buckles ; crooked nails and wads of
metal wire ; anything, indeed, that in their
extremity they could lay their hands on, and
ram into the muzzle of a gun ! These
things inflicted fearful gashes, and, in many
cases, a mere flesh-wound turned out a death-
stroke. Few that got hurt in our own troop
lived to tell the tale."

A few more days and the whole royal
cavalcade was scattered like chaff before the
wind, and Charles the Tenth a fugitive on his

way to England ; a few more days and the
wily Louis Philippe was taking the oath to a
new constitution, and our friend, Panpan, lay
carefully packed, brass button and all, in the
H6tel-Dieu. The brass-button was difficult
to find, and when found, the ugly fissure it
had made grew gangrened, and would not
heal ; and thus it happened that many a bed
became vacant, and got filled, and was vacant
again, as their occupants either walked out, or
were borne out, of the hospital gates, before
Panpan was declared .convalescent, and
finally dismissed from the H6tel-Dieu as
" cured."

The proud trooper was, however, an
altered man ; his health and spirits were
gone ; the whole corps of which he had so
often boasted was broken up and dispersed ;
his means of livelihood were at an end, and
what was worse he knew of no other exercise
of which he could gain his daily bread. There
were very many such helpless, tradeless men
pacing the streets of Paris, when the fever
of the revolution was cooled down, and ordi-
nary business ways began to take their
course. Nor was it those alone who were
uninstructed in any useful occupation, but
there were also the turbulent, dissatisfied
spirits ; builders of barricades, and leaders of
club-sections, whom the late excitement, and
their temporary elevation above their fellow-
workmen, had left restless and ambitious, and
whose awakened energies, if not directed to
some useful and congenial employment, would
infallibly lead to mischief.

Panpan chuckled over the fate which
awaited some of these ardent youths : " Ces
gaillards 1& ! " he said, " had become too
proud and troublesome to be left long in the
streets of Paris ; they would have fomented
another revolution, so Louis Philippe, under
pretence of rewarding his brave 'soldats
laboureurs,' whom he was ready to shake by
th3 hand in jthe public streets in the first
flush of success, enrolled them in the army,
and sent them to the commanding officers
with medals of honour round their necks,
and special recommendations to promotion
in their hands. They hoped to become Mar-
shals of France in no time. Pauvres diables !
they were soon glad to hide their decorations,
and cease bragging about street-fighting and
barricades, for the regulars relished neither
their swaggering stories nor the notion of
being set aside by such parvenus ; and they
got so quizzed, snubbed, and tormented, that
they were happy at last to slide into their
places as simple soldats, and trust to the
ordinary course of promotion."

As for Panpan, his street wanderings ter-
minated in his finding employment in a lace-
manufactory, and it soon became evident that
his natural talent here found a congenial
occupation. He came by degrees to be happy
in his new position of a workman. Then
occurred the serious love passage of his life

ChariesDickem.]

PEEE PANPAN.

his meeting with Louise, now Madame Pan-
pan. It was the simplest matter in the
world; Panpan, to whom life was nothing
without the Sunday quadrille at the bar-
rire, having resolved to figure on the
next occasion in a pair of bottes vernis,
waited uoon his bootmaker every Parisian
has his" bootmaker to issue his man-
dates concerning their length, shape, and
general construction. He entered the bou-
tique of Mons. Cuire, when, lo ! he beheld in
the little back parlour, the most delicate
little foot that ever graced a shoe, or tripped
to measure on the grass. He would say
nothing of the owner of this miracle ; of her
face which was full of intelligence ; of her
figure which was gentille toute & faite but
for that dear, chaste, ravishing model of a
foot ! so modestly pose upon the cushion.
Heaven ! and Panpau unconsciously heaved
a long sigh, and brought with it from the very
bottom of his heart a vow to become its pos-
sessor. There was no necessity for anything
very rash or very desperate in the case as
it happened, for the evident admiration of
Panpan had inspired Louise with an im-
promptu interest in his favour, and he being
besides gentil gargon, their chance rencontre
was but the commencement of a friendship
which ripened into love, and so the old
story over again, with marriage at the end
of it.

Well ! said M. Panpan, time rolled on,
and little Louis was born. This might
have been a blessing, but while family
cares and expenses were growing upon
them, Panpan's strength and energies were
withering away. He suffered little pain,
but what there was seemed to spring
from the old wound ; and there were whole
days when he lay a mere wreck, without the
power or will to move ; and when his feeble
breath seemed passing away for ever. Hap-
pily, these relapses occurred only at intervals,
but by slow degrees they became more fre-
quent, and more overwhelming. Madame
Panpan's skill and untiring perseverance
grew to be, as other resources failed, the
main, and for many, many months, the whole
support of the family. Then came a time
when the whiter had passed away, and the
spring was already in its full, and still Pan-
pan lay helpless in bed with shrunken limbs
and hollow, pallid cheeks, and then little
Henri was born.

Pere Panpan having arrived at this crisis
in his history, drew a long breath, and
stretched himself back in his bed. I knew
the rest. It was soon after the event last-
named that I made his acquaintance, and the
remainder of his simple story, therefore,
devolves upon me.

The debility of the once dashing soldier
increased daily, and as it could be traced to
no definite cause, he gradually became a phy-
siological enigma ; and thence naturally a pet
of the medical profession. Not that he was a

profitable patient, for the necessities of the
family were too great to allow of so expensive
a luxury as a doctor's bill ; but urged, partly
by commiseration, and partly by professional
curiosity, both ardent students and methodical
practitioners would crowd round his simple
bed, probing him with instruments, poking
him with their fingers, and punching him
with their fists ; each with a new theory to
propound and establish ; and the more they
were baffled and contradicted in their precon-
ceived notions, the more obstinate they be-
came in their enforcement. Panpan's own
thoughts upon the subject always reverted to
the brass button, although he found few to
listen to, or encourage him in his idea. His
medical patrons were a constant source of
suffering to him, but he bore with them
patiently ; sometimes reviving from his pros-
tration as if inspired, then lapsing as suddenly
into his old state of semi-pain and total
feebleness. As a last hope, he was removed
from his fourth floor in the Place Valois, to
become an inmate of the Bicdtre, and a domi-
ciled subject of contention and experiment to
its medical staff.

The Bicetre is a large, melancholy-looking
building, half hospital half madhouse, situ-
ated a few leagues from Paris. I took a
distaste to it on my very first visit. It
always struck me as a sort of menagerie, I
suppose from the circumstance of there having
been pointed out to me, immediately on my
entrance, a railed and fenced portion of the
building, where the fiercer sort of inhabitants
were imprisoned. Moreover, I met with such
strange looks and grimaces ; such bewildering
side-glances or moping stares, as I traversed
the open court-yards, with their open corri-
dors, or the long arched passages of the
interior, that the whole of the inmates came
before me as creatures, in human shape
indeed, but as possessed by the cunning or
the ferocity of the mere animal. Yet it was
a public hospital, and in the performance of its
duties there was an infinite deal of kindly
attention, consummate skill, and unwearying
labour. Its associations were certainly un-
happy, and had, I am sure, a depressing effect
upon at least the physically disordered pa-
tients. It may be that as the Bicdlre is a
sort of forlorn hope of hospitals, where the
more desperate or inexplicable cases only are
admitted, it naturally acquires a sombre
and ominous character ; but in no establish-
ment of a similar kind (and I have seen
many) did I meet with such depressing
influences.

Panpan was at first in high spirits at the
change. He was to be restored to health in a
brief period, and he really did in the first few
weeks make rapid progress towards convales-
cence. Already a sort of gymnasium had been
arranged over his bed, so that he might, by
simple muscular exercises, regain his lost
strength ; and more than once I have guided
his tottering steps along the arched corridors,

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

as, clad in the gray uniform of the hospital,
and supported by a stick, he took a brief
mid-day promenade.

We made him cheering Sunday visits,
Madame Panpan, Louis, the little Henri, and
I, and infringed many a rule of the hospital
in regard to his regimen. There was a
charcutier living close to the outer walks, and
when nothing else could be had, we pur-
chased some of his curiously prepared deli-
cacies, and smuggled them in under various
guises. To him they were delicious morsels
amid the uniform soup and bouillon of the
hospital, and I dare say did him neither good
nor harm.

Poor Madame Panpan ! apart from the
unceasing exertions which her difficult posi-
tion demanded of her ; apart from the
harassing days, the sleepless nights, and pe-
cuniary deficiencies which somehow never
were made up ; apart from the shadow of
death which hovered ever near her ; and the
unvarying labours which pulled at her
fingers, and strained at her eyes, so that her
efforts seemed still devoted to one ever unfi-
nished corset, there arose another trouble
where it was least expected ; and alas ! I was
the unconscious cause of a new embarrass-
ment. I was accused of being her lover.
Numberless accusations rose up against us.
Had I not played at pat-ball with Madame
in the Bois de Boulogne ? Yes, pardi ! while
Pampan lay stretched upon the grass a laugh-
ing spectator of the game ; and which was
brought to an untimely conclusion by my
breaking my head against the branch of a
tree. But had I not accompanied Madame
alone to the Champs Elyse'es to witness the
jeu-de-feu on the last fete of July ? My good
woman, did I not carry Louis pick-a-back the
whole way 1 and was not the crowd so dense
and fearful, that our progress to the Champs
Elyse'es was barred at its very mouth by the
fierce tornado of the multitude, and the
trampling to death of three unhappy mortals,
whose shrieks and groans still echo in niy
ear ? and was it not at the risk of life or
limb that I fought my way along the Kue de
la Madeleine, with little Louis clinging round
my neck, and Madame hanging on to my
coat-tail 1 Amid the swaying and eddying of
the crowd, the mounted Garde Municipals
came dashing into the thickest of the press,
to snatch little children, and even women,
from impending death, and bear them to a
place of safety. And if we did take a bottle
of Strassburger beer on the Boulevards, when
at length we found a freer place to breathe
in, faint and reeling as we were, pray where
was the harm, and who would not have done
as much ? Ah, Madame ! if you had seen, as
I did, that when we reached home the first
thing poor Madame Panpan came to do, was
to fall upon her husband's neck, and in a
voice broken with sobs, and as though her
heart would break, to thank that merciful
God who had spared her in her trouble, that

she might still work for him and his
;hildren ! you would not be so ready with
your blame.

But there was a heavier accusation still.
Did you not, sir, entertain Madame to supper
in the Eue de Eoule ? with the utmost extra-
vagance too, not to mention the omelette
soufH6e with which you must needs tickle
your appetites, and expressly order for the
occasion 1 And more than that : did you not
then take coffee in the Eue St. Honor6, and
play at dominoes with Madame in the salon ?
Alas, yes ! all this is true, and the cause
still more true and more sad ; for it was
under the terrible impression that Madame
Panpan and her two children for they were
both with us you will remember, even little
Henri had not eaten of one tolerable meal
throughout a whole week, that these unpar-
donable acts were committed on the Sunday.
An omelette soufltee, you know, must be
ordered ; but as for the dominoes, I admit that
that was an indiscretion.

Pe're Panpan drooped and drooped. The
cord of his gymnasium swung uselessly
above his head ; he tottered no more
along the corridors of the hospital. He
had ceased to be the pet of the medi-
cal profession. His malady was obsti-
nate and impertinent ; it could neither be
explained nor driven away ; and as all the
deep theories propounded respecting it, or
carried into practical operation for its
removal, proved to be mere elaborate fancies,
or useless experiments, the medical profes-
sion happily for Paupan retired from the
field in disgust.

" I do believe it was the button ! " ex-
claimed Panpan, one Sunday afternoon, with
a strange light gleaming in his eyes. Madame
replied only with a sob. " You have seen
many of them ? " he abruptly demanded of
me.

Of what?"

" Buttons."

" There are a great many of them made in
England," I replied. Where were we wan-
dering ?

Panpan took my hand in his, and, with a
gentle pressure that went to my very heart,
exclaimed : " I do believe it was the brass
button after all. I hope to God it was not
an English button ! "

I can't say whether it was or no. But, as
to poor Pdre Panpau, we buried him at
Bicetre.

This day is published, for greater convenience, and
cheapness of binding,

THE FIRST TEN YOLUMES

HOUSEHOLD WORDS,

IN FIVE HANDSOME VOLUMES,

WITH A GENERAL INDEX TO THE WHOLE.

Price of the Set, thus bound in Five Double instead of Tea

Single Volumes, 2 10s. Od.

Pnhli.hM M the Office, No. 16. Wellington Street North, Strand. Printed by BMiou*i & ETABI, Wultefriars. London.

"Familiar in tlteir Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS"

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

257.]

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1855.

VEKY ADVISABLE.

FROM my earliest years everybody seemed
to think I stood in need of advice. The
simplest affairs were considered beyond my
comprehension without the aid of a monitor
and this from no want of natural capacity, as
far as I am able to perceive, but from a
remarkable adaptation for the reception of
wise saws which mada itself perceptible to
the most superficial acquaintance. No one
was too great an ass to give me the benefit of
his counsel fellows whom I despised, girls
even, of the most preternatural silliness, all
found occasions of showing their superiority,
by telling me what to do, or say, or think. I
seemed a blank piece of paper on which every
person liked to try his hand, and the result
of this perpetual indoctrination was that I
learned to have no reliance on myself. I
couldn't walk through my own garden, it was
thought, without finger-posts to guide me;
and so many posts were put up, all pointing
in different directions, that I never felt sure
of my way. Probably to counteract this want
of firmness, my friends began, when I was
about fifteen, to lead me with precepts on the
benefits of independence of the absolute
necessity of standing up on all occasions for
my rights, of never letting an opportunity of
gaining an advantage pass and, above all,
of being manly and decided. How could I
be manly and decided when I had never been
allowed to have a will of my own ? How could
I take Time by the forelock have an eye to
the main chance strike while the iron was
hot be wide awake take care of number
one or do any of the hundred other things I
was now recommended to do when nobody
told me how to get hold of Time's forelock, or
where to hit the hot iron, or what to hit it
with ? However, I tried to take the advice,
and to become selfish and exacting with all
my might. This is not so easy as it seems.
I never could hoard up my pocket-money, or
hide the box of cake and jam which was sent
to me at school. I used to lend rny cricket
bat, and never get it back ; boys used to
pretend they drove my ball into the river,
and then to cover it with the initials of their
names, and sometimes make me pay a penny
an hour for the use of my own property ;

grudged my playmates whatever plaything
they took. I saw they followed the advice
which had been so frequently pressed on me,
and were holding on by Time's forelock, and
hitting the hot iron as became men of sense,
and I respected them accordingly. If I inter-
fered at any time with their goods and
chattels, or even tried to borrow a book which
I recognised as my own, they repulsed me in
the most manly and decided manner ; and I
soon foresaw that they would all get on in
the race of life and leave me miles behind.
At church I used occasionally to hear some
statements that gave me consolation, some
advice that even encouraged me to persevere
in the spiritless conduct which came to me so
naturally but the clergyman, on week days,
was one of the most eloquent of my advisers
to stick up for what I could get, to stand
no nonsense, and, in short, to fight my way
through the school with the same bullying,
selfish, dishonest audacity with which I was
treated. I was quite willing to do this, but I
couldn't, so I had the double disadvantage of
wishing to be a tyrant and continuing a spoony.
My virtue had no value as it was involuntary,
I would have been a serpent if I could, but I
had no sting, and was only a worm. The
boy I respected most was Herbert Grubb I
respect him still ; I saw he would rise to
wealth and honour, and he has done so. The
second day of our friendship he told me he
had come away without his allowance, but it
was to be sent to him by post ; I lent him all
I had, and for a week I saw him, at all hours,
in the play-ground swallowing apple tarts
and drinking ginger beer, 'and filling his
pockets with gingerbread out of the old Iruit-
woman's basket, and when I ventured to ask
him if his allowance had come, " You fool,"
he said, " I had it all the time, and if I had a
few more asses like you in the school, I would
put it into the savings' bank mind your eye,
for here comes a handful of cherry-stones."
The other boys applauded his cleverness, and,
in my secret heart, so did I it was such
admirable sticking up for number one.

There was a little fellow in the lowest class
of the name of Knowlsworth, he was only
half a year at the school, and was the simplest
little boy I ever knew. I felt immensely
superior to him, and once took away his top,

my arrows were always missing, and I never i but he looked so disconsolate that I pretended

VOL. XI.

257

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

I had done it because it -was not a good one,
and bought a large one for him with the most
awfully painted sides and a power of hum-
ming which would have done honour to a
beehive. He wag a sickly, delicate, fair-
haired fellow, with dark blue eyes, that filled
with teai's on the slightest provocation. He
generally shed tears when he talked of home;
so Grubb made great fun of his weakness.
He always cleaned Grubb's shoes, and when
they were polished to his satisfaction he used
to sit with the blacking-brush in his hand
re^dy to launch it at the little boy's head,
and make him describe all his family, from
his father, who was afflicted with the gout, to
his sister Mary, whom he described as a per-
fect angel. As he cried while he branched out
into these descriptions, Grubb and his intimate
friends enjoyed the joke exceedingly. He used
to come and sit down beside me at a table in
the hall after he had been forced to make these
revelations, and lean his little head upon my
shoulder till he fell asleep. I advised him to
complain to the master a Doctor of Divinity,
who had written Latin notes to the Gospel of
St. John and the master told him he was a
fool for his pains; and when all the fellows
went up, one after another, and assured the
Doctor that Grubb was an excellent youth,
and very kind to little boys, Knowlsworth
was flogged for false accusation, and very
generally cut by the school, and, in fact, so
was I, which I very much regretted, for I
looked up with unfeigned veneration, not
unmixed with envy, to those high-spirited
young gentlemen who carried into practice
the lessons of worldly wisdom which were
wasted upon me. How often I had been told
to carry my head above everyone else, to
vindicate my position, and make myself feai'ed
and respected in the school. There was not
one of us who did not fear and respect Her-
bert Grubb except little Harry Knowlsworth,
but he was a curious boy, and had not
received the same kind of lessons at home as
the rest of us. He said Grubb was a bully,
and he was sure was a coward : now, his
papa had told him a coward couldn't be a
gentleman, and a bully couldn't be a Christian.
I wondered at the time if old Mr. Knowlsworth
knew that Grubb's father had married the
daughter of an Irish earl, and that she was
really Lady Glendower Grubb 1 How could
her son then not be a- gentleman ? I knew
he w;is a Christian, for he borrowed my Bible
and Prayer-book, and I never liked to ask
him for them again. We were two Pariahs,
Harry Kuowlsworth and I, and I daresay he
did me a great deal of harm, for, whereas,
being four or five years older, 1 ought to have
raised him up to my level and have taught
him the vices and knowingnesses of my more
advanced period of life, he dragged me down
to his, and I never rose above nine or ten
years old all the time h was at school. But
this was not long. He began to be ill in the
middle of the half-year, and the cruelty of

Herbert Grubb and his friends to increase.
They now insisted on his describing his sister
Mary not as the charming creature the little
boy represented her, but as hump-backed and
with a stutter, with moral qualities to math.
Nothing would tempt Harry to give utterance
to the terrible names the coterie of wits and
tyrants affixed to the object of the child's
affection. So brushes were flung at his head,
and the clothes torn off his bed, and water
thrown on his face, and his hands held till
they blistered close to the fire, but he would
not say that Mary was a thief, or had run
away with the groom, or was anything but
the best of beings, and as I sometimes shared
in the punishments inflicted on our obduracy,
for I was as firmly persuaded as Harry of
the angelic nature of his sister, we used to
retire to remote corners of the playground,
and there the heroic brother would tell me
for hours what a kind, clever, admirable girl
his sister was, and what a noble, generous old
man his father ; and then he used to take my
hand, and then, on looking carefully round
and seeing no one near, he used to press it to
his lips and say that, next to those two in all
the world, he liked me best, and I used to
feel it a great consolation, amidst the contempt
of all the other boys, that this little fellow
was attached to me. However, we had not
time to grow more intimate, for he became
rapidly worse, and was sent home a month
before the holidays began. I got a letter
from him to say that his sister was at school
in France or Italy, I forget which, but was
expected home in three months, and then he
would tell her all about my kindness, and
begging me not to believe the things that
Grubb and his companions had said about
her, but to like her for his sake.

But he did not live to see the sister he was
so fond of. He sent me a beautiful locket
that Mary had given him, and I was to wear
it always, and never forget hini if we never
met again. And just when we were going
down, the Doctor, in shaking hands with
Grubb, said, " You will be sorry to hear
your little favourite Knowlsworth is dead a
delicate boy, and I believe you were very
kind to him, only, perhaps, a little too rough
(as high-spirited young gentlemen often are)
in your play. Good-bye my respectful duty
to Lady Glendower."

As to me, nobody took any notice, luckily,
of how I bore the news. Grubb bore it very
well. He said, "Ah ! is he dead, poor fellow?
I'm glad now I was always so attentive to
him." I don't think the conscience begins to
have any power till manhood. Here was a
boy who should have felt like a murderer,
and really believed himself to have been kind
to the victim of his cruelty. I could not help
having some thoughts like that in spite of my
respect.

On our meeting next half-year poor Harry
was forgotten by everybody except by me. I
always wore the locket next my heart, and

Charles Dickens.!

VERY ADVISABLE.

often took it out to look at the hair. Mary's
and Harry's had been tied in a knot long ago,
and the boy had added my initial as a loop at
the top. it was valuable, too, for the case
was of gold, and there were large real pearls
all round the rim. It was detected round my
neck at the bathing, and got noised al 1 through
the school ; and it happened one day when I
was in the water four or five of the biggest
boys kept me engaged and guarded me from
making my way to the bank, and when at
last I reached the place where my clothes
were lying, the locket was gone. I could not
tell who had taken it. I spoke to the master,
and lie quoted many texts from Scripture
against evil speakers and false accusers. He
found out that my suspicions rested on Grubb
he said Grubb was an honour to the school,
had noble blood in his veins, and if I could
not substantiate my horrible accusation he
would consider whether I should not be
publicly expelled. On this I begged to with-
draw suspicions and accusation, and to be
allowed to submit to the loss. He paused for
some time, but at last agreed to pass over my
conduct, as a knowledge of such an unchristian
disposition might injure my prospects in life.
Shortly after that he was made a bishop in
consideration of his skill in Greek quantities,
,and I had to go to another school. My
prospects in life, of which the bishop had
been so considerate, did not appear to brighten,
though I was for a while delivered from the
tyranny of Grubb. But there are Grubbs at
all schools. I tried in vain to assert my
rights : I made my claims either at the wrong
time or in the wrong manner, so when my
relations and friends perceived that I derived
no benefit from their counsels, but rather
allowed every opportunity to slip by, they
determined to send me to the bar as a profes-
sion, where if I did not struggle I must yield.
It was like forcing a man to swim by throwing
him into deep water. The plunges I made
excited laughter in others, and weariness in
myself; so 1 determined to live quietly on the
small income I possessed, and watch the
ocean and the tempest-tossed barks upon it
from the safe eminence of two hundred a-year.
" Foolish fellow," said one of my most inti-
mate friends, " to be satisfied with two huu
dred a-year; you know nothing, my dear
Plastic, of the management of money now,
that is what I have particularly studied all
my life I will give you my advice, and you
may soon remove to Belgrave Square." How
kiud! here was a practical man ; he had been
educated as a civil engineer, then he turned
architect, then went into the corn trade, and
was a prodigious authority about railways
and other lucrative speculations. He came
to rue in two days

"Have you any money you can immediately
command ? "

" Yea ; I have two thousand pounds in the
funds."

" That will exactly do ; I belong to a com-

pany for the manufacture of soap out of tallow
candles. It is secured by a patent. I myself
hold more shares than I can conveniently pay
the calls upon hundreds are asking to be
allowed only a few : you shall have three
hundred and fifty they will pay thirty per
cent., and you may safely increase your ex-
penditure by six hundred a year."

I bought a horse the same friend had
three, and parted with one of them which,
however, unfortunately became lame. I
thought of giving up my humble apartment,
as he said it was for the benefit of the company
that the partners should live in good parts of
the town : he got me elected director, with a
salary of two hundred a-year, and my grati-
tude knew no bounds. He lived with his
aunt, and I presented her with a tea-service,
from Rundle and Bridge, with an allegorical
sculpture on the coffee pot, representing
Generosity pouring wealth from a ornucopia
into the lap of Friendship. I did several
other foolish things, and went down to the
committee room of the company in a clarence,
which I jobbed for three months, and even
had my crest a sheep's head with its mouth
open painted on the panel. How I despised
iny injudicious advisers! Haven't I taken
care of myself? Haven't I got hold of time
by the forelock ? I turned the tables upon
them, and gave them immense quantities of
advice. I advised the most pertinacious of
my counsellors a Scotchman who was con-
nected with a Greek house in the City to
join our company. The man was thunder-
struck. What ! get advice from me ! He
came to me, " Ye're a bigger fule than
ever," he said: "how do ye think ony body
can mak' a profit by turnin' good can'ies into
bad saip? The can'ies is dearer than, the
saip, and ye're j ust a prodigious ass ! "

This turned out to be true. I lost all the
money I put into the concern, and paid a
little more to get a quittance from all liabi-
lities. But my friend was not abashed. He
said to me, " Your horse is lame nobody can
perceive it till it lias been ridden a mile or
two he isn't worth ten pounds, but I have a
very silly friend from Devonshire, I daresay
he will give you fifty guineas you're too
much a man of the world to refuse a good
offer!"

I said, "Certainly not; it would be strange
if, after all my experience, I wasn't a man of
the world."

So after that, when I spoke to him about
having sold me his shares in the candle- soap
patent, he said,

" I have had great experience, sir ; I am a
man of the world, as you were williug enough
to be about your old screw of a horse, only
the Devonshire spoony turned out to be a,
man of the world, too."

There was nothing to be done, so I went
into humbler lodgings, gave up my club,
never took anybody's advice, and never was
asked by anybody lor mine. But one day

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

the whole destiny of my life seemed to change,
I met Herbert Grubb in the street we had
not met for twelve or thirteen years, but he
knew me at once. He was what is called
head of a department and member of par-
liament, overwhelmed with business, and
anxious for a secretary who would require no
salary, but rely on the political interest of his
chief. He installed me at once. I answered
all his letters, read up historical allusions, and
pored over the index verborum of the classics
for his quotations. He was delighted with
my patience and perseverance, he asked me
to dinner, and introduced me to his wife, a
tall majestic woman, with noble features, which
never relaxed into a smile, but which must
have been wonderfully beautiful if they could
have clothed themselves in that sunshine of
the heart which makes even the plainest
faces loveable. Her eyes were amazingly
brilliant, and her cheeks glowed with hectic
flushes which made her very sad to- look on,
in spite of her beauty. She was very kind,
but it did not escape my notice that she was
unhappy ; when Grubb was in one of his
bullying moods she used to look with pitying
eyes on his much-enduring secretary. As to
me, I did not mind it. I had always pro-
phesied he would get on in the world, and I
was rather proud than otherwise to acknow-
ledge the superiority which I had foreseen.
She was surprised at his harsh airs of com-
mand to an old schoolfellow and a better
scholar than himself, but she said nothing,
only when I was going away she used to
come forward and take my hand and wish
me good-bye with such a sweet voice and
such a compassionate smile, that I dreamt of
them all night.

Friends had gathered round me again, and
were prodigal of advice. "Go in and win,"
said one, " she certainly likes you, and her
fortune is secured upon herself he treats
her so ill that the world will be all on her
side. She has fifteen hundred a-year, and
can dispose of it as she likes."

Here was advice here was another hammer
to weld my fortunes with while the iron was
hot here was a chance not to be thrown
away. Oh ! if they had seen the stately form
they degraded with their ribald suggestions,
the noble face, the imperial eyes and she
was evidently dying, and Grubb evidently
knew it ; and there were evidently fights
going on, and, indeed, I knew that he was
leaving her no rest till she disposed of Every-
thing in his favour, as her guardian had
secured her the power of doing, at the time
of her marriage ; and I watched the gradual
embitterment on one side and increasing
contempt on the other. It couldn't last long.
One day, when I was in my small apartment,
after a morning's work in Herbert's office, a
tap came to my door, and the lady came in.
"You must come with me," she said, "for
you are my only friend in all the world
don't refuse me my first and last request, you

shall know the reason soon." So she took
me with her to a lawyer's, and left me in the
outer room while she transacted business in
the office. It didn't last half an hour; she
introduced me to the lawyer when she came
out, and said, " Remember ! " Then she went
away, and I shook hands with her as I put
her into her brougham, and, do you know,
she took my hand and held it to her lips, and
when she let it go again her eyes were filled
with tears. She laid her head back in the
carriage, and I never saw her again. In a
fortnight or three weeks she died. The
funeral was very private. My chief did not
go I went as his representative ; his attorney
also was there, and the old gentleman to
whom I had been introduced as I have said
a kind old man, and deeply affected, and so
was I. " You must come home with me," he
said, "for I have business of the greatest
importance to transact with you." When we
reached his office he shut the door, he went
to a tin-case, took out a parchment, and said,.
"Open that carefully, there is something in it
that deeply concerns yourself." I unfolded the
package, and there lay in the middle of the page,
suspended by a black silk ribband, a locket set
in pearls, and I knew it at once it was little
Harry Knowlsworth's memorial and there,
still fresh as if but yesterday put in, were the
initials of the little boy and his sister looped
up by mine. " She was Mary Knowlsworth,"
said the old gentleman, " and only lately dis-
covered a mistake under which she married
Mr. Grubb. She was told by the Bishop of
Tufton that he had been her brother's friend
at school she became his wife from gratitude,,
not from affection. In a drawer, some months
since, she found the locket in her husband's
secretary she recognised the companion,
friend, and fellow sufferer of young Harry.
v You will, therefore, accept the fortune she
leaves you as a legacy from both. Any
advice we can give you in the manage-
ment "

" It shall lie quietly in the funds," I said,
" and every half-year I will go and draw the
dividends. I will buy a revolving-pistol
when I leave this room, and will shoot the
first man who offers me advice."

AN OLD SCHOLAE.

LOITERING in Poets' Corner, you have per-
haps observed opposite the monument of
DRYDEN, a tablet on the wall bearing the
name of ISAAC CASAUEON. In the holy ground
thereabouts, were laid the remains of that
great scholar in the year sixteen hundred and
fourteen. He had been four years in this
country, having been invited here by James
the First, endowed with two prebends (West-
minster and Canterbury), and a pension, when
death seized him. He has a place in the
Biographia Britannica, and a place in Hal-
lam's Literature of Europe. He is still hi
high repute among those who read the

Chtrlcs Dickens.]

AN OLD SCHOLAR

classics, and only the other day we observed
a young German philologer gazing with much
interest at his epitaph.

All the above facts, however, would not
entitle Isaac Casaubon to a place in House-
hold Words, if he had not left behind him a
DIARY of the last seventeen years of his life,
which has been published in our own time, and
is a very curious and interesting work. The
manuscript remained in the possession of the
ecclesiastical authorities of Canterbury, where
Casaubon's son, Meric, held preferment, and
was printed a few years since by the Univer-
sity of Oxford, under the care of Dr. John
Eussell. It is in Latin, of course, and
Dr. John Eussell edits it in Latin, and writes
a Latin preface to it ; so that if a Eoman
ghost, revisiting the earth, caught sight of it,
he would conclude that Casaubon and Dr.
Eussell (one a Frenchman, and the other an
Englishman) were both countrymen of his
own, and that Britain was still a barbarous
island under Eoman government. However,
an English translation would not have paid
its expenses in any case, and the University,
which brings out the work at its own cost,
has a right to present it to the world in
its own way. Be it ours to unroll Isaac
Oasaubon from these wrappages and ancient
habiliments, and try to form a living notion
of him as a European man. We presume
that we shall do his memory no offence, by
rendering him into English ; and we hope
that his warmest classical admirers will not
deny that he was once alive ; that though he
wrote a dead language, even in his Diary
(Ephemerides he calls it), yet that he was a
good friendly scholar, eating and drinking
like the rest of us, and talking French at
all events to his wife.

The old commentators who devoted their
lives to the interpretation of the classics
were a very remarkable class of men. The
world wants yet, an adequate account of
them. They were pioneers, backwoodsmen,
clearers of the forests, and drainers of the
marsh. We pride ourselves on our Drydcn's
Virgil, our Pope's Homer, the insight of
Gibbon, the classicality of Gray. But, for
these great men the old commentators paved
the way. They made the classics readable
and intelligible. In fact, they made the roads
on which many a triumphal car of genius has
rolled smoothly along since ; and, directly or
indirectly, every writer is indebted to them.
Their energy and enthusiasm were un-
bounded their love of learning, a passion
their occasional pedantry and violence, par-
donable for the sake of these. Casaubon's
Diary gives us a glimpse of the domestic life
and private character of one of the most
famous of them. When his formal writings
for publication have exhausted their utility,
the world will still look at this Diary ; and
his private jottings of the adventures of the
day will make many who care little for the
commentator think with interest of the man.

Casaubon belonged to the second genera-
tion of the scholars of the Eevival of Letters.
He belonged to the generation after Erasmus
and the elder Scaliger, and was contemporary
with the younger Scaliger. His father,
Arnauld Casaubon, was a minister of the
reformed religion. He fled from Dauphine"
to Geneva, where Isaac was born, in February,
fifteen hundred and fifty-nine. At nine years
old the boy spoke and wrote Latin pretty
easily. They taught Latin in those days very
much by conversation a practice which
made children learn it early, but which
Ascham condemns as injurious to purity of
style. However, as it was the universal lan-
guage of communication among the learned,
and also among the great of the world,
familiarity with it was the great object to
attain. At twenty-four, Casaubon was a
Professor ; at twenty-seven, he married a
daughter of the celebrated Henry Stephens,
by whom he had twenty children. With a
rising family of this kind springing up about
him, Isaac had to keep his Greek and
Latin learning " up," with a vengeance ;
and the first thing we have to tell of his
studies is, that he worked like a horse, or
like anything you please to consider indus-
trious. His reading was such as some gen-
tlemen who draw large endowments out of
ancient foundations of learning in our day,
would probably consider incredible. Those
who make their fortunes for life by reading
"bits" and writing "bits" of scholarship
with three centuries of learning at their back
to help them differ from the Casaubous and
Scaligers, as the King of Naples does from
Julius Csesar. It is indeed the difference
between being carried in the penny steam-
boat, and being one of the crew of the Argo.
It is the difference between a man Avho owes
everything to machinery which has been
made for him, and a man who owes every-
thing to himself.

Casaubou's routine employment as Pro-
fessor consisted of delivering lectures. But
his great occupation in life was editing
classics. Now, editing a classic, as we some-
times see it done in England in our day,
though a respectable, is not a transcendently
great piece of work. First of all, of course
your edition is " based " on that of Bunkfas,
Cunkins, or Dunkins, of Germany; which
entitles you to make what use of the labours
of those philologists you please. Then you
have got some fifty excellent commentaries
written before you were born, to help yourself
to. So far, so good; your edition soon gets
under weigh. You balance commentator
against commentator, and decide between
them ; this marks the man of judgment !
Then, you attack the last English editor, and
treat him with contempt. You call him a
certain Smith (Smithius quidam) a man
without a tincture of learning (litteris ne
leviter quidem imbutus) : in English, it
would be impertinent, in Latin, it is severe ;

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

and the critics set it down to your zeal for
bouJiJ learning, and your hatred of superficial
men. .Finally, you dedicate to a bishop, whom
you call the ornament of the age (seculi
decus) ; and out coines your edition on beau-
tiful paper a reproach (in the paper) to the
inferiority of Germany. Casaubou's labours
were of a severer character. He settled the
texts of his authors by infinite care the
very first necessity being critical skill in the
tongues. His commentaries brought all anti-
quity to illustrate each part of it. By the
time he was six-and-thirty, he had edited
Strabo, Theophrastus, the Apologia of Apu-
leius, and Suetonius. He then devoted himself
to Athenseus and, at the age of thirty-eight,
moved from 'Geneva to Montpelier, and he
accepted a chair there. He commenced his
Diary at Montpelier, on his thirty-eighth
birthday. He kept it regularly till his death;
but about three years of it have been lost.
Let us now open it.

Casauboii begins his reading early in the
morning. You see at once that reading is

the passion of his life. The day commences ment in Paris. From Montpelier he brought
with prayer. Thus he reads from about five away, as he tells us, good repute, and nothing
until ten. After refreshment, he reads ; else. His means were, indeed, generally
again. If anybody calls on any manner of j limited enough, and his family expenses, as
business, or on any pretence of kindness, a i the reader has seen, were likely to be con-
dismal groan is recorded. The business of siderable.

great offers. We shall see that Casaubon
was exposed through life to much pain and
annoyance on this side of affairs.

But duty is better than study ; and Casau-
bon was a good man in the best sense ; for

" Called from our studies by the widow of
Peter Galesius. The time was not ill-
bestowed. Duty is better than study."

The following is curious: "Attempted the
interpretation of a law of Ulpian's which
contains the material of garments. Thou
knowest, God, that we have not undertaken
this rashly, knowing with what diligence we
have treated that subject."

So entirely had the feeling of duty taken
possession of his mind, tliat he carried this
solemn kind of earnestness into details. Thus
he would put up a prayer for a right under-
standing of the nature of the Macedonian
Phalanx ; a feeling quite Puritan in its cha-
racter, and one which, in various forms,
achieved immense results in those ages.

In the year fifteen hundred and ninety-
nine, Casaubon was summoned to an appoint-

life is to get on with the classics :

In March of the above-mentioned year he

" Morning. Prayer ; books. Not wholly was at Lyons, and his wife paid a visit to
uselessly employed, O God ! " I Geneva. He is still working at Athenians ;

This is a specimen of many a day. There and yet his nephew Peter will have a fight
is an habitual tone of piety throughout ; of with a servant (cum famulo). So down goes
that fervid, living piety fostered in him from : a note of his misconduct in the Diary, and the

infancy by his father, and kept warm by the
earnest spirit of the great town of the
Reformers.

" Studied not without a grief of mind
from an internal cause known to thee, Lord.
My spouse, who ought to be an alleviation to
my labours, is sometimes an impediment,"

Was the marita, then, a shrew ? No ; she
was a good, faithful, wife ; truly loved by
Casaubon, who generally calls her the most
beloved (the philtate, in Greek). But
Casaubon was a little hasty-tempered, as he
himself regrets ; and doubtless the phiitatS
was sometimes a bore, when he was puzzled
by a frightfully corrupt passage.

"Kal. Jan. (i.e., first of January), 1598. A
present from a noble German."

Here we have a glimpse of the way in
which supplies came in. The noble German
is some amateur of letters, no doubt, passing
through Montpelier, and sends a new year's
gift to the learned Monsieur Casaubon by
way of showing that he appreciates learning.

"Feb., 1598. When shall I be wholly

given to' my books ? Grant this, O God ;
ut, above all, true piety and constant love of

the purer religion."
The purer religion.

There is need to pray

for constancy, for an eminent Protestant is

nineteenth century is indignant at Peter
accordingly.

He was for some time at Lyons, and also
visited Geneva this year. The time is
August. He has read, one day, from five
o'clock until ten. His wife and he sit down
to dinner in high spirits (hilariter), when
Madame is suddenly taken ill, and at night
gives birth to a boy. It is observable, that
whenever a child is born though it be the
seventeenth or eighteenth Casaubon piously
offers thanks for the blessing, and could not
be more grateful were he an old monarch,
wanting an heir to his kingdom. Here is an
entry in the September of this same year :

" Wife is ill, also little Philippa, John, and (
nephew Peter. Add to this that one's affairs
are embarrassed. Who in such troubles
could find leisure for arduous study ? "

Who, indeed ! Yet, with all his troubles,
Casaubon became one of the first scholars in
Europe, which ought to stimulate many men,
and not scholars only. To these troubles
was to be added the old one, arising from his
Protestantism ; for now that he was invited
to Paris, the orthodox were very busy about
him.

About the end of December, he talks with
"a certain Alchymist certainly an ingenious

harassed with people wanting to convert man, who told me some things worth hearing
him. Temp tution waits, too, in the form of i about the secrets oi' his art." Casauboii

Charles Dickens.]

AN OLD SCHOLAR

seems to incline to believe that gold can be
made : there is a fascination in the idea when
pecuniary affairs are embarrassing, certainly.
The last day of ^February in sixteen
hundred he set off to Paris using relays of
very bad horses. On the tenth of March
he was presented to Henry the Fourth, who
received him with singular humanity. " Thou
kuowest, Lord," he enters in his Diary,
" that I did not seek did not court this
royal position. Thou hast done it, Lord."

His books, of course, had to follow him, or
accompany him, in these peregrinations ; and
his first employment in a new place was to
set them all up and prepare his private
museum in the house. Soon, he falls-to at
them again ; and now his labours on
Athenians are drawing to a close. He is
fixed in Paris, and the king is kind to him ;
conducts him one day over the palace with
much serious conversation. Thuanus has
lost his wife, and Casaubon consoles him ; in
addition to which, he is studying Arabic,
besides his usual classical labours ; and now
he opens a correspondence with that con-
ceited monarch, James the Sixth of Scot-
land. This monarch writes him a letter
from his Scotch palace, being ambitious of
the praise of learned men. Casaubon does
not yet foresee that he is destined to become
associated with this monarch ; and, in fact,
is a little suspicious of him. Meanwhile,
Henry the Fourth is kind, as usual, though
thei-e are orthodox people always at his
ear, hinting that Casaubon is a dangerous
heretic. Gentlemen of wooden faggoty
aspect, indeed scowl at Monsieur Casaubou,
and would roast him, on a good pretext, if
possible. Underlings of the royal library
are not polite ; nor are treasurers punctual
with instalments of the pension.

On his forty-fourth birthday, Casaubon
as is his wont on his birthday was medi-
tating solemnly on his life and prospects,
when who should come in but the philtate"? She
brought with her a birthday present of money,
which she had saved out of the household
expenses for this auspicious occasion. Ca-
saubon was delighted, and returned thanks
to God for the frugality and management
(oikonomia) of the charissima uxor.

In sixteen hundred and three, he visited
his mother at Bordeaux, and soon afterwards
paid a visit to Geneva, where old friends and
relatives received him with open arms. On
a, fin^ June night he supped with Theodore
Eeza, exclaiming, "What a man! What
piety ! What learning ! O truly great man ! "
Beza, he remarks, though his memory was
failing as to ordinary matters, still retained
it in all matters of religion and theology.
He told him that on the night of the
Admiral's murder, he (Beza) had seen him
in a dream, at Geneva, all bloody ; and
had heard from him the events of that
night almost as they actually occurred.
Casaubon stayed a little while at Geneva,

on the money affairs of some relations (about
which the Genevese authorities did not
behave well), and then returned to Paris.

About the end of sixteen hundred and
! three, we find him busy on las Persius, ex-
amining ancient manuscripts, preparatory to
beginning his admirable edition of that poet.
He prays that the mind of King Henry may
not be swayed by 'evil counsellors. The
king did not conceal from him that the pope
complained of the favour he showed to
heretics ; and all the people about the king
were brimming over with hatred of the
poor scholar. Large promises every artifice
employed but neither Casaubon nor his
wife would open their ears to the tempters.

What with Cardinal Perron trying to con-
vert him ; what with black sons of Loyola
tempting and hating (your conscience or
your life, being the favourite alternative of
these pious dragoons) ; what with occasional
poverty and domestic troubles what is a
scholar to do 1 What but go on with his
work ? Isaac Casaubon had various labours
on the anvil : a Treatise on the Ancient
Satire (one of those rare treatises which
settle the question) the incomparable
Commentary on Persius, and so forth. Occa-
sionally he had visitors. Casaubou loved not
visitors. Why will people come and talk,
dragging a quiet man from his books ? There
comes one man who loves to hear Casaubon
talk an Englishman, handsome, high-
spirited, grave, courtly, learned nobilis-
siruumvirum. His name is Edward Herbert,
known to all the word in after ages as Lord
Herbert of Cherbury. That most distin-
guished gentleman the best swordsman and
rider and duellist of his age ; accomplished
in all that could grace rank or give dignity
to birth left courts and palaces to come and
talk to the quiet and laborious scholar ; and
reported .in his Autobiography that he had
much benefited himself thereby. Such a
man, one could spare an hour or two from
Persius to chat with. In such talk one could
forget the " arrogant biped" whose foolish
remarks on the iiomaii poet much annoyed
Casaubon in those days.

This is the way, then, in which life was
jogging on. The king held firm, and would
not persecute this heretic. Money was
scanty, but. still things were kept going,
through the household wisdom of that model
wife, the philtate. Early morning found
Casaubon commencing operations with prayer.
Then, to work he went, still in the early part
of the century, at Persius. In sixteen
hundred and five the Persius appeared.
Joseph Scaliger observed that the sauce was
worth more than the fish. Indeed, Persius
sails like a cock-boat in a huge sea of com-
mentary. He is hung up like a picture with
a hundred lights on it illuminated like a
palace on a festal night. He had been every-
where spoken of as obscure and unintelligible.
Casaubon, who heartily admired him, deter-

him, at all events.

the name of
for ever. His

written.

should be at Home." He ci
little facilities for attending
To this misfortune was soon ;
business one. By some decli-
ne lost in sixteen hundred !
whole of his wife's fortune
left naked," he adds. " We h
I have nothing left but my
children ! . . . Ungrateful b :
fruits of my labours." Thus
spring of sixteen hundred
bitter cold one during which
himself over the fire with a book.

As I see, fire and water
than these two women,
and sister ! miserable lo

Witness my Polybius, &c."

she was aged eighteen years,
twenty-one days, and four hours,
light, my darling, love, delighl
your mother ! " For days
image of poor Philippa haunt
the Diary. He leaves off his
now and then, at the though
relapses into grief. And, at
is labouring at " that most int:
of the difference between th

as fast as it is finished.

a daughter, his wife's seventeenth child.

Europe." Scaliger left him

had been on friendly terms .._ .,

honoured Scaliger with true affection

responding tone.

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS. [Cmdactedbr

id understand

were two greater men of the kind) thought

b was a work

and spoke of each other worthily and

T every edition

well.

s of learning

In the kind of way we have been de-

ias associated

scribing, the Parisian years rolled by. Ca-

that of Persius

saubon's greatest trouble was, that they

pation was his

would insist on endeavouring to convert

i Warton con- j him. They waylaid him in the library, and

prefaces ever | entangled him in controversies; sometimes

they spread a report that he was converted,

be converted.

and alarmed the " reformed " throughout

ra, bitterly, " I

Europe. But they did succeed in striking

mplains of his

him a severe blow ; they managed to convert

)ublic worship.

his son John, a youth ignorant of all

dded a serious

the great questions of dispute. This hurt

on at Geneva,

Casaubon severely. We can fancy him in his

nd seven, the

"museum," brooding over this sore grief,

"and we are

his hand carelessly playing with the leaves of

ive no fortune :

a folio when a stranger is announced. An

books and my

Italian enters, and has something to say

)eds enjoy the

evidently of a very secret nature. Casaubon

le wails in the

begs that he will speak out. The Italian

and eight a

hesitates ; then would Casaubon grant him

ch he huddled

an interview with his familiar ? Obstupui !

book. A new

says Casaubon, entering the fact in his Diary.

its appearance.

What with alchymy, and diablerie, and astro-

e thirty-first).

logy, men's minds were ever hovering about

1 agree better

the verge of the wonderful in those days,

nely my wife

and shadows and shapes lurked in corners

) hard destiny."

out of which gas-light and other light has

story, he says :

long driven them.

they have suf-

Sixteen hundred and ten opened on Ca-

t totally failed.

saubon, still cloudy in the theological quarter,

and in others. He was reading, revising, and

greatest home

editing, as usual, and forming pleasant castles

3s any record

in the air such as visits to Italy and the

liter Philippa.

like. A visit to Italy was still a favourite

linuteness that

vision of scholars, who loved the thought of

3, six months.

the morning-land of learning. Casaubon

ours. " O my

wanted to go to Italy, as Erasmus had done ;

t, and glory of

he wanted to see the country and talk with

and days the

the learned men ; and, particularly, he wished

;s the pages of

to visit Venice, and inform himself accurately

3 books, every

about the Greek Church. For, it was one

t of her, and

great and leading desire of Casaubon's, that

this time, he

a day might come when he should devote

ricate question

himself entirely to sacred learning. The

le Macedonian

memory of his father sanctified that idea ;

on," and com-

when he first presented the good minister

L to the printer

with a learned work, the old man told him

that he would rather see one text of the

lily inserting a

Scriptures rightly interpreted by him, than

i Scaliger, now

all the fine fruits of the Pagan mind. Ca-

ng the birth of

saubon thought often of that saying ; lie

nth child. At

remembered the pious zeal of the old man,

ger's death in

supporting them all, in the terrible days

nine : " Extin-

which followed on the Saint Bartholomew,

ge, the light of

when the Casaubons fled like hunted beasts

le ornament of

to the caves and mountains, and worshipped

ver cup. They

God in sore distress and terror. It was the

lys. Casaubon

pet dream of Isaac Casaubon, to devote

affection and

las old age to theology ; and, indeed, it may

n the Scalige-

be doubted if he ever expounded a mere

ubon in a cur-

comic writer, such as Plautus, without a kind

scholars have

of uneasy regret.

is pleasant to

Such were the dreams, studies, trials, arid

id there never

troubles of Casaubou the pious, laborious,

Charles Dickens.]

AN OLD SCHOLAR

affectionate, rather irritable man, now turned
of fifty when all Paris, one day in May,
started at the death-wound of the assassi-
nated Henry the Fourth. That king had
altogether treated him well, had respected
his conscience, and checked his enemies ; and
now Paris was an intolerable and an unsafe
residence. Casaubon had corresponded, occa-
sionally, with James the First ; and now,
that king being on the English throne, a
negotiation had sprung up between them,
and it was proposed to Casaubon to come
over to London. For this purpose, he had
to get leave from the French court. The
position of great scholars in those days
was a singular one. They were courted
from place to place in Europe, and, as they
approached the towns of their new appoint-
ments, the magistrates and professors came
out to meet them a mile outside the gates.
Yet, they had the utmost difficulty in getting
their salaries. And, in the same way, though
every king of high pretensions considered a
great scholar an ornament to his court and
city, though kings recognised them person-
ally with honour (Henry the Fourth wrote
to Joseph Scaliger, on one occasion, with his
own hand), yet, when installed, the scholar
was a kind of servant. If he wanted to leave
the city he must get permission. When he
asked permission, he was sometimes refused
it, for fear he should not come back. The
lives of scholars were, indeed, full of strange
contradictions ; they had the splendour of
reputation which a singer has in our times,
combined with fortune enough to pay for the
singer's bouquets, and hampered with restric-
tions and troubles infinitely vexatious.

In October of sixteen hundred and ten,
Casaubon obtained permission to visit Eng-
land, and came over in company with Wotton ;
leaving his family and books in Paris. He
was sea-sick, like other great and little men,
and lay groaning, below, oil a heap of sailors'
jackets, duly entei-ed in the Ephemerides, as
" vestes nautarum." He stayed a little while,
at Canterbury, with Dr. Charier, and then
came to London, " through a most pleasant
country," he observes : as Kent, we know,
still is. He duly arrived at Gravesend
(" Gravesinda " sounds odd in our days !)
and went first to the house of the Dean of
St. Paul's Overall.

On the eighth of November, he was pre-
sented to King James, at St. Theobald's, and
attended him at dinner. The ceremonial was,
that you stood, while the king ate and drank,
and made observations on sacred and profane
literature, at his good pleasure. An irreve-
rent modern might consider this a little dull ;
but times are changed. Casaubon stood a
kind of learned dumb-waiter with bishops
and others ; and conversation went on.
" There was much conversation with this
great and wise king on all kinds of literature.
The talk turned on Tacitus, on Plutarch, on
Commiiies, and others. Not without aston-

ishment, did I hear so great a monarch
pronouncing opinions on letters ! "

Casaubon was sincere,; and we can respect
his sincerity, without supposing that the
king was a paragon. Learning was rare :
learned kings were rarer still. James had
been well educated ; and, if he had a feature
in his character not utterly low and mean,
that feature was a kind of love of learning,
such as is found in many a " dominie " of his
country. He was glad to get a chance of
showing off to a scholar : a scholar in those
days was glad to find anything like personal
appreciation of his merits in a king. James
actually asked Casaubon, to his table to dine
with him, which is recorded by biographers
with wonder. But, generally, Casaubon's
place was at the king's chair, along with the
bishops and scholars, as above-mentioned.
Casaubon soon found that the king's per-
petual summonses of him were a serious
interruption to his studies. His wife's ab-
1 sence, too, and that of his library, were
i annoying. He was solicited to take up his
j residence in England ; and the king bestowed
on him a prebend in Westminster, a prebend
in Canterbury, and a pension. There is on
record an autograph order of James's to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer about Casaubon,
which is certainly the best specimen of his
Majesty's humour that we have ever seen :
" Chancelor of my Excheker, I will have
Mr. Casaubon paid befor me, my wife, and
my barnes." (23rd September, 1612.)

With what glee would the world have
hailed in the scholar's pages any mention of
the great authors of that period any little
note about Shakspeare or Ben Jonson ! Had
Casaubon ever fancied that there was a man
then alive in England, whose poetry was
more beautiful than that of all the ancients
whom he knew so well ? There is something
affecting in the world's indifference to its
great men. Casaubou, learned, wise, good-
hearted as he was, probably never thought all
his life, that any modern could write any-
thing worth reading, except of course such
moderns as the Scaligers and others, who
were proud to devote their laborious lives to
the illustration of the classics. Our language
he knew nothing of; nor was it indeed of any
great importance to him that he did not : all
those discussions on theology and the classics
with the king and the bishops went on in
Latin.

Casaubon's wife joined him here ; and he-
like wise obtained his books at last not without
sore annoyance from custom-house authorities.
He established himself in a house in St. Mary
Axe : " marvellously expensive," says the
Diary : where the poor uxor suffered most,
knowing nothing of English, and finding the
climate inclement. In those days, too, the
strong and growing Puritan feeling spread
itself among the lower orders, and Casaubon
as a friend to the English church, and, per-
haps, as a suspected papist was liable to-

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

insults. His windows were pelted : sorely
to the grief of the poor philtate.

In sixteen hundred and thirteen, we find
him visiting Oxford, and sumptuously enter-
tained at Magdalen College. But ill-health
was now coining upon him from an internal
complaint of a very peculiar character. On
his fifty-fifth birthday (sixteen hundred and
fourteen), he enters in his Diary :

" I find my bodily strength languishing."

And so it languished as the summer drew
nigh.

"Third of June. My body languishes , . .
My studies are neglected, except that I turn
over the writings of Augustine." For some
days, he was still reading Augustine, and
getting worse. The last entry in his own
hand, is, " Thursday, sixteenth of June, six-
teen hundred and fourteen. I see that it
is now over with my studies, unless the Lord
Jesus otherwise order it. In this, too, be thy
will done, O Lord ! " These were the last
words, and surely they were worthy words.
On the first of July, all warm baths and
other measures proving in vain, Isaac Casau-
bon died. He was buried in Westminster
Abbey, as we have already said.

His son Meric Casaubon made England his
home ; and for long years, held a Canterbury
prebend as his father had done. He lies
buried in Canterbury Cathedral, with a son
John, and a grandson Meric, in the last of
whom (a child) the scholar's ^line ended.
Out of this poor, brave, persecuted family- of
French Protestants, came one to make it
famous ; and then, it disappeared again.
The brave, kindly, profoundly-learned, and
earnestly pious man had the laborious and
various life we have seen ; and it is a happy
chance that the preservation of his Diary
enables us to think of him with familiarity,
and know him to have had qualities, which
those who talk of the gold old commentators
of Europe as " pedants " only, would do well
to imitate. Casaubori's life was as good a
commentary on the stoic poet Persius, as the
work which he wrote with that title ; and he
deserves a little corner in our hearts, as well
as in our Abbey.

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

VERY COID AT BUCHAREST.

IT is a bright clear morning, and the snow
lays white, crisp, and fair upon the ground.
There is a healthy buoyancy about the air,
which disposes the mildest men for practical
jokes, while the jovial are wrought up to a
state quite boisterous by cold and high
spirits. Individuals with mustaches like a
black frill of spears about their mouths, and
beards and shoulders of forty years' growth,
appear in open daylight with large catskin
muffs upon their hands and fur slippers on
their feet. Ladies are positively intrench cd
and fortified in cloaks and tippets and shawls.
Peasant girls, only roll laughing along with

bare legs and arms, -with eyes that absolutely
sparkle from merriment and frozen fnn when
they observe the poor chilly stuff of which we
seem to be made.

My nose has been of a singular colour
partly blue, partly a deep crimson these
three days. I do not exactly know where my
hands are : I could not decide with the
smallest certainty about them if my com-
forter depended on my doing so. It appears
to me as if my feet, under the direct influ-
ence of some malevolent fairy, had been
turned into pin-cushions, and that my re-
joicing enemy perhaps the nurse in my
elder brother's family was ironically punc-
turing on them, "Welcome little stranger,"
or some similar device, as expressive of gra-
tification at the birth of an heir to the
peerage, and the utter discomfiture of myself
and tailors. I should never be surprised to
trace those insulting words if I succeed in
getting off my boots without pulling off my
feet also when I venture to go to bed to-night.
I use the word venture with respect to going
to bed because it is almost as bold an enter-
prise to retire to a couch of single wretched-
ness as to leave it. I believe that the majority
of the population in these countries are un-
controllably urged into the state of matri-
mony by the irresistibly seductive prospect
of procuring a bed-warmer. I am given to
understand that it is customary -among mar-
ried people here to toss up (I suppose night-
caps) which shall be devoted to the common
cause, and go in to thaw the sheets ; or that
the more equitable portion of that happy
community take it by turns. I am inclined
to think, however, that the lady generally
contrives to overreach her husband in this
respect, she is fond of exciting his courage into
rashness by repeated glasses of " poonch," or
powerful green tea and rum, about the hour
of bedtime. She has been known, also,
to plead successfully the necessity of doing
up her back hair and to watch the shudder-
ings of her lord between the sheets with
intense and hopeful enjoyment. When a
husband ceases to shudder, his wife knows
that she can venture to get into his place
without collapsing, and usually seizes the
time with the same accuracy of judgment as
is displayed by careful housewives in boiling
an egg. That process of thawing the bed is
as penetrating and miserable an agony as
can be conceived. The most robust man will
sink to half his size during the humbling
process. As for getting up, it is an exploit so
doughty as only to be accomplished by the
promptings of the most ravenous hunger. I
wonder how the ladies' medical men do.

You feel your clothes freezing on you as
you dress. You have no sooner left your
hotel than you appear to have been miracu-
lously endowed with diamonds, and very hard
ones, growing out of your head, eyes, ears,
nose, and mouth ; or you may be the genius
of a crystal cave. Your whiskers set all

Charles Dickens.j

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

attempts at elegance on the part of your
collars at defiance. They stand out like a
compact bundle of quills, to use a profes-
sional simile, and they crack in a similar
manner if roughly disturbed. When you
take up a position, it is as well to
choose an elegant, or at least an easy one ;
for you will be speedily wedged into it, and
you soon grow painfully aware of your like-
ness to those bold commercial satellites who
walk about London spreading the fame oi
Moses and Son for a shilling a day and their
board.

Your hat, if you persist in wearing one,
cuts a clean place for itself into your frozen
hair ; and if you catch sight of your shadow
in a foggy, tortured looking-glass (nothing is
so abjectly affected by the weather as a
mirror), you will perceive that the natural
covering of your head has gracefully arranged
itself in the form of a sugar-loaf, or perhaps,
in light mockery of your profession or ac-
quirements, in that of a fool's cap. It has in
fact taken the shape of the inside of your hat,
whatever that shape may be.

It is a fierce and bloodthirsty thing to
shave yourself, or to allow any ferocious
lover of old fashions to shave you. Your
face, after such an operation, will bear the
strongest resemblance to an uncooked beef-
steak of unsavoury exterior. Your obdurate
and merciless collar eats into the persecuted
skin like a knife, and you would no more
think of making a true British bow than of
cutting your throat. The intelligent and
travelled observer will remember that Rus-
sians and other people of cold countries,
generally rather raise their heads than
depress them in saluting. I believe they
have learned this by bitter experience, by
the torture of shaving in sledging-time.
Their bow is not a deferential inclination
of the head. It is a spasmodic writhe of the
waist.

Now, it is all very well for some bumptious
old person connected with that famous school
for bumptiousness, the red tape and sealing-
wax office, to say, " Pooh ! pooh ! I was in
the Principalities in eighteen hundred and
three, and I found nothing of this sort."
Excuse me, sir ; I find it so in eighteen
hundred and fifty-four. They say the cli-
mates of the world are changing, and I am
sure you will agree with me Avlien I add that
the race of young men and travellers has
degenerated since your time of wooden heads
and wonders.

I am going to dine with the hospodar, and
the frost dims my burnished boots as I walk
down stairs ; my teeth are chattering in spite
of the enormous bearskin cloak in which I
am swathed. My brother's nurse is certainly
using the pincushion very briskly as I step
into my sledge and hurry my feet into a
sheepskin bag, for nothing but wool and
leather will keep out the penetrating cold.
It is still daylight, for the prince dines

! at five o'clock, and we are at tho close
! of January. The streets are a pretty sight.
Gilded and glittering sledges are flash-
ing about in all directions. The horses
that draw them wear great patches of bright
coloured leather covered with bells on their
foreheads and shoulders. (The jingling is
peculiarly merry and inspiriting.) They have
housings of velvet and fur, and I see that it
is a gallantry among the cavaliers here that
these shall be of the same colours as those
chosen by their lady-loves. S >me are of
crimson and ermine, some of purple and gold,
some of white and sable. The sledging-time
will probably last about a couple of months,
and the streets never look so animated and
pretty at any other season.

THE THEATRE,

THERE is a Wallachiau theatre where
pieces are performed twice a week in the
Roumau language. I went there, and found it
a dismal little place enough, lighted by a dim
chandelier of oil lamps. Two indifferent and
rather dirty candles were also placed beneath
every box. Each box contained four chairs,
and was divided merely by a thin partition,
on which the occupants of either side might
place his elbows and converse. They did
converse conversation, indeed, appeared the
sole business of the company there. This
talk must have disturbed the serious pit of
standing people who came to see the play ;
but they bore it very patiently, and, perhaps,
they did not lose much.

The pieces were the Great Great-coat of
Prince Menchikoff, an excessively stupid farce
founded on the anecdote which startled the
diplomatic world of Constantinople. The other
piece was called a Peasant's Marriage. I am
sorry to say nothing could be sillier plot,
language, and acting were almost childish.
An old Greek, dressed in Turkish clothes,
keeps a school : he overhears that one of his
pupils is in love with the pride of the village,
he is also in love with her why, how, or
wherefore, does not appear in either case.
These circumstances give rise to a comic
song, performed by the whole strength of the
company. The dramatis personse then scuttle
off the stage, tugging at the old person's
robe and hustling him. To console him-
self, he gets into a swing, he compares the
emotions produced in an elderly stomach
by swinging, to love audience laugh
comic song all chorus succeeds, and act
closes. There is now half an hour's pause
for general flirtation. The Wullachian good-
bumour is irresistible. The dim oil chan-
delier is lowered, part of it hits a bald-
headed gentleman on the head, bald-headed
entleman laughs, audience laughs, bald-
iieaded gentleman rubs his head there is a
visible bump on it audience are in ecstasies,
and cry out jocular condolences. Lamps are
snuffed, and make a sad smell, whereat there

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Coniluctod by

is also general jollity, in which some of the
ladies distinguish themselves.

Up strikes the band, every man playing on
his own hook. The leader has evidently seen
a picture of Strauss. He imitates his position
and bearing. His wristbands are turned up ;
they are not quite clean. He does not appear
to have the smallest idea of his business. I
mention this to my companion : he laughs.
People in the next box laugh because we
laugh. The curtain rises on a dance. It
is awkward and hobbly, but I am told it
is characteristic. The peasant boy has of
course cut out the schoolmaster, who ex-
presses his grief in several more comic songs.
Audience join in one which appears to be a
favourite. There is something interesting in
this scene, because I learn that the actors are
dressed in the old Wallachian peasant costume,
which is now fast disappearing. The men wear
long white things like calico braided bed-
gowns, turn-over boots, and comical woollen
caps. The girls are one blaze of spangles and
tinsel. There is a pretty scene in which the
peasant fetches his bride from her parents,
while his best friends offer bread and wine as
a symbol of plenty. There is also some gun-
firing, a custom probably borrowed from the
Turks, but the sulphurous smell of the pow-
der, added to the smoke of the lamps, and the
pent-up atmosphere of the theatre, which is
crowded to suffocation, are almost insupport-
able.

I was not sorry when the whole con-
cluded with a dance and a chorus by the
whole strength of the company, and we were
free to go. I never remember to have seen
theatre, play, acting, actors and actresses, so
irredeemably bad.

Below there was, of course, a complete regi-
ment of gallants drawn up in line. Every
lady coming down had to run the gauntlet.
This appeared to me the real reason why
most of the company in the boxes had gone
to the theatre, and a very good reason too.
Perhaps there are here and there a few
people in proper London who would not go to
the opera if it were not for the pleasures of
the crush-room, while Mrs. Lackadaisy's car-
riage is stopping the way.

THE TERRIBLE OFFICER.

THERE is an Austrian officer quartered in
the house of a pleasant Wallachian family.
He is an under-lieutenant, or what we should
call an ensign, and he is a very great man in
consequence. It is a powerful thing to hear
his sabre clanking along the passage when he
conies home at night from the hotel or casino.
It is more overwhelming still to hear him in
energetic conversation with his man servant
of a morning. He treats the pleasant Wal-
lachian family as if they were his born serfs
and servants. They keep out of his way,
therefore, as much as it is convenient to do
BO perhaps more. His footfall is a signal
for the prompt flight of all within hearing of

it. When he clears his throat the maid-
servant trembles. If he coughs in the night
the whole house is thrown into a state
of alarm.

It is not unnatural under these circum-
stances that when the pleasant Wallachiau
family gave a ball on New Year's Eve the ter-
rible officer is not invited. He is not invited
because there is not a lady who would
dance with him ; because his presence would
be insupportable his very entry into the
room would cause the guests to quake and
fear.

The Austrian ensign, however, does not
appear to appreciate these reasons at a suffi- '
cient value. He is huffed at being forgotten
on a festival day, as most people are who
have rendered themselves disagreeable pre-
viously. He makes these sentiments known
to the family on his return home between
nine and ten o'clock, by sending them an
abrupt order to leave off making a noise,
which is likely to disturb his rest. The ser-
vant who delivers this message creates much
astonishment, also some laughter. He ia
generally supposed to be the harmless agent
of rather a far-fetched practical joke. The
guests converse together agreeably about
him in little groups for a few minutes, and
then the subject is forgotten.

Forgotten : for this night is one of the
greatest festivals of the Greek Church, and
every good Christian is bound to be merry
accordingly. Our guests are merry, aud the
ball goes on. Now, a Wallachian ball is by
no means the milk-and-water affair of a ball
in Eaton Place West. There are few wall-
flowers who sit in steady silence throughout
the evening, looking as unhappy as possible ;
there are no-, long-faced gentlemen who
stand about exasperatingly in doorways, and
will not be comforted ; there are no shy
people who won't dance, or can't dance. The
guests assemble at about seven o'clock in the
evening with a fixed determination to amuse
themselves. They dance in the most vigorous
manner till midnight. Then they have a
solid sit-down supper, seasoned with a very
considerable condiment of flirtation. Then
they begin again, and see each other home
in the morning, just as you and I should
like to see home Miss Brown and Mrs.
Fairly.

Such is the highly ornamental design for an
evening's entertainment marked out on the
present occasion. So the polka succeeds the
waltz, and the quadrille is followed by the
mazurka, and all prudent people who love to
talk together in corners have long ago
entered into arrangements for the cotillon.
That fascinating dance is, indeed, at its.
height. The performers are whirling in
mazy but pretty confusion, picking up hand-
kerchiefs, pulling crackers, presenting bou-
quets and gay ribbons to each other, after the
fashion ot the thing. Then the door opens sud-
denly, aud a fearful apparition appears in the

Charles Dicken*.]

CONVICTS, ENGLISH AND FRENCH.

midst of them. That apparition is sup-
posed at first to be a holiday joke of Christ-
mas time. The ladies scream delightedly, and
the gentlemen laugh and whisper consolation.
Nothing can be pleasanter ; for no one has
recognised in the long figure habited in a
scanty dressing-gown and dingy drawers, the
august person of the Austrian ensign. He
soon enlightens them.

" What is the meaning of all this noise ? "
he thunders, in a terrible voice. " Did I not
send you a message to be quiet ? Is this a
pothouse, where you can ask whom you please,
or is it my quarters ] Put out the lights
and send home these people. I cannot go to
sleep for their racketty doings."

" Hark ye, sir ! " answers the host, now put
on his metal. " I and my family have borne
a good deal from you, but we cannot bear
this. I beg that you will retire at once to
your own room."

" So you will have it, then," says the
Austrian ensign, growing much irritated.
" Understand, therefore, that I place you all
under arrest as rioters." Then he disap-

pears, and, summoning his soldiers, they sur-

,1 tl^ l,n,, m A ohsnlntfilv do S in,- Sickness and Death, their mournful harvest reaping.

we stopped their balls altogether. Why, balls,
sir, are as bad as clubs. They are often dan-
gerous assemblies of people disaffected to the
government. If not, why exclude us 1 "

" Ah, indeed ! Then there are to be no
more balls at Bucharest, perhaps 1 "

" Very likely not."

And there have been none.

BEFOEE SEBASTOPOL.

TRUE hearts, true hearts ! with courage all undaunted,
Well tried, well proved, on many a battle field,
A courage well sustained, and justly vaunted,
Versed in all tactics, save the art to yield.

It is a harder conflict ye are bearing,
A bitt'rer struggle now ye undergo,
Than any outer act of gallant daring,
Or combat, howe'er deadly, with the foe.

The winter in inhospitable regions,
The toil by day, the ceaseless watch by night,
Rain, frost and cold advance resistless legions,
Worse to encounter than the sorest tight.

round the house, and he. absolutely does im
prison the new year's party. He is a man
of his word.

Now, among the guests is an aide-de-
camp of the hospodar, or prince, of this
unhappy country. He is required to be on
duty at a certain hour, and when he sees that
the house is surrounded he grows seriously
alarmed. All the doors are guarded, but
there is still a window through which he

Sweep day by day through each diminished Hue,
Like silent river floods, that onward creeping
Their fragile barriers daily undermine.

The hope deferred, the long enforced inaction,
Warm hearts at home, and yet all help so far,
Proving how world-old rules and party faction
Can add new horrors to the curse of war.

What in comparison were deadliest meeting.

might escape. He squeezes through it, and Though the dark angel hovered in the van
luckily makes good his exit, leaving the rest Ask thc lieroic hearts so bravely beating
of the company in confinement.

He tells the prince of what has happened,
in a few days there is a rumour,

the Austrian ensign has been placed

and
that

under arrest also; but nobody believes it;
and all idea of his serious punishment for so
strange a freak is, of course, out of the ques-
tion. It is said, however, to have been a sad
and singular sight enough to see the guests
file out in the morning when the guards
were removed. They were in their ball-
dresses, and their carriages had been sent
away. They had to wade through the mud,
cheerless and wretched.

"And so, Colonel, are these things to be
continued 1 The feeling of the Wallachians is
very much exasperated about them," said a
person, to an Austrian officer high in com-
mand, while conversing on this and some
similar events.

" What will you have ? " was the reply.
" It is the same in Italy. Scarcely a night
passes without some riot or murder. It must
always be the same where there is an army
of occupation. At Clausenberg last year,
too, a thing occurred precisely similar to that
we are now discussing. Some of the natives
gave an insolent ball, to whick they did not
ask our officers, and the consequence was that

Ask the heroic hearts so bravely beating
On Alma's heights or plains of Inkcrmann.

True hearts, true hearts ! with courage all unswerving,
Be this proud record added to your fame :
Of the whole nation warmest praise deserving,
Ye add new glory to old England's name !

To bear such hardships nobly uncomplaining,
To keep through all the lamp of hope alive,
As e'en the slightest murmuring tone disdaining,
To your last breath to surfer and to strive.

Out of the earth our brethren's blood is crying
To One not heedless when such claimants sue,
And a roused nation's earnest heart replying,
Goes forth, devoted men, and bleeds with you.

CONVICTS, ENGLISH AND FBENCH.

ONE of the grandest judicial mysteries
one of the most puzzlingly sealed books in.
the Radelifiian library in Themis's castle of
Udolpho is, what becomes of a man after he has.
been sentenced to be transported ? The judge
on the bench it is no disrespect to him to say
it knows no more than the wig he wears
what will be the after fate of the delinquent
upon whom he has just passed judgment.
The prisoner, honest man, is equally ignorant
of his future. He knows quite enough

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Contacted by

already that he cannot walk about in the
open air when he wishes; that he cannot
smoke, drink strong Liquors, gamble, or stop
out o' nights ; that he is compelled to wear a
prison dress instead of his own clothes, and
that any property he^may possess, as a con-
vict, is forfeited to the state. But how long
this state of things is to continue ; or where
the ten, fifteen, or twenty years, or the per-
petuity of his captivity are to be lived out,
he has no more than a very faint and misty
notion. He may find himself, two or three
years hence, on board the Justicia hulk at
Woolwich, at Melbourne or Sydney, in
Devonport dockyard, on the Plymouth break-
water, in the Portland stone quarries, in a
private room at Pentouville, or (and this con-
summation is just as likely as the others) he
may find himself, after a short detention, at
large, breathing . the sweet air of his dear
native Whitechapel or Westminster again a
ticket-of-leave in his pocket ; a graduate in
the university of crime ; a bachelor of thieves'
arts, with only a few more terms to keep
before he goes back to the Central Criminal
Court to be received M.A.

The British public knows very little of what
becomes of the convicts. Some .of them are
in the dockyards, that is apparent; some in
this penitentiary; some in that; many en-
joying perfect liberty, though their term of
punishment be not half expired ; which is
unpleasantly evident from the daring burglary
at the house over the way, committed by
ticket-of-leave men last Friday night, and
from the startling garotte robbery by a libe-
rated convict which is to be inquired into at
Bow Street Police-office this morning. But
where are the vast majority ? Australia won't
hare them; Van Diemen's Laud repudiates
them ; the Cape of Good Hope would like to
see them (ironically) come there. The earthly
Hades at Norfolk Island is broken up; the
American plantations have been out of
fashion for the transported for a century.
We can't receive them into the bosoms of
our families, and set them to baste the
meat for seven years, or entreat them to
nurse the baby for the term of their natural
lives. We can't have them continually sailing
up and down the seas in quest of a colony
which will take them in. We would rather
not have them walking about Regent Street,
with bludgeons, pitch -plasters, chloroform
sponges, and slip-knotted handkerchiefs in
their pockets. They are an eyesore to us
even in Woolwich or Portsmouth yards,
skulking among the frank, jovial, open-faced
men-of-war's men and the smart stalwart
soldiers. We grumble against the pet prisons,
the horticultural show-houses of rascality, the
menageries of crime wild beast shows well
kept, well swept, well ordered, with nice sweet
shins of beef for the animals (fed at regular
hours), and well-dresaed visitors crowding to
aee the hippopotamus of burglary taking his
bath, or the chimpanzee of larceny holding

a good book like a Christian, or the bludgeon-
ing tiger being stirred up with a longpole
and not howling, or the worthy governor or
worthy chaplain emulating the exploits of
Mr. Van Amburg putting their heads in the
lion's mouth, and not having them bitten off.
Where are the convicts to go? Where do they
go? And while we ask, well-meaning philan-
thropists echo the same question dolorously,
while the government cry still more dolorously
that they would like very much to be told
what to do with the convicts, and where to
send them. Whereupon A bellows out,
" Botany Bay !" forgetting that we have tried
the Bay, and that it has now narrowed into
a river running upon golden sands, even the
Pactolus, and that the inhabitants of its auri-
ferous banks refuse disdainfully to have any-
thing to do with British scum. Follows B,
who roars, "Hang them !" unmindful that we
have tried that, too, and have not found it
answer. Follows (at a long distance behind)
Z, who has a small voice, and is too weak to
struggle to the front, and who says mildly,
'' Teach and wash and tend them, before they
come up into the dock for judgment ; let there
be clean straw, sweet shins of beef, and good
books outside as well as inside the menagerie,
and do not let a human being wait till he be a
criminal to be cared for, like the bear in the
Garden of Plants, who only became famous
from the day he ate a baby."

Whatever becomes of the convicts in the
present muddled state of transition into which
the questions of secondary punishments and
prison discipline have sunk, it is not the less
certain that judges of the land declare that
they do not know whether the sentences they
are passing will be carried out or not; and
that criminals avowedly contemn the punish-
ment of transportation, and are pleasantly
conscious that it will not be carried out in its
terrible entirety. Meanwhile we, who are not
yet transported, only dimly know two things:
that .transportation to the colonies is at an
end, and that large numbers of determined
ruffians are daily let loose upon tickets-of-
leave, and return from wherever they came
to swell the already not immaculate popula-
tion of our large towns, and exercise assault,
battery, theft, burglary, shop-lifting, hocuss-
ing, and other branches of their profession,
with as much vigour and with more success
than heretofore.

Let us see what the state of affairs is in
the dominions of the Emperor of the French.
Until very lately, grave and, in many cases,
capital crimes were punished by travaux
forces (hard labour) for a term of years or
for perpetuity at the dockyard Bagues
better known under the generic name of the
galleys. But our neighbours are now in the
same state of muddled transition as to
secondary punishments that we in England
are. The Bagnes were the same hells upon
earth that our Norfolk Island was. A large
section of French philanthropists and social

Chavlci Dickens.]

CONVICTS, ENGLISH AND FRENCH.

economists called out for the cellular system,
with all its wretched apparatus of starving,
darkness, strapping, hanging on tiptoes, and
gagging ; and with its horrible attendants of
madness and suicide, canting hypocrisy, or
hardened sulkiness. The French government,
which is to the full as puzzled as our own
what to do with its reprobates, suddenly
confounded confusion by breaking up the
Bagnes ; and, at the present day, the uutran-
sported public in France are in a state of
dreamy ignorance parallel to our own as to
the whereabouts of convicts; where they go to,
what is actually done with them, and when
they may be expected back. The authorities
are indefinitely known to have invented penal
colonies ; one, the fine feverish settlement of
Cayenne, about which whether it be in Sene-
gal or Guiana, or both the same muddled
ignorance prevails as among well-informed
circles here as to whether Demerara be an
island or a continent, in South America or in
the West Indies, or all four. Another is
Nouka-Hiva, which, when I say that it is in
the South Seas, is saying quite enough for
once, I think. Thither the burglars, forgers,
and, very often, murderers, who are sen-
tenced by the French Court of Assize to
travaux forces are sent ; but, as it is known
that there are also in those colonies some
thousands of unfortunate men, many of them
educated gentlemen many shamefully de-
luded by now prosperous rogues almost all
of them guilty of no other crimes than wanting
bread and differing in political opinion from
somebody else, no coherent idea can be
formed of which is transportation, which
deportation, and which travaux forces. The
widow whose only son was sent to Cayenne
because he happened to be in the National
Guard and in BarbeV Legion in June 'forty-
eight, or because he was foolish enough to
walk on the Boulevard des Capucins on the
second of December 'fifty-one, knows not
whether he be chained to a desperado found
guilty of assassination with extenuating cir-
cumstances, and condemned to hard labour for
life, or not, and vice versa. It is all a muddle.
The few letters that reach France from
Cayenne, or are allowed to be published,
describe settlements as having been made
and abandoned ; penitentiaries opened and
closed ; tickets-of-leave granted, to the in-
finite annoyance of the non-convict inhabi-
tants of Senegal, and numerous evasions into
the bush. What sort of bush the bush of Sene-
gal may be I am not aware ; but, from the
peppery, tigerish, jungleish nature of the
climate, I imagine that any of the evaded, if
retaken, would be found to have become
spotted if not brindled, with tails, great
suppleness in the joints, and capacity for
springing from holes in rocks, and an un-
quenchable appetite for raw meat and hot
blood.

In a most remarkable converse, the French
are desperately endeavouring to get rid of

the very disease with whose virus we are
as desperately trying to inoculate ourselves.
" No convicts in France ! no liberated con-
victs. Break up the Bagnes ! " cry the
French. " No transportation to the colonies !
Tickets-of-leave, and build up a Bagne on
Dartmoor ! " cry we. And each system seems
to work equally ill. The French judges
go on sentencing^ doubting the efficacy of
their sentences ; the public go on asking for
security, or at least for information, and don't
get them ; and the government goes on
scratching its head (if a government could
perform so undignified an operation), or, like
that man who was so wondrous wise, jumping
backwards and forwards in and out of a
quickset-hedge, not much improving its
vision in the long run thereby.

The curse of French society the big
plague-spots in all the back streets were
the liberated and escaped convicts. Strictly
guarded and watched as they were, they
often managed, as we shall afterwards have
occasion to see, to regain their liberty.
Of course, they all flocked to Paris.
The streets were not safe at night ;
the bridges were regular places of call for
assassins : and, at every e'meute, at every
popular commotion, there were vomited forth
from foul cellars and tapis francs ; from the
Rue aux Feves ; the infamous tumours of
streets behind the Louvre ; the slums of the
petite Pologne, the Barridre Mont Parnasse ;
the Rue Mouffetard and the Faubourg du
Temple, boiliug, raving, screeching, raveno